Just a heads-up that the new issue of LITnIMAGE contains a great new comics adaptation by Nathan Holic of Ben Tanzer's story "The Gift," which can be found in the 2008 CCLaP collection Repetition Patterns, for anyone who'd like to take a few moments here on a Friday afternoon and check it out. Don't forget, all of CCLaP's books are released under Creative Commons licenses precisely so adaptations like these can be freely made, as well as things like student films, calligraphy projects, translations into other languages and more. Nice job, Nathan!

(Like many Netflix customers, I too can get quite lax with the timely watching and returning of my movies, which of course defeats the entire purpose of having a flat-rate rental plan in the first place. To combat that, I am now writing standardized mini-reviews of each and every movie I end up watching through Netflix, both instantly and on DVD. Don't forget, all previous 'Justify My Netflix' reviews can be found on CCLaP's main movie page.)

Today's movie: 25th Hour, 2002 (Amazon | IMDB | Netflix | Wikipedia)

Why I added it to my queue: Because when this first came out, it was supposed to have been Spike Lee's big comeback film -- based on a well-regarded novel, with a mostly white cast, starring such usually reliable stalwarts as Edward Norton and Philip Seymour Hoffman, shot in New York literally in the aftermath of September 11th -- and I've always been curious as to why it was instead such a huge bomb.

The reality: [Long sigh.] Well, I'll give Lee this, that he's certainly a man of ambition, who always throws himself feet-first into whatever situation he finds himself in; but in the case of 25th Hour, that's simply not enough to save this uneven film, a noble effort to be sure but that like a lot of Lee's other movies, quickly gets lost in Lee's schizophrenic ideas about what exactly he wants to do. Essentially the tale of a genial white drug dealer enjoying his last 24 hours of freedom before heading upstate to serve out a seven-year sentence, the unspoken thought between him and his cohorts is that this might very likely be the last time they all ever see each other, since this pretty-boy was not really made for federal prison and the chances are high that he will either quickly be killed there or quickly commit suicide; and while I bet its shambling, loose style works well in the context of the original novel, where our darkly charming narrator sort of shuffles from place to place and peer-group to peer-group over this last day of freedom, freely jumping between past and present to philosophically reflect on the unspoken greater issues going on around him, this doesn't make for very compelling cinema, leading to a badly paced script that is sometimes too fast, and much more often too slow. Now add the needless and often awkward shoehorning of 9/11 into the adaptation, because of Lee literally setting up this shoot in New York right before those events took place and so including ground-zero footage simply because he could; plus an unwise decision to put too much emphasis on the partying student of one of our hero's childhood friends turned teacher, who accidentally ends up at the same club as the group this last night they're all getting together (a nice chance to show off the then-blossoming hotness of Anna Paquin, but not serving much else of a purpose at all); plus a bizarre reliance from Lee here on just throwing in weird camera shots and the like on a seemingly random basis (and seriously, what's up with that freaky moving platform thingie that Lee keeps using to wordlessly follow his characters in the VIP room as they stare vacantly into the camera?); and you're left with a film with great but unrealized potential, one that accidentally devolves into unintentional laughter in the most inappropriate places (including that ludicrously cartoonish ending). A good choice for Lee purists, but not really anyone else.

Strangest piece of trivia: Norton went to the trouble of wearing an artificial widow's peak throughout this movie, to stay more in character, although writer David Benioff has confessed that he doesn't even remember adding that detail in the original book.

Worth your time? Not really

Today's photo of the day is entitled "sitting nicely for the camera!" and is by Haley Redshaw. Haley doesn't mention anything about herself at her Flickr profile, nor anything about this particular shot, other than that it was accomplished by waving a candy bar in front of both dog and child. Do make sure to stop by her main photostream for a lot more great images.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

(Like many Netflix customers, I too can get quite lax with the timely watching and returning of my movies, which of course defeats the entire purpose of having a flat-rate rental plan in the first place. To combat that, I am now writing standardized mini-reviews of each and every movie I end up watching through Netflix, both instantly and on DVD. Don't forget, all previous 'Justify My Netflix' reviews can be found on CCLaP's main movie page.)

Today's movie: Whitechapel, Season 1, 2009 (Amazon | IMDB | Netflix | Wikipedia)

Why I added it to my queue: Because this quickie British crime drama boasts a premise that's hard for Anglophiles like me to pass up: based on the idea of a modern serial killer recreating the crimes of Jack the Ripper, the three-part show uses this as an excuse to do lots of location shooting in this once notorious Victorian slum, showing off its new role as the latest trendy creative-class neighborhood in the city, and site of many of the events of the coming 2012 Olympics.

The reality: Oh, okay, I suppose, although you should definitely not rent this for the lackluster actual story; because for being based on such an original idea, its execution is much more like any random generic episode of Law & Order, and I suspect will not hold a lot of appeal for actual Brits who live in London themselves. But still, for non-locals this is a great look at a rapidly changing neighborhood, which for those who don't know was bombed nearly into rubble during World War Two and then sat dormant for decades, which is why this area of the city seems to be the go-to place now for any of London's new glimmering 21st-century skyscrapers; and to be fair, the script itself will be of interest to Ripperologists as well, as it enfolds the debate over competing theories into the actual plot of catching this particular serial killer. (Depending on which theory the serial killer believes, his last kill will take place in any number of places, so the police must figure out which theory he believes in by examining the subtleties of his previous murders.) Just now finishing up its third season in the UK, this is a not-terrible show the same way that NCIS or Bones is a not-terrible show, and it comes moderately recommended in this specific spirit.

Worth your time? Kinda

Today's photo of the day is untitled and is by James Scott. James is dually based out of London and Zurich, although this particular shot is from the South American city of Buenos Aires. Do make sure to stop by his main photostream for a lot more great images.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

(Because I make my way through so many books and movies for CCLaP, I regularly come across projects that are interesting enough unto themselves but that I simply don't have much to say about, or at least not enough to warrant an entire entry. I thought, then, that on occasional weekends I would gather up such "micro-reviews" and post them all in one large entry; they can also be found on CCLaP's main book and main movie archive pages.)

Portnoy's Complaint
By Philip Roth

Regular readers will remember that I'm in the middle of a long-term literary project right now, to read all eleven novels making up Philip Roth's autobiographical "Zuckerman cycle" in order to better understand the Postmodernist Era they discuss, from its start (right around Kennedy's assassination) to its end (9/11); but since so many of at least the early novels in the series concern themselves so directly with Roth's first big mainstream hit, 1969's filthy and funny Portnoy's Complaint, I thought it would be instructive to read that as well, to better understand the way that Roth's life changed because of it. For those who don't know, after an early start as a traditional, academic-style Late Modernist writer who was getting published in The New Yorker in the early '60s, this hilarious look at the sexual dysfunctions inherent in the New York Jewish lifestyle, and its inherent clashes against the prevailing "let it all hang out" countercultural mood, was exactly what mainstream America needed at the exact moment they needed it, just like Woody Allen was providing in cinemas at the same time; and so not only was it a hit with the usual intellectual crowd, but it broke through to become a massive general hit, an eventual Hollywood film, and even a tittering codeword among the culture at large, right at the same time that his fellow young New Yorker author John Updike was doing the same thing with his saucy novel Couples (the very first mainstream book to discuss the topic of suburban wife-swapping, after obscenity laws in the US getting relaxed just a few years earlier).

And to be fair, this is still a dirty, dirty book, with it easy to understand why merely carrying a copy around back then was enough to signal to anyone else that you could "dig it," which much like Woody Allen takes the image of the nebbish, self-deprecatory Jewish city boy and almost accidentally turns it into a new type of nerdy sex symbol, as we follow poor Portnoy's adventures as first an onanistic teen and then a goy-obsessed young man, flailing about in the high-minded hippie atmosphere around him but still managing to have crazy sex on a regular basis anyway. And it's easy to see why so many older Jews got so upset by this book too; because not only does it lay out a lot of the quiet little dysfunctional moments of the Jewish community to a large Christian audience, a direct predecessor to Seinfeld that I've discussed in more depth in my Zuckerman write-ups, but indeed a lot of its humor derives explicitly from all the neurotic hangups that were created among Roth's generation by all their uptight, obsessed-with-appearances, Holocaust-surviving parents, making it not just a funny sex comedy but an astute look at the first generation of Jews to grow up after World War Two, and the clashes that occurred when they first came of age in the countercultural '60s, which I'm sure made it even more of a must-read among the young hipsters of the time. A great, moving, blush-inducing novel that still holds up really well to this day, read it to understand what was getting your parents all squirmy in the years that they were having you.

Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses
By Claire Dederer
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

As part of my regular reading schedule throughout a year, I like to throw in some completely random choices sometimes just to shake things up, sometimes titles that have barely any connection to my own life and that I would normally otherwise never pick up; this book was the latest such random pick, and like a lot of others of this type, I found it okay for what it was, while acknowledging that those it's more designed for will probably like it a lot more than that. A former indie-rocker who still pals around with the founders of Sub Pop, Dederer's late pregnancy and other issues were adding a significant amount of stress to her life in the creative-class bohemian-bourgeoise neighborhoods of North Seattle where she lives; the rest of this book is a look at Dederer's attempts to add yoga to her cynical, black-jeans-wearing life, offering up plenty of comments along the way about her growing sense of "Enlightenment Lite" concerning the transition into motherhood and middle-age. But alas, this is too badly paced to appeal to a big general audience -- for example, the parts that describe the actual yoga positions go on way too long, and the book is filled with the kinds of pointless digressions (a ten-page description of an entire dinner party from start to finish, for example) that feel like they were added specifically to bump up this glorified magazine article into the size of a full-length book -- plus I have to admit, given that one of the main points is for Dederer to dish on her New-Agey-but-secretly-draconian eco-liberal neighbors, there came a point quickly where I started asking over and over why she didn't just, you know, move the f-ck out of North Seattle instead of writing a 300-page story about how much she hates it there. (And of course we all know the answer -- because she proves in this manuscript to be just as hypocritically guilty of this liberal-fascist behavior as all the people she's complaining about, yet another aspect of these types of "It's Everyone Else's Fault But Mine" memoirs that drives me in particular a little crazy.) But still, like I said, I suspect this will appeal more to those who find themselves in similar situations, which is why it's getting a high middle-of-the-road score today instead of the low middle-of-the-road score I usually give such books. It comes recommended in that specific spirit.

Out of 10: 7.9

First Cause: A Novel About Human Possibility
By Paul West
Self-published

It's extremely rare that I will bump up the score of a book here at CCLaP merely for its earnestness, the proverbial "A for effort" that I usually feel is just not deserved; but today is one of the few cases where I'm going to do exactly that, in that I found myself with a lot of respect for what author Paul West is trying to accomplish here, even if he mostly fails in these goals. A sprawling sci-fi epic that has a great New Agey conceit at its core -- that throughout history, a growing proportion of humanity has quietly come to realize the secrets to the next step of evolution, and that this group actually managed to invent space travel in the early 1900s, quietly shuttling off millions of believers to a nearby moon during the World Wars when they wouldn't be missed -- our tale takes place roughly a hundred years later, when some of the advanced quasi-humans decide to touch base again with their Earth relatives, with certain members of this group wanting to see if humans are enlightened enough yet to voluntarily join them, and certain others simply wanting to take the Earth over by force for their own purposes, the resulting chaos being a way to examine the current state of human morality Terence-Malick-style.

But that unfortunately turns out to be the biggest problem with First Cause, that West is not prepared to make the kinds of grandly fascinating statements about humanity that makes a story like this work; his conclusions are instead simply a series of easy cliches, delivered by a collection of sometimes badly cartoonishly cardboard characters, the melodrama so high at points that I kept waiting for a man in a top hat and long mustache to tie a blonde to some railroad tracks and then start singing about how she must pay the rent. Now combine this with way too much of a reliance on expository writing, so that it's more like reading a Wikipedia entry about the events that took place instead of just reading about the events taking place, and you're left with a book that I would normally give a thumbs-down to; but like I said, today I'm adding a bit to the score for sheer earnestness, with West currently having an ambition that's bigger than his writing skills, but with that certainly being better than the opposite situation. It takes quite a bit of forgiveness, but perhaps you'll enjoy First Cause as well for what it's aiming to be, maybe a little more than for what it actually is, and will encourage West to keep at it and turn in the better future work I'm sure he has in him.

Out of 10: 7.0

Today's photo of the day is untitled and is by Jon Hudak. Jon doesn't mention where he's from at his Flickr account, nor any of the details behind this particular shot! Nonetheless, you can stop by his main photostream for a lot more great images.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

Uh-oh! IT'S TIME SOON FOR ANOTHER CCLAP ORIGINAL BOOK! And you know what that means, CCLaP Army, that it's time to start sharpening your blue pencils again; because since I cannot afford the team of proofreaders and other editors that mainstream presses have at their disposal, I instead ask the readers of this blog to help crowd-source the project, basically you getting a chance to read a sneak-preview copy of the book for free in return for letting us know of any mistakes you might find. This particular book is called Get Up Tim and is the new story collection by local author Sally Wiegel, her first book since her admired debut novella about teens, Radiohead, and the Iraq War, 2009's Too Young to Fall Asleep; and it's pretty great, too, I have to say, an expansive collection that among other things looks at a closeted gay middle-aged professor in '70s New York, a famous female rock star in the middle of a nervous breakdown, a sullen teen doing community service to work off a DUI, and even such magical-realism tales as the one about a suburban girl who turns into a tree, and a nine-year-old Chicago kid who is literally transported to a dreamlike alt-universe for a night.

Remember, you do not need to be a particular expert at grammar and the like to be of big help; when it comes to simple mistakes like misplaced commas and misspelled words, it's always the total number of people looking at the manuscript that is the name of the game, not how specifically trained any of these particular people are. (Of course, if your idea of a fun time is to read through random sections of the AP Stylebook, I especially welcome your interest, and you should feel free to make your comments as specific and fussy as you want them to be.) The book officially comes out exactly one week from today, so if you're interested in helping us get it up to a professional standard, drop me a line as soon as you can to cclapcenter [at] gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

(Like many Netflix customers, I too can get quite lax with the timely watching and returning of my movies, which of course defeats the entire purpose of having a flat-rate rental plan in the first place. To combat that, I am now writing standardized mini-reviews of each and every movie I end up watching through Netflix, both instantly and on DVD. Don't forget, all previous 'Justify My Netflix' reviews can be found on CCLaP's main movie page.)

Today's movie: Warrior, 2011 (Amazon | IMDB | Netflix | Wikipedia)

Why I added it to my queue: Because when this first came out, it was touted as an early favorite for the coming awards season, and for good reason: the story of two estranged blue-collar brothers (one do-gooder, one rebellious) who share a love for the quasi-sport known as "ultimate fighting" or "mixed martial arts," and who use an upcoming tournament as a way of reconnecting with their gruff, formerly alcoholic father, this shares an almost identical milieu and tone as last year's The Fighter and The Wrestler from the year before that, both of which went on to become irresistible Oscar bait.

The reality: Oh, pretty good, I suppose; but man, does this film wear its emotional manipulation on its sleeve about as nakedly as possible, a script that feels like screenwriters Anthony Tambakis, Cliff Dorfman and Gavin O'Connor (the last also the director) basically analyzed every award-winning family drama in the last decade based around a blue-collar activity for what exactly made them so popular to begin with, then literally went down the list and included every single item in their crowd-pleasing but shamelessly tearjerking own. (And speaking of manipulation, this film's breathless exaltation of the commercial "UFC" organization and basic-cable staple might just be the most unapologetic two-hour commercial for an un-deserving made-up "sport" since Fred Savage's 1989 feature-length ad for Nintendo known as The Wizard.) I mean, it's a satisfying watch, which is the whole point, but the strings of this particular puppet are even more visible than normal; and perhaps that's why it hasn't been doing as well during this year's actual awards season as people had expected it to when it first came out, because of it feeling like it's taking you on an unwanted ride the whole time you're watching it. An interesting movie that's definitely worth your time if you just happen to catch it on cable or whatever, but not a film I would particularly recommend going out of your way to rent.

Strangest piece of trivia: The scenes set in Iraq were actually shot in a parking lot on the outskirts of Pittsburgh.

Worth your time? Kinda

Today's photography profile features the work of Sarah Benkiran, who I believe is based out of Italy or perhaps nearby there. Here's what Sarah has to say about herself over at her website...

"Since my early childhood years, light, color and memories have been a constant obsession in my life.
I experimented with painting and drawing and I realized that I had no manual talent at all, so photography was the best way to release part of my creative frustrations. I started to take pictures in 2008 with a digital point-and-shoot camera and soon became more and more interested in analog photography. Most of my pictures are taken with simple cameras and non professional film.

"I'm obsessed with dreams, the memory and emotional intelligence, from their aesthetics in human perception till the neurological processes involved in. As a sensitive and nostalgic person I always find my biggest inspiration in art and music, my own feelings, the sky, the surrounding world and the passing strangers, those silent stories that happen in the streets and nobody seems to notice.

"Analyzing through pictures the human psyche, being limitated by my own perception and just other's words and actions, which sadly can't be taken de facto as illustrative of the inner thought; is a challenge doomed to failure, which is not an impediment at all for continuing this obsessive photo album that I want to hopefully accomplish one day.

"My biggest influences? Krzysztof Kie?lowski, specially his movies Trois couleurs: Rouge and La double vie de Véronique, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Miloš Forman's Amadeus, Francis F. Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dario Marianelli, Wojciech Kilar, Dmitri Shostakovich, Serguéi Prokófiev, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Maria Callas, Van den Budenmayer, Ennio Morricone, the paintings of the Dutch Golden Age, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Caravaggio, Tiziano Vecellio and Rubens; greek mythology, Salvador Dalí, the photography of Sergey Chilikov, Elliott Erwitt, Vivian Maier and Diane Arbus, the 60s, 70s and 90s, period films and the cities of Gothenburg, Vienna and Amsterdam.

"Writing is my other creative passion, and I normally write when I feel an urgent need to do so, which is totally unpredictable.

"As a curiosity, I was finalist of the 'Lee - Make History' contest on 2010, having my work exhibited in the 'Lee Make History Second Edition Exhibition' at Foro Boario in Modena, Italy.

"I was given the hebrew name of Sarah by the mediterranean sea in 1986, my heart is noble and I am the last of my kind."

Thanks very much, Sarah! Remember, you can stop by her website to see a lot more great images. If you know of a photographer who should be featured here, by all means drop me a line and let me know, to cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

It's a long shot to be sure, but I just wanted to remind everyone that the CCLaP 2011 science-fiction novel Life After Sleep, by local genre veteran Mark R. Brand, is eligible for the 2012 Hugo Award, and that all of us here would get giant nerd boners just from it coming even close to getting nominated. For those who don't know, this is the biggest prize in the entire SF industry, voted on and given out each year by the attendees of that year's rotating Worldcon; and this year it happens that it's being held here in Chicago, so it'd be great if all you early local registrants wanted to help get this title on the nomination ballot. If you're interested, you still have a week and a half to buy your Worldcon ticket and be eligible to add titles to the 2012 Hugo nominating ballot; so if you're going, definitely buy your ticket now, so you can help us maybe get Life After Sleep into the longlist later this year. Your help is absolutely appreciated!

Yes, by the way, CCLaP plans on holding some sort of offsite event in Chicago during the weekend of Worldcon! In fact, I'm thinking very seriously about leading a steampunk photoshoot tour through nearby Lincoln Park (the convention's taking place in the north Loop); there are just so many ornate places in that neighborhood that actually were built in the Victorian Age, I thought it'd be a fun field trip away from the convention and a chance for costumers to get some great shots of their outfits. Then we would probably end at one of the many Victorian pubs in the neighborhood, where we would do a steampunk reading featuring a number of authors attending the convention anyway; and in fact I've actually started the process of figuring out who would perform at such an event, and might have some very exciting news to share with you soon. Lots more about all of this as we get closer to the convention; but in the meanwhile, it'd be a real feather in our cap if we just happened to be up for a Hugo this year too, so I really encourage you to enter Life After Sleep to the list if you're an early attendee and have the chance.

(Because I make my way through so many books and movies for CCLaP, I regularly come across projects that are interesting enough unto themselves but that I simply don't have much to say about, or at least not enough to warrant an entire entry. I thought, then, that on occasional weekends I would gather up such "micro-reviews" and post them all in one large entry; they can also be found on CCLaP's main book and main movie archive pages.)

Singularity Sky
By Charles Stross

I recently had the chance to acquire every single book ever written by trippy sci-fi author Charles Stross, and so have decided to spend the year actually reading and reviewing them here for the blog; and I've decided to read them in chronological order, too (or, the general books by chronological order, then take on the themed series one at a time), which means that first up is his 2003 novel debut Singularity Sky, which along with his other early classic Accelerando are the ones that really first established him as a major genre force, and that helped cement the cliche of the SF "British Invasion" of the early 2000s. And so that's what makes it an even bigger shock than normal to find out that the novel is not a serious-minded brainteaser, like I think of whenever I think of the other Stross novels I've already read, but rather a very funny absurdist comedy along the lines of late-period Robert Heinlein. Not actually a story about Ray Kurzweil's famous theory of the "Singularity" (that is, the moment in the future that computers gain sentience, and thus usher in a new blazingly fast era for humanity where the mechanical and the biological blur into unrecognizable forms), the novel instead takes this Singularity moment as its historical start, and the fact that humans quickly figure out how to time-travel, at which point a mysterious alien force known as the Eschaton literally create a human diaspora to stop such development, by taking 90 percent of Earth's population and magically scattering them on various inhabitable worlds across the cosmos, these people now free to develop whatever kinds of societies they want but with "the big E" stepping in again whenever a "law of causality" is about to be broken, doing things like wiping out entire star systems to ensure that these stupid hairless apes don't accidentally erase the universe's existence.

Our actual tale, then, takes place hundreds of years after the events just described, when this scattered humanity have formed an endless series of different governments, tech capabilities, and even corporeal forms; to be specific, it's the story of a race of post-human creatures known as "The Festival" who exist mostly as forms of pure information as they travel the cosmos, who literally create new fantastical bodies whenever they stop at a new star system, then proceed to create a kind of benevolent chaos in that new system for awhile (the actual "Singularity Sky" of the book's title), swapping unheard-of technology for new info about the universe from that new system before finally getting their fill, dumping their temporary bodies, and taking off again for yet another century-long flight to the next habitable system, in this case the recipients being a militaristic quasi-fascist colonial dictatorship who shun technology and who clearly resemble the Bush administration that was in power when this novel was first published in the US.

As always with Stross, this is a lot of infodump to take in at once, with the above recap only scratching the surface of this expansive storyline, and with my promise that the whole thing becomes much clearer once you read the actual book; but like I said, the biggest surprise is that Stross plays all this mostly for laughs, a sort of ridiculous adventure tale about a backwards military that purposely builds outdated tech into their warships for the purpose of "tradition," and who then tries to fight a conventional war against a group that can barely fathom what the concept of "war" even is, and who are so technologically advanced over their opponents that they see the traditional battles as little more than you or I swatting at a pesky fly on a hot summer day. I know this all sounds a bit disjointed in a small write-up like this, but trust me when I say that the whole story when written out is a comic masterpiece; and it's easy to see why this made such a big splash when it first came out, after a 1990s that saw perhaps the lowest point of SF in its entire history. It comes highly recommended, and needless to say that I'm looking forward to the next book on the list, 2004's Iron Sunrise which just happens to be a direct sequel to this volume.

Solace in So Many Words
Edited by Ellen Wade Beals
Weighed Words LLC / Hourglass Books

When it comes to literary anthologies, it can be nearly impossible sometimes to give an overall critical score to such a varying collection of stories, so today I'm not even going to try; instead, I wanted to at least call your attention to this remarkable new compilation, put together by Ellen Wade Beals and with her mounting essentially a one-woman war over the last year to try to get it out to a wider and wider audience. Inspired by the overwhelming sense of helplessness that Beals felt after the one-two punch of September 11th and Hurricane Katrina, this attempt to even define the word "solace" (which as Beals explains in her introduction is not quite "succor," not quite "comfort," not quite "love," but perhaps a complex combination of them all) boasts an impressive list of contributors, including such big names as TC Boyle and Joe Meno; and while by definition the pieces themselves vary in quality from great to only so-so, in general I found this to be a very worthwhile read, a rare statement for me when it comes to anthologies. A good example of comfort food for the literary soul, it comes heartily recommended.

Out of 10: N/A

The Restoration Game
By Ken MacLeod
Pyr

This book has been getting a lot of play recently from some unusual sources for being put out by a mainstream science-fiction publisher, and the reason becomes obvious once you read it; because although containing some fantastical elements, this is mostly a very astute political thriller that deals with a lot of issues from our own times all the way back to the Nazi era, and even way back into antiquity. The story of a young Scottish female computer programmer originally from "Krassnia," a fictional former Soviet republic that sounds like it's supposed to be located right around where the Victorian Age's Crimean War was fought, the tale is a complicated one involving the ancient half-myth history of the region, a secret about the area that the Russians have been hiding from everyone else since World War Two, a modern "Arab Spring" style uprising that may or may not be taking place there soon, and whether or not the CIA may or may not be helping this revolt along by commissioning the creation of a local-language "World of Warcraft" style MMORPG, that actually exists as a safe gathering place for protestors to make their plans, and which may or may not accidentally actually reveal the location of this giant secret that everyone is trying to get their hands on, because of the videogame's terrain being based on an old out-of-print hippie guidebook to the area's folklore penned by our hero's mother in the countercultural '60s, to cash in on the "Lord of the Rings" craze going on at the time. Whew!

It's a lot to take in, but Ken MacLeod does it with a lot of aplomb and humor, making this much more Graham Greene than Ben Bova; and kudos to Lou Anders and Pyr for taking on this hip, ripped-from-the-headlines title to begin with, and expanding their scope beyond the steampunk, urban fantasy, and other traditional fan favorites that they're mostly known for. A hard-to-classify book that will generate a lot of passion from its fans, this is one of the rare genre tales here at CCLaP to get a score in the 9s, and it comes happily recommended to a wide general audience.

Out of 10: 9.2

Today's photo of the day is untitled and is by Tiphaine Vasse. Tiphaine is a designer based out of France, which I believe is where this wedding photo was also taken. She has a nice personal website as well, for those who would like to see and learn more.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

(On a newer browser or an iPhone? If so, you should be seeing the HTML5 streaming version of this podcast directly above; and if not, I hope you'll take a moment and let me know [cclapcenter {at} gmail.com], as well as what platform/device you're on, and what browser and version you're using.)

It's episode 4 of the new SHOP Podcast, produced by the Southside Hub of Production (SHOP) in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, and whose files are hosted and distributed here through the main CCLaP Podcast feed. Today, it's a recording of the December edition of the queer literary showcase "All The Writers I Know," hosted by Patrick Gill. Held in the library of the historic William Wallace Fenn House where SHOP is headquartered.

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Today's photo of the day is untitled and is by Tessa Beligue. Tessa is based out of New York City, sand in fact this particular image is of that city's George Washington Bridge. She has a nice personal website as well, for those who would like to see and learn more.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.