Movie: District 9, by Neill Blomkamp

     Many of you have, I am sure, already stumbled upon District 9 through your online forays, or maybe even walked by a viral add somewhere. I don't generally intend to post about movies, but with Neill Blomkamp directing and Peter Jackson producing, this flick promises to be special.
     Aside from its viral add campaign and a nifty interactive website, little is known about District 9 other than what has been gleamed from the trailer. Cockroach like humanoids land in South Africa and are quarantined in a slum, known as district nine. From the snippets already posted on the Web, we can assume that the film will be centered around a human who has somehow come in contact with and been altered by the alien tech. Scheduled for release in August, I'll undoutebly be one of the many waiting in line for the midnight showing.
     Many Halo fans see this as a test run for the Halo movie franchise (check out the three Halo teasers - the last is by far the best). While I was never a huge fan of the video games and assorted spin-offs, I can easily see them morphing into some of the best science fiction movies out there.
     Make sure to check out the trailer for District 9 from the official site, and if you have the time, go ahead and browse the interactive section. Also recently an extended scene from the movie was shown to a couple critics, enjoy!

For Book Bloggers: A Call to Action!

     Now that I have your attention with that admittedly catchy title, here we go.

On the use of Twitter

     I know that a lot of you use Twitter out there to post many interesting articles and comments. That's awesome, I'm there too, and I think twitter is great (@bloggeratf). What I wanted to address is the use of # in our general posts. I have seen #SciFi, #SyFy, #SF/F, #SFF, and any number of other variations. I would love it if we could standardize our # use. Not only would this make it much easier for me to see all of your posts when I get back from work, but help your readers do the same.
      I propose #SFF (science fiction and fantasy), but thats only me, and I believe Mulluane (edit: who apparently got it from @resaliens) . Post up if you don't like this for some reason and post your other suggestions so we can pick based on that. I can think of several additional useful ones that I would search for, such as #ARCreview, ect.

Technorati, Alexa, and Pinging

     These are the two largest blog trackers that rank your blog based on the number of links from other blogs registered there. Registering takes all of five seconds, costs nothing, and at worst will generate some extra traffic for your blog. Note: If you have a million links form blog X, blog X still only counts as one link in their rankings. Technorati and Alexa.
     Lastly, whenever you make a new post on you blog, go here so that you can ping all blog trackers. If you post more than several times a week you only need to do this every couple days. It simply lets all those tracking services know that your blog has new content for them to trawl.
     I hope this was helpful to some of you, and I know for a fact that the # thing will be helpful to all of us. Go bloggers!

Review: The Confederation Series, by T. Huff

The Confederation series, by Tanya Huff, is a tightly focus collection of military style science fiction. The series is comprised, so far, of four books: Valor's Choice (2000), The Better Part of Valor (2002), The Heart of Valor (2007), and Valor's Trial (2008), which are all published by DAW. Do I detect a common theme?

The Setup

Hard-as-nails hardly comes close to describing Marine Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr, the protagonist and focus of the series. In the first installment Kerr and her squad are assigned to a spit and polish diplomatic escort mission to a prospective member of the confederation. Little does the unit know that they are going to be battle tested against thousands of humanoid lizards in their bid to win a new ally against the Others.

The second book in the series, following Kerr's incredible success in winning over the lizards to the confederation, has her and her team assigned to a special recon mission of an alien vessel. Just to spice things up, they are sealed onboard with a squad of Others. Close quarters combat ensues between the two factions, only to discover that the ship itself is the real enemy. Apparently, a vastly powerful and sentient species that can take on the form of, well, anything has decided to take an interest in the confederation as well as the Others.

The last two installments are by far my favorite. From a training mission gone wrong to the escape from a hidden underground prison, the reader is led on a merry, adrenaline filled ride. Turning impossible situations into victory is what Sergeant Kerr does, and does well.

My Take in Brief

I truly enjoyed this series. From its quick pace, to the flawless interactions between radically different species, there is something in here for everyone. The tech aspects of the books are slightly glossed, which might disappoint some of you reading this, but they remain perfectly credible. The focus is fixed, throughout, on social and physical interactions. Coupled with some flawless military lingo you get the impression that your just out of boot-camp and looking for Kerr to save your life at every turn.

Fundamentally, this is a work of military science fiction with sprinkles of space opera. The space opera aspect is most definitely secondary to the action/military genre; it serves to get Kerr to interesting places where stuff goes boom, or squish for that matter. That said, those aspects of the book remain compelling, thanks mostly to an accurate and artful portrayal of the relationship between war and politics. The focus is on the integration of disparate alien cultures into a single unified fighting force.

I do recommend this series because it is a captivating and entertaining read. I think I went through all four books in under two weeks. The style and pace are markedly similar to the military science fiction of David Gunn, which I have recently reviewed. If you like Huff you'll want to check him out as well.

Highlights

• Realistic military lingo and power relationships.
• Distinct and fascinating cultural interactions.
• Captivating, if somewhat drawn out battles.
• Quick, smooth, and entertaining prose.
• Acts of desperation.
• Endearing characters that are nevertheless mortal.

Lowlights

• Everything that you have to sacrifice in order to get desperately epic battles in a short and fast-paced military science fiction book.

Your Take

I realize I have been focused pretty heavily of late on the military/space opera genre, so I am going to read some epic fantasy after I finish with Altered Carbon. What's your general take on the the Confederation series? Do you even enjoy military science fiction or I am boring the hell out of you?

Ratings & Links

Amazon: 3.25/5

B&N: 4.5/5

My Rating: 3.5/5

Tanya Huff's Live Journal: A couple nice recipes there!

And an exciting interview with Tanya Huff.

Piqued Your Interest?

Make sure to check out the omnibus of the first two novels, A Confederation of Valor, if you are considering the series. From what I understand the extra edits were beneficial and you get two for the price of one!

Check It Out: Site Remodeling Complete

    After a full day of messing with Templates, HTML, CSS, and Widgets, Only The Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy is starting to look pretty decent. From knowing nothing about making a blog to uploading a custom template and editing it to my specifications, I have learned a lot!
     The trickiest part was undoubtedly getting the blog pages to fold so as to make new post easily visible. The only glitch that that left me with is the "Read More..." that stuck to posts created before the change. All considered that is fine with me since I need to go back over those anyway and format them to the style of my Bright of the Sky review.
     My favorite part by far of the whole site redesign is the header pic. It pretty much captures exactly what the site is about, science fiction and fantasy.
     I know I was sneaky making you click the "Read More..." just there but I needed to test it to see if it works properly! Thanks for being my unwitting test dummies.
     Of course, as I add more sorely lacking content, I'll have to add more widgets and navigation tools. I am betting that it will be a pleasure compared to the day I just had though.
     Lastly, I want to know what you think. Does the redesign hurt your eye? Are you prompted to spam you back button? Or are you pleasantly surprised? Especially to the SFF book bloggers out there, let me know what you think I should add/change. I value your vast experience and perspective on the matter.