[Book] There There by Tommy Orange

Book cover I will start by noting that this book started slow for me.  It took me over two weeks to read the prologue up through the fourth chapter.  Once I passed that, I read the next 80% of the book in two days finishing on a third. Every character in this book is a Native American either from or converging on Oakland California.  There is a lot of exploration, especially among the young characters, of what it means to be Native in the city....

12 Dec 2018 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] I Am Not Famous Anymore by Erin Dorney

Subtitled, Poems after Shia LaBeouf, this is a short volume of erasure poems lifted from interviews with Shia LaBeouf.  Before this book, I had only seen erasure poetry in poster or postcard format.  Kitch, at it's best.  Also, I have very little patience for poetry.  I've read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and never completely read any of the song-poems that are scattered throughout those volumes. All of this leaves me quite surprised that I really enjoyed this book....

28 Nov 2018 · 1 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] A Guile of Dragons by James Enge

Book cover The book starts in a very promising place.  It offers a map.  All of my favorite fantasy novels have included a map, and this leaves me excited for a tale with some traveling.  The first very short chapter introduces some world building back-story, a short story about gods.  Then, on page 19 (or the third page of story) the novel lands in a fantasy space that I find very overused and tired....

14 Nov 2018 · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink

Google Cardboard is a Terrible Experience

Every time I ever try to do anything with Google cardboard - apart from the demo itself - the entire thing is a horrible experience. Take something that seems like it should be relatively common: VR video.  Go into cardboard (the app), request the VR video channel.  Find a video.  Start that video.  THEN hit the cardboard icon that will put it into cardboard mode.  Then pause it.  Put my phone into the cardboard-compatible viewer and hope it doesn't touch anything on the way in....

10 Nov 2018 · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink