Clade, by Mark Budz. I've read that this author has been compared to William Gibson, which I agree in thinking would be apt. Here's the trick, though - as was coined by a quote on the reverse of the novel, where Gibson was famous for being part of (or starting, even?) the cyberpunk subgenre, Budz has turned the driving themes that made such wonderful settings in novels such as Gibson's or Neil Stephenson's Snowcrash towards a different angle - 'biopunk.' That is, if one were to take the weaving of the semantics of technology and (dys)utopian from a cyberpunk story, and insert 'biology' instead of 'technology,' that might be an okay way of putting it. Or, from another angle, a slightly more punk and much more explicitly bio take of the characterstics of Ian Mcdonald's great novel Terminal Cafe. In any case, if you read this you'll probably be much more aware of smells and plant-life for a bit; that said, however, the novel is really more about the setting in the end than the plot.

Walk the Line, with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. I'd say this was a solidly good movie, though also a long and not exactly happy one. But it's certainly interesting, and the music's great, natch. Phoenix and Witherspoon acted and sang wonderfully, and were apparently uncannily like the real people according to my parents (my dad having having had breakfast with Cash and my mom having seen him and Carter in concert). I feel like I should have a lot more to say about this movie, but...at the same time, I don't think much has to be said about it. It's worth seeing if you're interested in Johnny Cash at all, and a generally good movie regardless.

fleurs, un papillon, et un arc-en-ciel