The Great Geek Manual

Art

• Amazing homemade Star Trek Shuttlecraft Clubhouse
• Sweets: Dalek Wedding Cake

Film

• Interview: Alex Pappademas examines the increasingly complicated legacy of Stan Lee in light of the release of The Avengers movie.
• Interview: NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour discusses The Avengers, among other topics, and gives Andrew Wheeler’s “Gayness of Batman” piece a shout-out.
• Interview: Sense of Wonder interviews Gavin Rothery, VFX Supervisor on Moon
• The Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb has a new Twitter account, which he’s so far used to tease images of Peter Parker chillin’ on a street light.
• The Ghostbusters Tour of New York
• Taken from the Studio Stories series included on the Blu-ray versions of Toy Story 1 & 2, here’s a short story about how Toy Story 2 was almost erased before the film could be rendered for theaters.
• “We stuck your girlfriend on an island” 22 main characters dismissed in sequels

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The sole purpose of the latest clip from Prometheus seems to be to show off the movie’s titular spaceship.  It looks great and all, but I have my fingers crossed in the hope that this movie isn’t just an hour and a half of special effects.

I’m loving this new storyline, but that costume is a major downgrade from the Tobey Maguire version. It looks cartoonish. That’s not going to stop me from buying a ticket, though.

Art

• 5 Rules for Comic-Con Cosplay
• Colossus of Hattin Papercraft
• Amazing Dragon Cake
• Black Widow cosplay [More and more]
• Mass Effect Cake

Comics

• Interview: In an interview at ICv2, IDW Publishing CEO Ted Adams discusses the growth of digital comics to 10% of the publisher’s overall direct market sales, and how contrary to the expectations of some critics, print sales have actually increased 25% as digital sales soared.
• The Spandex Closet: Ten Superheroes Who Need To Come Out
• Top 5 Unsung Marvel Avengers
• Top 20 Avengers Comic Book Covers

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Book: The Mongoliad: Book One
ISBN-13: 978-1612182360

Author: Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear
Series: The Foreworld Saga, Book 1
Publisher: 47North
Genre: Historical Fiction
Release: April 24, 2012
Length: 442 pages (Paperback)

Book Rating: B (85 / 100)

Verdict

If Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead had been written by Guy Gavriel Kay, The Mongoliad would have been the final result.

Fans of historical fiction are certain to count The Mongoliad as a staple of the genre, and hardcore Neal Stephenson won’t be disappointed, either. However, The Mongoliad suffers from the same shortcomings as most books of the historical fiction genre. It is a bit dry, due to the historical tone of the narration, a bit overly cerebral, due to the necessity of explaining the details of medieval living, and a bit slow due to the sheer volume of exposition required by those explanations. The overall effect is the The Mongoliad is not a heavy piece of reading, but that much is obvious simply by virtue of Neal Stephenson’s name on the cover.

Pros: Highly authentic historical detail. Frequent, inventive battle scenes.

Cons: Unpronounceable character names. Little-to-no suspense. Slow start. Story pacing drags a bit. Sudden ending leaves the book feeling incomplete.

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“We may not be sexy, but we have fresh uniforms nonetheless! We Trekkies and We Know It!”

Art

• Fans of The Princess Bride will appreciate this design concept.
• Portal Cake is not a lie!
• Someone needs to make this into a real stained glass window
• Terrible Yellow Eyes: A papercraft tribute to the late Maurice Sendak
• Versus/Hearts is a playful project that combines two characters that strongly dislike each other into heart-shaped images.

Comics

• Superman: Stuffy Boy Scout, or Charming Folk Hero?

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“Five children, scions of the frosty bite
Dire wolves that hunt in the dead of the night
House of Stark, Winterfell, now the winter’s come
King in the North, bow down, now a war is on”