My review of the Roku Netflix Movie Player

This excerpted review of the Roku player appears in its entirety at Moving Pictures.

The small, innocuous-looking device (roughly paperback book-size) takes less than ten minutes to set up. Clear and concise instructions assume little or no technical expertise. The player connects to almost any television either directly or through an RF modulator, which is readily available at most electronics retailers. The videos can be accessed by a direct ethernet or wi-fi connection. Depending on your Internet access speed, the video will play at VHS (tested at 384/kbps) or DVD (8.0 Mbps) quality.

The Roku's main strength comes primarily from the extensive and varied Netflix library and the player's ease of use. Although numerous, many of the Netflix selections resemble the dredges found in Wal-Mart dollar bins: long-forgotten TV shows, inferior 1980s John Hughes knockoffs, third-tier chop sockey and made-for-cable documentaries. Among the detritus, however, several gems emerge, including Oscar winners, recent feature films, classic comedies, quality kids fare and popular television shows, both U.S. and British. These videos contain none of the DVD extras or commentaries and, surprisingly, lack closed-captioning. The interface allows for rewind/fast forward and scene selection, and remembers where the viewer stopped watching, even days or weeks later.

While not perfect, the $99 Roku Netflix Movie Player grants a tantalizing glimpse of television's future: viewer-controlled content. Buoyed by the persistent Internet rumors of Roku including Hulu.com and YouTube connections by the end of the year, this affordable option presents one of the most exciting advancements in home entertainment since the advent of the DVD.

The Pythons Couldn't Have Done Any Better

This is the funniest thing I've seen all week.

GADZOOKS!

Though not listed on the DC website, Amazon is offering Showcase Presents Ambush Bug Vol. 1 for a March 10, 2009 release.



Although the entry doesn't list the exact contents, the book will apparently be some 488 pp. 488 pp of Ambush Bug all between two covers! I can't wait.


Cheeks, hang on! We're comin', buddy! We'll be there soon!

The Space Cube Arrives

The PC Pro Blog ruminates about the world's smallest functional computer, The Space Cube, that measures around two inches square:

There’s a surprisingly capable CPU packed away in the tiny chassis with a top clock speed of 300MHz. It’s arrived with us clocked at a slightly more modest 200MHz,but a simple jumper built in to the case enable the processor to be clocked up to either 250MHz or the full 300MHz that it’s capable of.

It’s fair to say that the Space Cube isn’t overloaded with storage space, either. Sixteen megabytes of flash memory is included on-board, and the OS - a version of Red Hat, the popular Linux operating system - runs off a 1GB CompactFlash card that slots into the side of the Space Cube. There’s also 64MB of DDR SDRAM that, admittedly, doesn’t even match up to the lowliest of netbooks - let alone a desktop PC.

Sweet...

Most intriguing, though, is the Space Wire port. It may sound like a mere science fiction fantasy, but this incredibly thin socket is a crucial part of the Space Cube’s armoury. That’s because it’s a type of proprietary interface use by the ESA, NASA and JAXA when the Cube actually goes into space. It’s useful for connecting various sensors and processing units to the Space Cube, as well as the complicated-sounding Downlink Telementary Sub-Systems, which sounds like something more akin to Battlestar Galactica or Star Wars than anything used in real life. It turns out that Space Wire is also used as a common interface for linking together modules and electronics that are often designed in different institutions.

Wonder if it comes with tiny Borg?

Things you discover while researching an article

Apparently, the Apple TV runs inordinately hot, reaching 44° C (111° F). There is no off switch for the device and the only only way to power down is to unplug it.

I see that as a big, wasteful, and potentially hazardous flaw.

(The Roku Netflix Player doesn't have an power switch either but it doesn't run hot.)

Hugo Award for Graphic Novels

This comes from ICv2:

The World Science Fiction Society, which sponsors the Hugo Awards (and the annual World Science Fiction Convention), has added a category for Best Graphic Story to the awards. “Any science fiction or fantasy story told in graphic form appearing for the first time in the previous calendar year” will be eligible.

SWEET! It's about time.

Beyond the Strip: Inside the World of Comics

On Thursday night, I am moderating this panel for the Writers' League of Texas:

Beyond the Strip: Inside the World of Comics, Manga, & Graphic Novels

One of the hottest areas in publishing is comics, graphic novels, and manga. Paul Benjamin heads up a panel of writers and artists in the field to offer an insider's look at the popular art form and the creative process. Panelists include Scott Kolins, Alan Porter, Tony Salvaggio, and Matt Sturges, and "Geeks With Books" columnist Rick Klaw will moderate.




August 21, 2008 7:30PM
Spiderhouse
2908 Fruth, Austin, TX

Hope to see everyone in the Austin area there!

GOD SHOP - on line at last - Go visit, go vote.

It's taken a while, but the day has finally arrived.

GOD SHOP our manga pilot for Tokyopop is now live on the web.

Written by me, based on a story concept developed by myself and my daughter Meggan, with art from the talented Jouse Acevedo.



WELCOME TO THE GOD SHOP.

Imagine that you could “rent” the powers of a god for a day, what powers would you want and what would you do with them? Would you use them for the good of others or to make your own life better?

Well far away at the edge of the universe is a special store that let’s you do just that – rent the powers of the gods – THE GOD SHOP.

All you need to do is find the special “token” that lies somewhere on your world. Once you find it you will be transported to THE GOD SHOP and asked a simple question. Depending on your answer you will be allowed to enter through one of two doors. No matter which door you pass through, you will be given the powers of a GOD, but be careful what you wish for and how you answer that question.

And of course there are rules to follow – there are always rules – especially when it comes to something like messing around with divine powers. Break those rules at your peril…

Head on over to http://GodShopManga.com to read GOD SHOP online, and please register, comment and vote, vote, vote.

The more people who vote, the greater the chance that we will get to do more... (and we already have a bunch of other stories plotted out.)

Article about Armadillocon

I am quoted in Richard Whittaker's excellent Austin Chronicle article about Armadillocon's 30th anniversary.

For editor/columnist/publishing polymath Rick Klaw, back as a panelist for his 14th year, it's the presence of highly literary writers like Haldeman, Lansdale, and Crider that makes this event important. "One of the strengths of ArmadilloCon has always been that it's three fans to every pro, so the pros feel a lot more comfortable," he said. "You have a chance to sit down and talk about whatever projects you're working on. As an editor, you can sit down to talk about working with newer writers. As a new writer, you get to meet these people. It enables you to get nearer to the fans." At the bigger conventions, he adds, "it's all about promoting whatever you've done. This, you're talking about what you're going to do."

Novel on prophet's wife pulled for fear of backlash

This piece of overreaction comes courtesy of the August 9th Guardian.

A romantic novel about Aisha, the child bride of the prophet Muhammad, has been withdrawn because its publisher feared possible terrorist acts by Muslim extremists.

The Jewel of the Medina, a first book by Sherry Jones, 46, was to have been released on August 12 by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House. But the publishers apparently panicked after Islamic scholars objected to the work.

How to Get Published and Avoid Alien Bloodsuckers

Lore Sjöberg in his excellent Alt Text blog offers up some helpful advice to new writers in the internet age.

Scammers can smell fear, and to them it smells like the still-living flesh strips that make up most of their diet. A lot of aspiring writers see publishers and agents as bored nobility, offering contracts in a whimsical attempt to inject some entertainment into an otherwise tedious existence. They suspect that even putting too long a delay between "yes" and "please" will cause the contract to be withdrawn and fed to a purebred Saluki.

Now, even if the editor initially appears to be a mammal, it's still possible to get scammed. There's a wonderful rule of thumb known as Yog's Law: "Money flows toward the writer."

I know that in a world filled with kickbacks and graft, this seems too good to be true. It seems perfectly logical that you might have to spread around some cash, grease some palms and lubricate the chassis of commerce with some crude currency in order to make publishing run smoothly. Scammers leap on this misapprehension like a cat on cantaloupe.

A cat on cantaloupe?

Isaac Hayes, 1942-2008

I toyed with the idea of writing a piece about Isaac Hayes and what his death meant to me, but after reading Leon's Spill post, whatever I had to say would sound trivial.

Isaac Hayes was Black Moses.
He was Truck Turner.
Gandolph Fitch
The Duke of New York
Chef.

Isaac Hayes was my hero.

I blew it on my first chance to see him. At the Million Man March and I was so busy staring at M.C.Hammer that I didn’t know that Isaac Hayes was standing less than 50ft. behind me until my friends came up and told me later.

In 2001 I drove to Dallas and paid the $5 entry fee for the Nokia-sponsored ‘New Age Festival’ to watch him perform outdoors in front of a full crowd of hipster 20-somethings that only knew him as “Chef” from South Park and probably got most of his songs confused with Barry White’s. It was still a great show even with having the Nokia Employee Band (which I heckled) as opening act.

I was with Leon at that Noika show. A memorable evening.


Leon even exposes the unique Mike Judge-Isaac Hayes-South Park relationship.

One of the things I bonded with Mike Judge over was our mutual man-crush on Isaac Hayes. It was he that introduced Hayes to Trey Parker and Matt Stone after having him sing the theme to Beavis & Butthead Do America.

The unique and amazing talent Isaac Hayes will be missed and never replicated.

Thanks to my buddy Leon for the excellent tribute and putting what many of us were feeling and thinking into words.

You see this cat Shaft is a bad mother--
(Shut your mouth)
But I'm talkin' about Shaft
(Then we can dig it)

He's a complicated man
But no one understands him but his woman
(John Shaft)

Mark London Williams at next meeting

Mark London Williams, author the August Dark Forces Book Group selection Danger Boy #1: Ancient Fire, will be attending our next meeting on Wednesday, August 13, 7 PM at the Flight Path.


Before joining our little geekfest, Mark is celebrating the paperback release of the latest Danger Boy adventure (#4 City of Bones) at Austin Books, 5-7PM. So bring the kiddies and introduce them to the author of a series that offers "plenty of excitement, adventure and surprises." (Alex's Book Nook) Mark will be willing to sign any of the Danger Boy books.

Praise for Danger Boy:

• "[T]he best children's book series you're not reading." -- Monster & Critics

• "Readers . . . will revel in this fractured time line, as well as in Eli’s ruminations on relativity, unintended consequences of technology, and quantum flux." -- School Library Journal

• "[S]hows how peoples' actions can be transformative, but it also lets a young reader learn about history in a dramatic and exciting way." -- Jewish Book World

• "[H]igh adventure." -- Midwest Book Review

• "There's a dinosaur, for God's sake. And Nazis. And King Arthur. And baseball. You can't go wrong with that." -- RevolutionSF

Hope to see y'all at one or both events.

Rick Klaw Talks about Irving Klaw

An interview with me about my famous grandfather appears on the BettiePage.com blog.

How has your own life, work and passions been shaped by experiencing the "cult" audience of Bettie Page?

The cult of Bettie enabled me to learn more about a part of my family history that I thought lost. I didn't learn about my grandfather's famous history until I was 21 and at the 1992 San Diego ComicCon. I remember the event clearly.

"Are you related to Irving Klaw?"

I stood dumbfounded. I knew the name but never expected to hear it at 21 while attending a comic book convention. Irving Klaw was my grandfather.

Irving died about 16 months before I was born. His death is the stuff of family legend.

The grey-haired man in front of me was Ray Zone. As a comic book and magazine publisher, Zone was single-handedly responsible for the 3-d boom of the late 80's.1

"He was my grandfather. Why?"

Zone proceeded to show me examples of my grandfather's work: Images of Bettie in black leather and leopard print bathing suits bound in a variety of positions. Some of the pics had Bettie with a whip. In some she was spread in doorways or suspended from a ceiling, bound and gagged. A few even had other women, but none had any nudity at all.

So you could say the "cult of Bettie" changed my life but not in the way most expect. I became curious and over the years and learned as much as I could abut his life and work. It's enabled me to re-establish a relationship with my Uncle Arth. Turns out we have a lot more in common than Irving.

The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard

I got this sweet title in the mail today.

The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard

Written by Robert E. Howard
Fiction - Horror; Fiction; Fiction - Classics | Trade Paperback, 560 pages | October 2008 | $18.00 | 978-0-345-49020-9 (0-345-49020-7

ABOUT THIS BOOK
Here are Howard’s greatest horror tales, all in their original, definitive versions. Some of Howard’s best-known characters–Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, and sailor Steve Costigan among them–roam the forbidding locales of the author’s fevered imagination, from the swamps and bayous of the Deep South to the fiend-haunted woods outside Paris to remote jungles in Africa.

The collection includes Howard’s masterpiece “Pigeons from Hell,” which Stephen King calls “one of the finest horror stories of [the twentieth] century,” a tale of two travelers who stumble upon the ruins of a Southern plantation–and into the maw of its fatal secret. In “Black Canaan” even the best warrior has little chance of taking down the evil voodoo man with unholy powers–and none at all against his wily mistress, the diabolical High Priestess of Damballah. In these and other lavishly illustrated classics, such as the revenge nightmare “Worms of the Earth” and “The Cairn on the Headland,” Howard spins tales of unrelenting terror, the legacy of one of the world’s great masters of the macabre.

The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard is the exact reason Peggy and I established the Dark Forces Book Group. Sadly it is not due out until October 28, so we can't read it for Halloween. Christmas anyone?

Stark Reprint News

Following hard on the news of Darywn Cooke's Parker comic adaptations comes word that the University of Chicago Press is planning a series of reprints. According to the Independent Crime blog, U Chicago is planning to print three of the Parker novels a year until they are all back in print. The first three will be available in mid September. I'm sure we all have them, but that's a really pretty cover design. The gun remains static with color and background variations on the other 2 books.  This would all happen just after I finally got a copy of Butcher's Moon. 

Hat tip: Independent Crime blog

Top 10 Graphic Novels

Today's Guardian had a nice little top ten list of graphic novels for everybody to vehemently disagree with. Some of the books listed are the deserving usual suspects--Maus, Persepolis, Eisner's A Contract with God. But the list author, Danny Fingeroth, also names some books that are more obscure. I was especially  happy to see Steve Vance and Dan Burr's Kings in Disguise. I remember reading this Great Depression story of youth back in the early 90's when Kitchen Sink first published it in book form. Kings in Disguise was out of print for way too long, but got reprinted by Norton a year or so ago and I highly recommend it. Fingeroth also names Kyle Baker's Why I Hate Saturn. Personally, I prefer The Cowboy Wally Show, but looking back on it, Saturn seems like the grandfather of a lot of the navel-gazing autobiographical comics that began coming out a few years ago--only funnier and with better art. 

Amazon.com to Acquire AbeBooks

This came across the wire today:

SEATTLE & VICTORIA, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 1, 2008--Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced that, subject to closing conditions, it has reached an agreement to acquire AbeBooks. AbeBooks is an online marketplace for books, with over 110 million primarily used, rare and out-of-print books listed for sale by thousands of independent booksellers from around the world.

For Amazon, this is an excellent acquisition. Amazon fails to handle collectible books well. It is difficult for sellers to post images and direct communication between sellers and buyers, an essential component, is difficult. ABE on the other hand handles these functions well. Hopefully, Amazon will enable ABE to allow these functions.

ABE, already a major player in the used and rare market, will expand into the primary marketplace for collectible books. Their reputation could only enhance Amazon's visibility in those markets.


The deal creates a potentially undesirable situation for both booksellers and buyers. Amazon claims "AbeBooks will continue to function as a stand-alone operation based in Victoria, British Columbia. " I was working for the Austin-based chain Book Stop in the early 90s when it was acquired by Barnes & Noble. Len Riggio, B&N CEO, visited the stores and promised nothing would change. Within a year, B&N gutted everything that made Book Stop special and now the chain is virtually non-existent with one Book Stop, which differs little from a Barnes & Noble, open in Austin.

The direct contact between sellers and buyers will be the first thing to go, quite probably within a year. The fear for Amazon is that sellers and buyers will negotiate deals directly, cutting out the host's percentage. While this is indeed true, the small loss in revenue is nothing compared ot the importance of direct communication. When I was selling books on ABE for Half Price Books, I received multiple email queries a day. Potential buyers wanted to know about various aspects of the book they are interested in (ie points of issue, page numbers, various conditions and the lot). And the need for images ties directly into this.

The consolidation of book sites is bad for everyone. Less competition will only cause prices to rise.