Let Me Sleep

Another night of tossing and turning. I can't blame eating late, or eating too much this time, so it must be Heroes Season Two that's doing it. I have to admit that I'm really enjoying this. It's the closest thing to a real comic book style of story-telling I've seen on the box (closer, that is, to say Claremont's X-Men or Grant Morrison on JLA. It even walks the same turf as Watchmen, although with less depth). I even cut back on that, though, only watching two episodes and being in bed for 11.30. Bah and humbug - will try to be in bed even earlier tonight, despite having a visitor.

I did managed to fall out of bed and into the gym this morning, but I'm definitely not in the groove yet. I didn't get there until 7.30, which should be enough time for 30 minutes exercise and then a quick shower, out by 8.15 and in the office by 8.30. I spent 10 minutes faffing around looking for my headphones though (hopefully I left them at home, and not in the locker room last night) and when I couldn't find them I had to subject myself to watching some species of MTV while I worked out.

Is it just me, or does Madonna look scary? Scarier? Even Kylie is trying to adopt a Hayworth/Harlowe look, but Madge is still peddling herself as the dancer/sex kitten she was in 1980. Her body is obviously a thing of wonder, but set out in leotard and fishnets it's hardly a thing to kindle desire. Maybe I'm out of step here, but really, dear, put it away would be my advice.

I also sweated my way through a fairly amusing video of a pretty boy with a guitar serenading his love, with the twist being that dozens of other guitarists wander in and join him. It's a nice conceit, but a little bit spoiled by the number not being exactly swamped in guitar sound.

The other videos were mostly hip-hoppers bragging about their money/rides/girls, which leave me cold.

Now this is my kind of Fan Fic

I like Steven Brust - he's a Fantasy and SF writer who tends to feature hard-boiled heroes with a dry sense of humour. He works the same end of the street with his Taltos novels that Roger Zelazny worked with his Amber books, and if I choose to consider Uncle Rog to be the better writer, it does not make Brust a bad one.

I likeFirefly  - I think it's witty, literate SF with a heart of gold.

At one point Brust was retained to write a Firefly tie-in novel, "My Own Kind of Freedom", and presumably there was some hitch about contracts or payment or some such. The upshot of that is that the book is available from Brust's website. under a creative commons licence, and you can read it for free.

I liked it - it has the same ear for dialogue as the original, it throws in some minor background embellishments to the world and to the characters, and if it doesn't make the world a better place it surely doesn't make it a worse one.

For fans of the series, it's set between "Objects in Space" and "Serenity", for SF fans (or readers in general) it's a fast moving piece of Space Opera, and for slashy types, well, you know all that non-con Jayne/Simon stuff? You'll have to write it youselves.