Po(sey) Sessions

It only took one poem and one short story to make Margaret Atwood one of my favorite authors. The first novel I read of hers was also a complete hit. But the rest of the novels I have read and have attempted to read I have not enjoyed to the same extent. The way that Atwood floats words across the page mesmerizes me. The opening of Oryx and Crake overwhelmed me. There were many elements I enjoyed about it. The idea of a creation myth, the word choice, the oscillating narratives between the young and old perspectives of the same character. I had such a hard time getting into the world presented in Oryx and Crake . Again I am faced with a destroyed world and the people within it struggling for survival. Why am I so obstinent that I resent stories like this when they are a huge portion of science fiction and dystopian fiction? But I can’t make myself like it and I can’t make myself over look it. “We want wisdom. We want hope. We want to be good. Therefore we sometimes tell ourse...

Although an award winner, Exodus has too many elements and too many slow parts for me to really enjoy it. Julie Bertagna weaves together a lot of elements to create this story with an almost Alice like feel. Mara’s island is about to disappear underwater. “In 1999, a snippet of news that should have stopped the world in its tracks caught my eye. Two South Pacific islands had disappeared under the sea .” While still on her island Mara is able to access the remnants of this internet with a special device. One day she “falls through” the web and it occurs to her that her village much go search for another place to live. As her journey continues Mara moves from one odd group of people to another, much like a journey through Wonderland. It takes too long for Mara to be able to move into action. She wanders between groups of people aimlessly until she is drawn up into the great city where she finally has the ability to do something. But all of her time outside the city still se...

When I bought  Universe 10 I just thought it was a genera collection of science fiction short stories. But after  looking it up I found out it was a series of story collections edited by Terry Carr. Though an author earlier in his career, Terry Carr was best known as an accomplished editor in his lifetime. I am planning on exploring various stories in the collection as a way to break back into blogging. (It seems I can never work consistently on my blog over a long period of time. But I keep on trying. Life always seems to get in the way.) The first story in the collection is by Michael Bishop entitled “Saving Face.” This volume of Universe was published in 1980 and Bishop’s writing had me pondering how to value these types of stories in terms of good writing.  Science fiction is often held apart from literature, and possibly rightfully so. Science fiction seems to be more focused on the exploration of speculation than the execution of the craft of writing. While it...

It is becoming just part of what I do. Blog for a bit and then disappear. Well, I’m back! And hopefully for more than a handfull of posts. Where was I, you ask? Well… Mr. X and I ran away to a little place called Poseyville. Besides Poseyville we went a few other places and bought a LOT of new books! I love book shopping. It was a great summer adventure.

When I first saw the preview for Kick Ass I was excited to see it. I thought it was going to be funny, action packed, and it seemed a lot different from your average super hero movies. Maybe take a little poke at the standard genre yet still exploring a new look at what it is to be a hero. Mr. X and I went to see this movie expecting it to be a culminating moment for superhero movies, when the super power free geek rises to hero status just by being awesome. But there was very little awesome about this movie. One of it’s major problems was that this movie did not know it wanted to be. While it had a lot of great stylistic elements and a few decent action sequences, it wasn’t anything resembling funny. Maybe I missed the point but humor was what I expected after seeing the trailers. Kick Ass ended up being insanely different from what I expected. And that might just be MY expectations disappointing me. As I said, I expected it to be a comedy, or have more comedic elements. I...

Hello Po(sey) Sessions’ readers! My name is Erika and I run a book blog called Jawas Read, Too . I’ve been asked to participate in this month’s Comic Book theme. Being a comic book fan, naturally, I accepted. I still consider myself new to comics, never straying very far from Star Wars or manga, but within the past few years that’s been changing. To celebrate that and help other new comic book readers navigate the complexities of series, publishers, writers, and artists, I decided the best topic for my discussion was Free Comic Book Day! Specifically, I’ve included a mini review of one of the comics I got for free over the weekend. I won’t go into a long account of the history of Free Comic Book Day (the official website does that beautifully). Instead, I want to begin by confessing something: I have never reviewed a comic book. I have never, in fact, reviewed anything that wasn’t a book. I feel a little out of my element. Bear with me while I attempt to make the best of it and ta...

This is a repost of a blog I did about a year ago. I decided to repost it because I wrote this early on in my exposure to comic books and graphic novels and because, as you will read, it features my favorite actor of all time. When I told a friend I was reading Rumble Fish by S.E. Hinton , he brought to my attention that it was also a movie and the movie happened to have Nicolas Cage in it. I highly dislike Nicolas Cage and I think my friend likes to bring up his name as much as possible just to annoy me. (why would anyone EVER want to do that? He must have a death wish.) But I actually appreciated it this time. I t has been interesting to read about the movie in which Cage plays the minor role of Smokey Bennett . It was also brought to my attention that Nick Cage isn't Nick Cage at all, but Nicolas Kim Copula. I remember vaguely hearing in the past, since he is the nephew of Francis Ford Copula. Who happen to direct Rumble Fish and The Outsiders. Cag...