BSC Round-up: Nov. 1, 2009

An almost eerily quiet week for BSC’s television coverage, but plentiful treats were doled out in other areas, such as book and graphic novel reviews, movie reviews, and columns galore.  If you were too busy searching every kitsch shop in town for your blue Coraline wig to check in every day, never fear!  I’ve got your cheat sheet right here, my weekly run-down of our original content so you can be sure you didn’t miss something awesome.

Events

Author Alan DeNiro is covering the World Fantasy Convention, held this weekend in San Jose, California, from the perspective of both a con-goer and a presenter.  Follow his experience from the pre-trip report through Day 1 (opening ceremonies), Day 2 (with photo flashbacks to Day 1), Day 3, which was all about the books, and Day 4, a capstone about costumes and departures

Interviews

BSC’s reprinting of Victor Gischler’s World’s Worst Interview series continues with George Pelecanos

Book Reviews

Professor Crazy walks through the halls of the Discworld’s Unseen University with Terry Pratchett’s latest, Unseen Academicals

After two novels, Gillian Flynn has carved out a place in crime fiction all her own, the Nerd of Noir has decided after reading her second book, Dark Places

Brian gets involved in international crime this week, as he takes on Jack Hsu’s graphic novel 8-9-3

I was pleasantly surprised at how strong and to-its-stated-point the novella collection Never After (featuring stories from Laurell K. Hamilton, Yasmine Galenorn, Marjorie M. Liu, and Sharon Shinn) turned out to be 

Brian took us through a pair of light-hearted, humor-heavy graphic novels, first Claudo Nizzi and Massimo Bonfatti’s Leo Pulp and then The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book by Joe Daly

West Coast Blues by Jacques Tardi and Jean-Patrick Manchette had Brian reiterating the prayer for someone to translate more of Manchette’s novels into English 

Hannah  Berry’s Britten and Brulightly delivers art so lush it might be the only crime comic where the art matters more than the story, according to Brian

Brian offers high praises for Jeff Vandermeer’s hot-off-the-press Finch, which he calls “a secondary world fantasy, filtered through noir sensibilities, that is, hands down, the best” of 2009’s fantasy-cum-crime-fiction novels

Movie Reviews

Damon Cap tackles a classic collection of cartoons this week, as he takes a look at Tom and Jerry’s Greatest Chases: Volume 3 DVD

Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are fails to live up to PLMII’s childhood love affair with the book

The Week in Television

Katelin takes another scenic drive down Wisteria Lane with “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid,” the latest installment of Desperate Housewives

Castle was back on the awesome wagon with a fanged and fabulous Halloween episode in “Vampire Weekend”

Medora takes up the wand for Wizards of Waverly Place with “Three Monsters,” the second in a three-episode arc about monster hunting

The Vampire Diaries’ latest, “Haunted,” was less about Halloween’s ghosts and spooks and more about being haunted by death, grief, and the pain of hard choices

Columns

Jan-ken-pon continues the classic G.I. Joe re-reads with Special Missions: “Best Defense”

Charles Tan reads us another entry from his Stalker’s Notebook with eBook Pricing:  The Chicken-or-the-Egg Dilemma

Matt Cibula unwinds another 47 Miles of Barbed Wire with his follow-up to his last column, The Greatest American Rock Band Ever…Revealed

Gary Gibson lights up another installment of Burn After Reading as he pens–er, keys–an Open letter to those terrified of e-piracy

Keith Rawson has more Short Thoughts on Short Fiction with Volume 16: New Kids on the Publishing Block

Synergy is back with a Halloween/All Souls Day theme of favorite scary stories from childhood

Music Reviews

Eli revisits late-90s rock and comes away perplexed and dismayed when he gives Creed’s new reunion album Full Circle a listen

Irregular Contributors

Special thanks to the generous pros who tossed their Reece’s Pieces into the BSC trick-or-treat basket this week:

Novelist Steven R. Boyett stops by to talk about grounding his fantasy novels in hard reality with “The One True Thing”

Ben Thompson, author of Badass, takes us on a tour of Badass Moments in Sci-Fi History

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About Elena Nola

Elena Nola reads things, watches things, and edits things. She writes her BSC Review column, Elena's World, to tell you all about it all.