Apr

17

The Secret Lair Episode 0010: What makes a good…ohh, shiny!

Filed Under Books, Introspection, Monologuing | 3 Comments

This episode of The Secret Lair was recorded in an unnamed coffeeshop somewhere in an eastern suburb of the largest city in northeastern Ohio. No baristas were harmed during the recording of this episode, but Kris did some serious damage to a blueberry muffin.

Your Overlords are Old Men or “Infirmateam Assemble!”

  • Decaffeinated coffee? Non-dairy creamer? Artificial sweetener? Who wants to rule a world where such things exist?
  • We do.

Turning Pages

  • Chris has high praise for The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, which was recently nominated for the Compton Crook Award.
  • Kris is reading Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock.
  • We are still reading The Sky People by S.M. Stirling for The Secret Library. Kris is very nearly finished. Are you?

What Makes a Good Novel?

  • Chris wants to be engrossed and transported.
  • Chris likes the poetic style of the 1960’s. Poetic style doesn’t necessarily require the ingestion of psychotropic pharmaceuticals…but it can’t hurt.
  • Chris would like Patrick Rothfuss to rewrite Robert Jordan’s entire Wheel of Time series. Bring on the hate mail.
  • Chris prefers dialog to description.
  • Chris says, “Tolkien was a hack.” I’m paraphrasing.
  • Kris likes lighter fare; what he calls “beach novels” (see James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series).
  • Kris also wants good description, something he feels is lacking in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series.
  • Chris wants a good mystery novel. The last one he read was by Ellis Peters (Brother Cadfael Mysteries).

Promo!

  • Max Quick: Book Two - The Two Travellers by Mark Jeffrey premieres 01 May 2008 on Podiobooks.com. You can subscribe to Max Quick: Book One - The Pocket and The Pendant at Podiobooks.com, and you should: it’s the first podiobook selection for The Secret Library. More information on the series is available on the official web site.

Books Into Movies

  • Chris doesn’t think The Name of the Wind should be made into a movie; there’s simply too much that would not survive the translation.
  • Kris thinks that translating Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind to film was ill-advised.
  • Kris also hopes that there are no plans to adapt Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides to film.
  • Chris wanders off into Touchy-Feely Land for a few minutes. Someone give that man a hug.
  • …aaaand we’re back. Kris is glad Jurassic Park made the jump from pulp and ink to celluloid.

Evil Experiments

  • The overlords will be meeting each morning at a local coffeeshop for more decaf, powdered non-milk and aspartame.
  • And writing.
  • Chris wants to write flash fiction.
  • Kris wants to write a horror story based on his exposure to countless hours of children’s television. There’s an animal in trouble somewhere.
  • During our daily writing experiments, we will likely make use of resources like Plotstorming.com.

Miscellanea

  • Batman & Robin: Clooney had rigidity issues.
  • Kris ruins The Empire Strikes Back for everyone.
  • Wesley Clifford: not human? You decide.

Lairkeeping

 
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Apr

10

The Secret Lair Episode 0009: No Fools Allowed

Filed Under Books, Games, Introspection, Monologuing, Software, Villainy | 4 Comments

Overlord KrisDue to an unfortunate accident, The Secret Lair’s official stenographer was eaten by a crocodile last week.1 While our search for a replacement continues, it has fallen to me to provide show notes for The Secret Lair Episode 0009.2 Unfortunately, I’m a very busy overlord lately and rather than delay release of the episode and further,3 I’m going to post the scraps4 I’ve got now and fill in the rest once I get an hour or so to myself.

April Fool’s Day

WordPress 2.5

  • …has a new administrator interface. Chris isn’t a fan.
  • …has a new image/media management system…which doesn’t seem to work on The Secret Lair.
  • …has a redesigned Write Post screen. We don’t much care for it.
  • Kris has more to say about WordPress 2.5 on his blog.

Unquiet Desperation

Minion Recruiting Board

  • Thanks to P.G. Holyfield and Scott Sigler, we have a number of job openings at the Lair.
  • Fill out our super-secret minion application form, if you can find it.

The Secret Library

  • Our current novel is The Sky People by S.M. Stirling.
  • Our current graphic novel is Shooting War by Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman .
  • NEW! At the request of our minions, we have decided to add a podiobook section to The Secret Library. Our first selection is The Pocket and the Pendant by Mark Jeffrey. Subscribe at Podiobooks.com.

RPGs

  • The Dresden Files RPG bleeding edge beta continues.
  • Gunnar scored some WarHammer RPG 2nd Edition sourcebooks and Half-Price Books recently.

Movies and Television

  • Kris saw Spider-Man 3 and wishes he hadn’t.
  • Chris says it was worse than Batman and Robin.
  • Check out How It Should Have Ended. (YouTube)
  • The Spectacular Spider-Man is on the Kids’ WB and is far more entertaining.

Housekeeping

  • We have a feedback address, where you may send us feedback. At The Secret Lair. Dot Com.
  • There’s also a contact form, which no one has used yet. Will you be the first?
  • It is entirely possible to join our official community, should you be so inclined.
  • Our theme music is “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Intertroubadour extraordinaire, Jonathan Coulton.
 
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  1. Let’s not be concerned with who may or may not have forgotten to engage the magnetic couplers in the holding environment. Pointing fingers isn’t going to get us a new stenographer and playing The Blame Game isn’t helping morale. [↩]
  2. Writing the show notes is not punishment. As co-overlord, I’m above punishment, even if you could prove conclusively that it was me. Which you can’t. [↩]
  3. What’s that? Maybe I should have delayed release of the crocodile? Oh, great. That’s very mature. How about this: maybe you should think twice before you go hiring your relatives, okay? People get eaten, gassed, disintegrated, mutated and shunted to other dimensions around here all the time, but when it’s your cousin it’s suddenly a big deal. [↩]
  4. Shut up. Just shut up! [↩]

Mar

22

The Secret Lair Episode 0008: Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan

Filed Under Books | 5 Comments

The Secret Library: Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan

Market Forces by Richard K. MorganWhen we found Ed Dale roaming through the The Secret Library stacks in a daze, we naturally assumed that one of the test subjects from the Cerebral Transference Laboratory had wandered in after the Matter Phase-Shift Emitter prototype in the adjacent lab proved more powerful than we originally anticipated, rendering many of the walls and floors on three sublevels temporarily immaterial. It was only after a minion pointed out Mr. Dale’s lack of cranial sutures that we realized our misapprehension.

As it happens, Mr. Dale was seeking the discussion group for Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan. In a moment of uncommon benevolence, we decided to let Ed join in the discussion rather than turning him over to our new android librarian, who shushes noisy patrons with depleted uranium bullets and singularity grenades and collects overdue fees with a 7 gauge hypodermic needle.

The Discussion

Addenda

Chris’ Recent Reads

Ed’s Recent Reads

Kris’ Recent Reads

Series We Can’t Seem to Finish

Next Time on The Secret Library

The Sky People by S.M. StirlingOur next selection from The Secret Library comes to us courtesy of Ken Newquist, host of the Nuketown Radio Active podcast. Regular listeners will recall our interrogation of Mr. Newquist from Episode 0006, though it is highly unlikely that Mr. Newquist will.

Mr. Newquist has chosen The Sky People, by S.M. Stirling. Our intelligence reports indicate that the book is a combination of three genres that hold a strange allure to your overlords: alternate-history science fiction and pulp.

From the front flap of the hardcover edition:

Marc Vitrac was born in Louisiana in the early 1960s, about the time the first interplanetary probes delivered the news that Mars and Venus were teeming with life—even human life. At that point, the “Space Race” became the central preoccupation of the great powers of the world.

Now, in 1988, Marc has been assigned to Jamestown, the U.S.-Commonwealth base on Venus, near the great Venusian city of Kartahown. Set in a countryside swarming with sabertooths and dinosaurs, Jamestown is home to a small band of American and allied scientist-adventurers.

But there are flies in this ointment—and not only the Venusian dragonflies, with their yard-wide wings. The biologists studying Venus’s life are puzzled by the way it not only resembles that on Earth, but is virtually identical to it. The EastBloc has its own base at Cosmograd, in the highlands to the south, and relations are frosty. And attractive young geologist Cynthia Whitlock seems impervious to Marc’s Cajun charm.

Meanwhile, at the western end of the continent, Teesa of the Cloud Mountain People leads her tribe in a conflict with the Neanderthal-like beastmen who have seized her folk’s sacred caves. Then an EastBloc shuttle crashes nearby, and the beastmen acquire new knowledge…and AK-47s.

Jamestown sends its long-range blimp to rescue the downed EastBloc cosmonauts, little suspecting that the answer to the jungle planet’s mysteries may lie there, among tribal conflicts and traces of a power that made Earth’s vaunted science seem as primitive as the tribefolk’s blowguns. As if that weren’t enough, there’s an enemy agent on board the airship…

Minions in the new Dirigible Assault Division should note that The Sky People is required reading. We will be discussing the book sometime in May. Check out our community and official group on GoodReads to participate in the online discussion.

And another thing…

Thanks to Troy over at GoodReads, we have our first graphic novel selection: Shooting War by Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman . This graphic novel was originally published as a serialized web comic, which was greatly expanded for the hardcover edition from Grand Central Publishing. The Eisner-nominated web comic is still available online.

Shooting War is the near-future story of Jimmy Burns, a video blogger who is in the right place at the wrong time and becomes an overnight Internet celebrity. Soon, Jimmy is blogging from a war-torn, occupied Iraq instead of the Starbucks around the corner.

The Secret Library Nominated Novels

The Secret Library Nominated Graphic Novels

Podcasts We Like

Miscellany

Congratulations

Special Thanks

 
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Mar

4

The Secret Lair Episode 0007: Trapped in the Galley

Filed Under Books, Comics, Introspection | 5 Comments

Due to a problem with the security system, the Overlords are trapped inside the Secret Lair’s kitchen.

Show notes will be posted as soon as the laserdrill breaks through the vibranium doors.

- Minion #34720/B

 
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Feb

18

The Secret Lair Episode 0005: Fatherland by Robert Harris

Filed Under Books | 11 Comments

Overlord KrisFollow me into the darkest depths of The Secret Lair, along passages watched by unseen, ever-vigilant eyes, past barred portals and shadowy niches and, finally, through the ancient wooden door that leads to row upon row of shelves piled high with tomes as old as the very mists of time. This is The Secret Library, and the texts contained within are wondrous and horrific, mundane and magickal, forgotten and forbidden.

Here is an aged volume, the words within first put to paper in the late twentieth century! Writ upon the faded spine of this mass market paperback is the title, Fatherland, and the name of the author who dared pen the tale, Robert Harris. Join the overlords and their special prisoner guest, Laura Johnson, as they unveil the sinister secrets of the very first selection from The Secret Library.

While discussing Fatherland, we mention:

  • The Day After Tomorrow by Allan Folsom.
  • Fatherland is a television mini-series based on the novel. It stars Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardson, but seems to be available only on VHS.
  • 1984 by George Orwell.The Gorgalthumper
  • The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum.
  • The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is essentially the same novel as Angels & Demons (also by Brown).
  • The gorgalthumper.
  • Life is Beautiful starring Roberto Begnini.
  • Schindler’s List starring Liam Neeson.
  • Harry Turtledove is arguably the master of alternate history. How Few Remain tells the tale of how one seemingly minor alteration might have changed the outcome of The Civil War and rewritten a hundred years of history.
  • Michael Moorcock’s Elric saga features an intriguing anti-hero who engages the reader and draws them into the story.
  • Jim Butcher’s urban wizard, Harry Dresden, is an entertaining character and he makes The Dresden Files a fun series to read.
  • House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski is an exercise in tricky typesetting.
  • M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense isn’t as enjoyable when you know the big secret ahead of time.

This is the first episode recorded with our brand new Samson Zoom H2 mobile recorder. As of this writing, we’ve almost covered the entire purchase price with donations! Many thanks to everyone who donated.

Coming soon to a podcatcher near you…

Market Forces by Richard K. MorganOur next book for The Secret Library is Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan.

From the back cover: “A coup in Cambodia. Guns to Guatemala. For the men and women of Shorn Associates, opportunity is calling. In the superheated global village of the near future, big money is made by finding the right little war and backing one side against the other—in exchange for a share of the spoils. To succeed, Shorn uses a new breed of corporate gladiator: sharp-suited, hard-driving gunslingers who operate armored vehicles and follow a Samurai code. And Chris Faulkner is just the man Shorn needs.”

From the Amazon.com editorial review: “Market Forces is at once an anti-globalization treatise and anime fantasy meets The Road Warrior…a disturbingly brutal picture of slash-and-burn capitalism run amok.”

We encourage interested minions to acquire a copy and join in the discussion at our official community or The Secret Library group at Goodreads.

 
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Feb

6

Memo from The Secret Librarian

Filed Under Books, Memoranda | Leave a Comment

Overlord KrisGreetings, hapless victim and/or loyal minion!

You are being afforded a rare opportunity to provide feedback to your evil overlords with little or no fear of retributive disintegration. In just over a week, we will be recording a new episode of The Secret Lair in which we will discuss the novel Fatherland, by Robert Harris. If you have read the book and would like to participate in the discussion, please visit the forums at our official community or join The Secret Library group at GoodReads.

Even if you haven’t read the book, you can make suggestions for future books you’d like us to read and discuss on The Secret Lair by commenting at the aforementioned on-line venues or in the comments section of this very blog post.

Act now! Our benevolence may expire at any time!

Popularity: 70% [?]

Jan

19

The Secret Lair Episode 0002: The Secret Library

Filed Under Books | 4 Comments

Returning to the scene of the crime, your malevolent hosts, Chris Miller and Kris Johnson, bring back another episode of The Secret Lair.

This time, we open the doors to The Secret Library, revealing a few of the tomes that have captured our attention recently.

We both have accounts at GoodReads. We encourage bibliophile minions to create an account and add us as friends. We’ll know you’re a minion if you use the secret phrase.1

Chris read Emperor: Time’s Tapestry Book One and Conqueror: Time’s Tapestry Book Two, both by Stephen Baxter.

Chris also read The Traveler and part of The Dark River, the first two books of the Fourth Realm Trilogy by John Twelve Hawks.

While on vacation, Kris read Alfred Hitchcock Presents The Three Investigators: The Mystery of the Green Ghost by Robert Arthur.

The first tome in The Secret Library is Fatherland by Robert Harris. As we seem to be on an alternative history kick of late, we thought this tale of a triumphant Third Reich in 1964 would be fitting. We’ll be discussing the book in a future show.

Be sure to visit The Secret Lair’s official online community to keep tabs on other minions, give us feedback and get some hints as to what we’ve got planned for future shows.

 
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  1. Reminder: We need a secret phrase. [↩]

Jan

8

The Secret Lair Episode 0001: Revenge of the Title of the Episode

Filed Under Books, Introspection, Movies | 16 Comments

Flowing like so much liquid hot magma through the Intertubes, it’s the inaugural episode of The Secret Lair podcast. This episode, hosted by evil masterminds Chris Miller and Kris Johnson, was recorded in one or more undisclosed locations near another undisclosed location near Cleveland, Ohio.

Prepare yourself: these are The Official Show Notes.

The Secret Lair is officially open for business, and business is evil (or, at the very least, mildly nefarious).

J.C. Hutchins tried to sell us a gently-used array of Q-CRAYs with some minor flood and fire damage, but we ultimately went with another supercomputer vendor for The Secret Lair.

Chris and Kris have both (with varying degrees of triumph) returned from their self-imposed, month-long Internet hiatus, also known as the Great Information Detoxification.

Chris recently read Don’t Know Much About History by Kenneth C. Davis. Next on his reading list is Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis.

Chris is also enjoying flash fiction from the online magazine, Hub, and 365 Tomorrows (In particular, Chris recommends Baby, oh baby).

Kris is reading Skein of Shadows by The Wandering Men and The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. Chris recommends another alternative history novel by Turtledove: How Few Remain.

Chris saw Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and enjoyed it quite a lot.
Kris saw Alien vs. Predator: Requiem and enjoyed it, but for entirely different reasons.

Minion Alert! Minion Alert! The Secret Lair needs a book/movie/music/deathtrap rating system! All suggestions should be submitted in the comments for the show notes. Minions not submitting suggestions will be designated test subjects for animal-human hybrid experiments in the Genetics Lab (currently located on level SB7, E Corridor, just past the gift shop; if you reach the daycare center, you’ve gone too far).

Be sure to check out our Community.

Kris got some new DVDs for Christmas:

  • Planet Terror starring Rose McGowan. Directed by Robert Rodriguez.
  • Death Proof starring Kurt Russell. Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
  • Blade Runner: The Final Cut starring Harrison Ford, Sean Young and Rutger Hauer. Directed by Ridley Scott.

Kris totally forgot to talk about the third (Ultimate) edition of the new Blade Runner release. Here’s a ridiculously-detailed description of all three sets:

Two-Disc Special Edition

  • Disc 1: Blade Runner: The Final Cut (2007) is Ridley Scott’s “preferred” version of the film. As with the 1992 Director’s Cut, Deckard’s voiceover has been removed, as has the “happy” ending. This version is a restored print with enhanced audio and some new effects.
  • Disc 2: Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner is a 3.5-hour documentary that tracks the making of Blade Runner from the original screenplay through theatrical release and beyond.

Four-Disc Collector’s Edition

Contains everything in the 2-disc set, plus:

  • Disc 3: 1982 Theatrical Release, 1982 International Release, 1992 Director’s Cut.
  • Disc 4: Enhancement Archive. Deleted scenes, outtakes and featurettes.

Ultimate Collector’s Edition

Packaged in a replica of Rick Deckard’s briefcase, this limited edition contains everything in the 4-disc set plus:

  • Disc 5: Workprint Edition. This previously-unreleased version is apparently the most far-removed from the original theatrical release.
  • Spinner model.
  • Signed letter from Ridley Scott.
  • Collector’s photographs.
  • Lenticular motion film clip from the original feature. Yes, we know what “lenticular” is. Do you?
  • Origami unicorn.

Coming up in future episodes: interviews, field trips and, as always, the well-informed opinions of your hosts.

Can’t get enough of your hosts? Minions can (and should) also listen to Kris on Volcanicast, the weekly podcast discussing hot Google search topics, and Chris on Shadowdance, the alternative spirituality podcast he hosts with Michelle Belanger.

Our theme song is “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton, used with his kind permission.

The Secret Lair is not ISO 9000 certified. One day, however, we will require that the International Organization for Standardization be certified by The Secret Lair!

 
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