Book Festival at Millenearis

Yesterday, I visited the International Book Festival at Millenearis in Budapest. The festival is big enough to be held in several huge buildings, and in the park in front of them. Nowadays, it is quite commonplace to say that 'people have given up on reading completely'. There might be times when you even start to believe this, but this is obviously an over-generalization.
I saw huge crowds at Millenearis wanting to buy books, and people who were queueing to get signatures from the authors who were present. So there is still hope.

I also saw some ebook readers on sale and there were also a few publishers who started selling the electronic versions of some their books. This is a huge development here. I guess we will see much more of this later.

Not much of the contemporary genre writing gets published in Hungarian, but there are now also some big developments on this field, too. Even those who only read books in their mother-tongue can now buy some new and intriguing speculative fiction including The Quantum Thief, Deathless, Zoo City and The Wind-up Girl.

I also spent some money on books (by S. Fry, M. Atwood, Henning Mankell and Wolf Haas), and I even bumped into some writer friends and acqaintances.

When having sex in public becomes a law - Blind Faith by Ben Elton Reviewed

Blind Faith (2007) is a dsytopian novel and it is also dealing with a great variety of issues that are of interest to today’s reader. The book was written by the brilliant comedy writer and stand up comedian, Ben Elton, who is also the author of The Thin Blue Line and Black Adder.

In this didactic but very well-written book he is sharing his views with us on consumer society, trends in the media, in the world of community websites etc , while also telling a great story set in a near future England. Elton has always been a very good observer of the typical, the suprising, and the alaming and presented his observations in a funny and thought-provoking way. Blind Faith is definitly one of his most serious works.

In this book, he describes a world where it is compulsory to share all details of your life online, even the smallest and the most intimate details have to be shown on photos and videos. Citizens of this state live their lives in front of webcams and are obliged to show it to everyone that they have sex often enough, that they are religious enough, live exactly in the way that is expected from them and have no views of their own. The latter is illegal. Keeping a secret is a herecy and punishable by death. The horrible results of climate change are thought to be the signs of God’s wrath, so disbelievers and those who try to keep and share the books and the knowledge of the old times are enemies of the state.

In Blind Faith, Elton is paying tribute to the greatest masters of dystopian fiction, gives us a disturbing account of the near future and he also makes the reader look at the present day lifestyles and societies in a different way. It is worth reading.

Links: Wikipedia, Amazon

A poem of mine has appeared in Tales of The Talisman magazine

My poem, The Fairy's Granddaughter has appeared in the special fantasy issue of Tales of The Talisman magazine (Volume 7, Issue 3).

I am very proud of this one. It is great to see something that I wrote in a magazine with such an awesome cover and which has contributors such as Carol Hightshoe, Simon Bleaken, F. T. McKinstry, Jim Chandler and  David C. Kopaska-Merkel and is edited by David Lee Summers.

You can get a copy of it at Amazon.


Product details:
    Paperback: 100 pages
    Publisher: Hadrosaur Productions (January 31, 2012)
    Language: English
    ISBN-10: 1885093616,  ISBN-13: 978-1885093615
    Price:     $8.00

A good book for urban fantasy lovers: Casting Shadows by J. Kelley Anderson

 
Title: Casting Shadows
Author: J. Kelley Anderson
Genre(s) / Subgenre(s):  Fantasy/ Urban Fantasy
Publisher: World Castle Publishing (January 31, 2012)
Formats: paperback (232 pages) or electronic (Kindle Edition)


I’ve always liked stories that are a bit different from the average. Casting Shadows by J. Kelley Anderson is definitely a book that tells a story like that.

At the beginning, the main character Edward performs a magic ritual in a cemetery to summon an undead servant. He only does this because he is under a spell and a demon is trying to influence his deeds. However, the new servant, Vincent  will not be the merciless evil being that one could expect. He will be more like a friend, who always has Edward’s best interests at heart, but he also has his own will and his own views about things. He does his best to protect him from himself and from the evil forces that are at work in the ususally quiet little town of Hurst, Ohio.  A very powerful witch grandmother also appears, who tries to teach Edward  how to become a warlock. He also encounters several types of magical beings and learns that he has to become the champion fighting for mankind and he really needs to grow up for the task very quickly. His only connection to normal life remains his best friend, Michael who is a local police officer and who, fortunately, has a sense of humor.


Casting Shadows is a real page-turner, the  characters are well-drawn, likeable and more complex than the ususal fantasy clichés. The story is a unique mixture of what we have seen already and what we have not. There are also some great humorous scenes added. 

If you are interested in urban fantasy, do not miss this book.  It’s highly recommended.


Links:
The author's website
Amazon

Timecrimes: The movie about the guy who wanted to look at boobs and ended up as a time-traveller

Timecrimes (Los cronocrímenes, 2007) is a quite original Spanish sci-fi movie by Nacho Vigalondo.

At the beginning of the movie, the main character Hector, who has just moved to the countryside with his wife, notices, via using his binoculars, a woman getting naked somewhere nearby. As soon as his wife leaves the house, he goes for a walk, looking for the naked beauty. However, a man with bandages on his head attacks him and chases him through the woods. Hector takes refuge at a nearby science lab, and he unwillingly becomes the subject of a time-travel experiment.

Apart from a few less logical scenes, this is quite an exciting movie, which has aquired international success.  There is going to be an American remake of Timecrimes, in all probability by David Cronenberg.

The multiple award winnning movie was written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, whose latest  sci-fi movie, Extraterrestrial (Extraterrestre, 2011), is about a couple witnessing an alien invasion. I will surely watch that one, too.




Links:
Time crimes:  Wiki, IMDB

2011: Just What I Have Accomplished in 2011

In 2011:
- I restarted my English blog,
- blogging in Hungarian,
- reading & reviewing,
- more SF poems published (One in Aoife's Kiss and one in SOTN.)
- started tweeting,
- got some more poems accepted,
- wrote a short story,
 - and got a lot of story ideas for later use.


Plans for 2012: More writing and more reviewing. Improving my German. Hopefully, some travelling, too. There are going to be much more blog posts here about books, movies, etc. As for my writing, I have much more story ideas now, than ever before.

Cinderella's Secret Diary by Ron Vitale

Title: Cinderella's Secret Diary (Book 1: Lost)
Author: Ron Vitale
Genre(s) / Subgenre(s): speculative fiction / dark fantasy/ YA
Copyright: August, 2011
Formats: ebook (Kindle Edition), Paperback


Ron Vitale's novel about Cinderella is a young adult gothic version of the well-known fairy-tale.

At the beginning of the story the main character is a typical naive young girl, to such an extent that she is also a bit irritating at times, but soon she has to learn a bit more about life. Her marriage with the prince is not a very good one, and the queen is a frightening mother-in-law. The kingdom, which turns out to be England during the Napoleonic wars, is in great danger. Cinderella has lessons to learn about people, politics and love, while dark forces are also at work. As she gradually becomes a stronger, more mature and a much more independent woman, the story is also becoming darker and darker.

This is a novel about growing up, and also about magic, adventures, witchcraft and family conflicts.
The book comes with a beautiful cover image which is the work of Jennifer Whitelock, and the novel is the first part of a series.

By mixing the elements of fairy tales, dark fantasy and chick lit, Ron Vitale created a very entertaining book.

Links:
The author's website
reviews at Amazon