Consider Phlebus by Iain Banks

There is a war between the Idiran and the Culture. The Idiran are large, three-legged aliens who are devout in their faith and have destroyed or throttled numerous civilizations. The Culture are machines (Minds) and include the humans that serve them. The Culture want to cleanse the galaxy and the Idiran oppose them. Bora Horza Gobuchul is a human Changer, which is what it sounds like: he can change his appearance. Horza is an agent of the Idiran because he is against the Culture, not because he supports the Idiran's religion.

The novel opens after Horza has been caught impersonating a Gerontocrat and is being executed in a gross way. The Idiran rescue him and give him a final assignment: go to Schar's World and capture the fugitive Mind that fled there. Practically right after he's handed this assignment the Culture attack. Horza is jettisoned in just a suit so if the ship falls, he will survive and be picked up by the fleet. Instead he is picked up by pirates and has no choice but to join them. And this is all within the first 3 chapters! More exciting (and some heinous) things happen to Horza and at about 50% of the way through the book, we get back to the main story line and head to Schar's World. Honestly after all that stuff happened to Horza, I totally forgot about the mission to find the fugitive Culture Mind.

The story was exciting and engaging but I felt like the ending was wrapped up quickly, like Mr. Banks was tired of these characters and wanted to move on to the next book. I think if it were a standalone novel instead of the first of a series, I would've enjoyed it more expecting the tidy up at the end. That being said, I liked this book and I think the following sequels will be good as well.

Visit Iain Banks' website for more information about the author and how to purchase his books.

Nick Offerman: American Ham & Paddle Your Own Canoe

Nick Offerman is best known for playing Ron Swanson on NBC's Parks and Recreation. Swanson is basically an archetypal "man's man" whose loves are meat, whiskey, and hunting. Offerman is often asked "how did you become so manly?" but he will quickly admit than being in a profession where you dress up and pretend to be someone else does not mean you're as macho as that character. And when asked "how do you grow such a robust mustache?" he will reply modestly that step one is, "I don't shave my lip area." This kind of down-to-earth straightforwardness is what I have come to expect after seeing his special on Netflix, and then reading the related book.

Nick Offerman: American Ham is a good showcase for his main real-life passions: entertaining people and gushing about his wife, Megan Mullaly. It's part stand-up special, part one-man show, interspersed with songs, sketches, and irreverent life advice. In the show, Offerman uses some of the same headings as in Paddle Your Own Canoe (which I'll discuss a little later) and he's not entirely subtle about the special being a way to sell more copies of said book. In fact, stacks of the biography are seen in the background whenever there is cutaway to his real-life Offerman Woodshop, as if they're product placement. The special is mostly a filmed version of a stage show Offerman had performed around the country, but when he starts singing a few song parodies, the home audience sees a sketch of him talking to a lawyer (played by Marc Evan Jackson) about the spoofs not being allowed in the special.

Like American Ham, Offerman's book is structured around a list of tongue-in-cheek guidelines to life. Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living might at first appear to be a self-help book, but it is very much an autobiography. It's not as chronological as most memoirs, though; for each chapter he picks a subject and uses it in a somewhat stream-of-consciousness way as he recounts moments in his life that fit the theme. He first talks about his upbringing in the rural midwest. Much of the middle of the book is devoted to his struggles and triumphs in the world of acting, which mainly occurred in the Defiant Theater in Chicago during and after he was in college. He then had the half-baked idea to pursue theater acting in Los Angeles, but of course found that his future lay in television and movies. It might surprise some readers that he has just as many pieces of advice about romance and sex as he does about woodworking and cuts of meat. Each chapter ends with a separate story that describes how he came upon the life lesson that he's imparting. For instance, he became a born-again Christian to get laid at a Jesus camp, and later he claims if you make your partner a homemade card, you're guaranteed to get lucky. I don't know how these incidents will sit with certain people, but hopefully anyone reading a book by a comedic actor will not take things overly seriously.

It is notable how much Offerman credits his family and upbringing for who he is, but he is also forthcoming about youthful mistakes that he made, in hopes that the reader will learn from them. He is also very praising of his wife of nearly 12 years. They met doing a play together and bonded over dirty jokes, and the chemistry between them is palpable whenever she shows up on Parks and Recreation as Ron's ex-wife.

I would recommend American Ham to every comedy fan, you'll get more out of it than jokes told from a stage. I would suggest reading Paddle Your Own Canoe if you'd like insight into Nick Offerman's life and background, or some advice about being a professional actor, but I caution that if you're hoping for behind-the-scenes info or gossip about Parks and Recreation, look elsewhere.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Kingsman: The Secret Service is a movie that delights in subverting your expectations at every turn. That subversion starts with the casting: Colin Firth plays a badass spy, Samuel L Jackson's character gets nauseous at the sight of violence, Marc Strong is helping the good guys, and Michael Caine... well to say anything about him would be saying too much.

According to Wikipedia, Kingsman is only loosely based on Mark Millar's comic (titled simply "The Secret Service) but his sensibility is all over it. Just like the last time Matthew Vaughn adapted a Millar story (2010's Kick-Ass) this movie would offend those with stomachs as weak as Sam Jackson's character, Richmond Valentine. There's a scene in a church that was especially hard to watch, even though the victims could be said to deserve it. Violence aside, the suggestion of kidnapped world leaders eventually agreeing with the motivation behind the villain's plan might be a shocking concept. It's even implied that our current president is involved, though we only see the back of his big-eared head. Apparently the original comic centered around the actual MI-6 agency, while the Kingsman service in the movie is funded independently from the government. This change might have been made to avoid litigation from Eon Productions, those behind the James Bond series. But they sure didn't have a problem pointing out within the script how similar all this is to that franchise.

This movie takes a lot of the familiarity of Bond movies and cranks up the edginess to the level of a well-deserved R-rating. While Bond's gunshots and fisticuffs are mostly bloodless, in Kingsman the violence is gory and in-your-face with its slick, stylish stuntwork. Where Bond would order his famous "vodka martini, shaken not stirred" the one martini order we hear from our protagonist is specified as "gin, not vodka, stirred for 10 seconds" and these gentleman spies largely prefer whiskey. And as for the point when Bond would intimately get to know one of his leading ladies after saving the world, let's just say Kingsman's leading man goes where no MI-6 agent has gone before. There are even moments when the hero and villain state what we think would usually happen in the given situation, but then remind us bluntly "This isn't that kind of movie." Well, it really isn't.

Kingsman borrows from movies other than the spy genre as well, but puts an original spin on the ideas. For instance, when the new recruits were being trained and whittled down, it kind of reminded me of Agent Jay's training in Men in Black, crossed with the culling of children in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The tasks that Eggsy barely passes demonstrate that he's just the right misfit for the job. Though certain twists at the end of that sequence again subvert expectations.

I was impressed to learn Firth did 80% of his own stunts. He has stated that he was chosen for the role of Harry Hart mainly because of how unlikely he seemed for that type. Newcomer Taron Egerton (now that I think about his last name I wonder if it's the reason his character is nicknamed Eggsy) was perfect for the role of the trainee and I can see this being his breakout into a lot of work in the future. Caine, Strong, and Jackson were all excellent as always, and as I said they play parts we haven't seen them do before. And I can't forget to mention Mark Hamill's fun cameo, which I'm sure was created because Hamill himself is a character in the comic book, though in the movie he's a professor of a different name.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is a well-directed, original action flick that might occasionally make you cringe but will definitely keep you guessing. If you always wished James Bond didn't have to be so "PG-13" all the time, this might be the movie you've been wanting.

Check out the official site for more information and an interactive game, or Fandango for tickets.

Do Not Link

Did you know that when you link to a website, regardless of the reason, this strengthens its position in search engines? It's not a bad thing when you are promoting something, but if you are warning users against something it can be more harmful than helpful!

This is where http://www.donotlink.com/ can help: you can freely link to the site without worrying about increasing it's prevalence in search engines! They even make it easy to use it without visiting their site every time:
http://www.donotlink.com/www.example.com/shady/stuff.html

So the next time you post warning folks away from it, use donotlink.

Note: if you are blogging on Blogger, Google also has a way to do this.