Perusing the science-fiction and fantasy section at bookstores as much as I have means that I've seen many books by Guy Gavriel Kay.  These books have always intrigued me and they've been perpetually on my list of fantasy books to read sometime.  A few weeks ago I finally bit the bullet and got The Summer Tree, the first book in the Fionavar trilogy. It wasn't what I was expecting but it wasn't bad. Based on comments I had read about Kay I was expecting something a bit more literary and Tolkienesque.  Instead, I found that the book was rather simple and even colloquial at times.  As I said, not bad, just not what I was expecting.

Ironman continues the Hollywood trend of making movies out of comic book characters. Without a doubt Ironman is the best comic book movie made to date.  Great characters and great story.  It probably helps that the cast includes such accomplished talents as Robert Downey Jr. and Gwenthyn Paltrow.  These two play their roles wonderfully and make the movie a treat.  Normally I'm not inclined to see a movie more than once but I'll be making an exception for this one.

 Who We Are is Lifehouse's third CD and it is amazing. Lifehouse has always had a distinctive sound which threatened to make all of their stuff sound the same.  In fact, their second CD, Stanley Climbfall, seemed to suffer from this problem. It sounded much like their debut album but without a hit song (Hanging By A Moment) to carry it.  Fortunately, with Who We Are Lifehouse has added new life to their sound.  They still have the distinctive vocals and guitars but there is more range.  The rock songs are rockier and the ballads are smoother.

Hyperion is one of those science fiction books that has been around forever (since the mid 80's) and I've never read.  I've seen it sitting on the bookstore shelves many times and it always looked interesting.  For some reason, though, I was led to believe that it was a futuristic retelling of Homer's Odyssey.  That was probably why it took so long for me to get to reading it.  I wanted to read The Odyssey first.  Now I see that the delay was unnecessary.  Hyperion is not a retelling of The Odyssey.  It is closer to a retelling of The Canterbury Tales but even that is not a very good comparison. 

The official book title is Microsoft XNA Game Studio 2.0: Learn Programming Now. As the title suggests, this book attempts to teach programming (in C#) using the XNA Game Studio environment.  The book works through several very basic games starting with simply coloring the entire screen a solid color and ending up with a "brickout" type game played with cheese, bread, and tomatoes. Each games introduces one or more new XNA concepts along with additional C# techniques. Already knowing C# meant that I could read through the book fairly quickly (it took me about 3 days) and pick out the XNA related topics.

Scarlet is the second book in Stephen Lawhead's King Raven Trilogy.  Just as with the first book in the series, Hood, this book is one of Lawhead's best.  The writing is easy going and accessible, the plot moves along at a good pace, and the characters are vivid and lifelike.  

Suppose you were a multi-millionaire music diva who has spent the last five years playing the most successful Las Vegas show ever.  Suppose also that virtually every album you have recorded has gone platinum and has had several top radio hits.  On top of all of that, suppose you had tens of millions of fans (literally) around the globe who would pay large sums of money to see you in person or buy another one of your releases.  In many ways it could be said that you had "everything" so what do you do next?  

Well, if you're Celine Dion then you take a chance and record a CD that is completely different than anything else you have ever done.  You create a CD that moves beyond the sappy love song ballads that were your mainstay for two decades and create songs with depth and maturity.  You explore new styles of music (light jazz, blues, rock, europop, etc.).  The result is "Taking Chances".  A superb CD.

Let me say right from the start that this was one of the best family movies I've seen in a while.  It was engaging, entertaining, and hilarious for the whole family.  Jack Black, as the voice of the Po, the weight challenged kung fu wanna be Panda, was perfect.  Black got it right.  For a family movie this is one not to miss this summer.