Outside The World

My review of the June 2008 issue of Ideomancer, which contains three stories and three poems, is now up at The Fix.

My Worldcon 2008 participation has been confirmed. I'll be taking part in a panel titled "Living as a fan outside the English speaking world," scheduled for Thursday 7th of August at 4 pm.

Movie updates: Finally saw 1408. Found it disappointing, overall. There's good technical execution, but for the most part I just didn't find it scary or emotionally involving--more like a crazy hallucination. The "creepiness" didn't work for me.

Also watched The Golden Compass, which had an enjoyable two first acts, and then seemed to just fizzle out of dirigible-power in the third. It was visually sumptuous, and the acting was excellent, but too much of the story seemed to be handled in a kind of aloof manner, with certain storylines picking up and others dropping in a way that didn't seem integrated or particularly coherent. The expository recap at the end was also insipid.