Fan mail

Thursday night was rather epic as I sat in my bed reading Only In Death, the eleventh novel in the Gaunt's Ghosts series. The fourteenth chapter specifically was absolutely brilliant, and easily managed to reduced me to tears. I do often find a tear or two in my eye when watching or reading a particularly dramatic scene of sufficient quality, yet saddening events that affect me in real life seem to leave nothing but a depressing emotional void. But this chapter in particular brought many tears streaming down my face, manly tears I might add. I used this as motivation to finally send an email to Dan Abnett, something I have been meaning to do for years, just to tell him how much I love the books and how much of an inspiration he has been to me. I sat down the next day and began composing my email, which in the end came to 707 words, and then today I received my reply. It was only a single line of three very short sentences, but I'm just glad he read my email and was appreciative of what I had to say.
This is the second author I have written to, the first being Max Barry after having read Jennifer Government, and when I have finished Only In Death I plan to read Syrup, another of his novels of which I am highly anticipating. I think more people should write to authors whose work they have enjoyed, it is always nice to hear your work is appreciated, and if you convey it in a mature and sincere manner I'm sure it would be better than most of the "Oh my god your book is the best book in the whole entire world ever I want your babies marry me!" that many authors will no doubt receive.

I was planning on going to see the film Sweeney Todd with Nicola tomorrow, as the trailers looked pretty damn good. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall and even Sacha Baron Cohen make a up pretty fantastic leading cast. All the trailers lauded its release this Christmas, and I had read some comments on it floating around the internet, unfortunately they were all from Amerifags, and us Britfags have to wait until the end of the month to view the film.
At that point I considered going to St. Albans, a town not far away that is home to the closest Wagamama restaurant, which is a very successful chain of exquisite Japanese restaurants, and I always make sure to dine in the Leicester Square branch every time I go into London. Yet the lack of train lines to St. Albans quickly dashed that prospect, although I will make absolutely sure that will be our destination the first time I go for a drive with Nicola after securing my driving licence.
So our plans for tomorrow are to stay at home and watch Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, as she amazingly hasn't seen it! Needless to say I very much look forward to rectifying this atrocity.

I've still got the jones for roads. I bought the latest issue of Redline and ordered volume 7 of Initial D today, in between bouts of Forza 2, and tomorrow I'll be going for an early driving lesson. I can say I certainly haven't had as many driving lessons as I would've liked, the Christmas period was supposed to get quite a few in as my Dad was off work, but over the last three weeks I have only had one. Still, time flies and I'm sure I'll be drifting around semi-abandoned industrial estates in my Silvia before you know it.

I also ordered the fourth volume of the Gunslinger Girl manga today. Last time I checked I had the third and final volume, but 4chan illuminated me to the existence of nine volumes, six of which have been translated by ADV. I remember back when I hadn't really watched any anime or read any manga my brother (who originally introduced me to the style with the groundbreaking Akira) downloaded some of the anime, although it was subbed in Italian I could still enjoy the awesome intro, featuring some pretty sweet music from The Delgados. The anime's alright, but the manga'll only really do for me.

In other revelations Jericho has finally had a second series officially confirmed! I love Jericho with a burning passion and absolutely can't wait for it to pick up from the positively bed wettingly kick ass end to the first series.
It's one of those American series along the same lines of Lost, Prison Break, Heroes and Dexter, but even with an unknown cast and very stringent budget it still manages to set itself apart as something really special. It's a tragic shame that because of this lacking budget it is sorely overlooked by marauding masses that would maim and blind their own mother just to touch a piece of toilet paper used by Matthew Fox. Sorry, I just love Jericho, it has solidly added itself to the list of things to look forward to in 2008. I think I actually had a tiny little orgasm when I watched the preview video on the website for the first time, because it was something I really had to watch again.
I did however hear many months ago that the second series was initially only getting about eight episodes to 'see how it goes' in the ratings, which you can read as having eight episodes to give it an ending and shut up all the internutters that have been petitioning for the series' return, I can only hope that the outstanding efforts of the fans will be completely rewarding. But either way, confirmed is confirmed and I can be happy that I will be seeing more.