Podcast Reaction: Thank Your Fellow Geek Edition

This week on the podcast, there was a lot of talk about box office stuff here and abroad.

Yawn.

Then there was a trivia game about addresses that led me to think Watson and I watched the same cartoons.

But in the middle of that was a Geek Mail from a friend of Watson’s thanking the show and the site for all the recommendations he’s gotten, so I’m gonna do something like that.

Geek Lit: Ernest Cline’s Armada (With SPOILERS)

Last week, Ryan posted a spoiler-free review of Ernest Cline’s second novel, Armada.  Now, Ryan is on-record of being a big fan of Cline’s first novel, Ready Player One.  Seriously, you don’t have to go beyond the first paragraph of that linked review to see it’s either his favorite or second favorite book depending on his mood.  Now me, I enjoyed Ready Player One for the most part, but not being as enamored with the 80s as the author appeared to be, it didn’t do as much for me as it did for Ryan and the other podcaster types.  Besides, I hate nostalgia.

I have since finished Armada myself and we here at Gabbing Geek are not above having multiple reviews of the same thing by different writers.

So, here’s my review for Armada.  SPOILERS after the cut.

Geek Lit: Among Others

Over a six month period from late 1979 to early 1980, Morwenna Philips writes about her life in a diary.  She ran away from an insane mother to live with her father, fleeing her home in Wales for the unusual culture clash of an upper-class English household and boarding school.  She barely knows the father who abandoned her when she and her recently deceased twin sister were babies.  The two share a passion for science fiction and fantasy, and little else.

Oh, Morwenna, Mor to her friends (oddly enough, also her late sister’s nickname), believes in magic and fairies.  She claims her mother tried to cast an evil spell and it was stopping her at the behest of the fairies that got her sister killed and permanently damaged her one leg.

Is that the truth?  Jo Walton’s Hugo award winning novel Among Others follows Mor during this period.  Spoilers and a review after the cut.