Blogocentric Formulations

I Can Dream About Kvothe

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SONG: "I Can Dream About You"
ARTIST: Dan Hartman
STATUS: Deceased (complications due to AIDS, 3/22/1994)
ALBUM: I Can Dream About You (1984)

It doesn't look like anyone figured out the remaining three artists of the "A Merit Badge Challenge!"  , and since I'm revealing one of the artists in this post, the challenge is officially over without a winner for the Foresight MB.

Most people will probably recognize Dan Hartman from either this song (#6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1983, also featured on the Streets of Fire soundtrack and more recently the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories video game soundtrack. He also had a hit song with "Free Ride" (performed by The Edgar Winter Group) which was was a Top 20 hit in 1973, eventually hitting #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 list. Although he didn't have much commercial success personally after that, he remained an active songwriter and producer, working with artists such as Tina Turner, Dusty Springfield, Joe Cocker, Bonnie Tyler, James Brown, and Steve Winwood.

Hartman was a private person, never married, and with no children. Even when friend and sometimes-collaborator Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood announced his own HIV status in 1991, Hartman kept his HIV status a secret, and didn't often discuss the fact that he was gay. He died in his home of an AIDS-related brain tumor just a year before his own cover of "Free Ride" was included on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie soundtrack.

To date the sales of all of Hartman's recordings, songwriting, productions, etc. exceed 50 million albums worldwide.

                   

PROMPT: Have you ever stood in line to buy a book on the first day of release? If so, which one? If not, would you ever?



As I get older, I find that I have a general aversion to standing in line for anything. I'm far more likely to wait a couple of weeks until the frenzy dies down or, at the very least, order something online (like books) or pre-order/reserve things (like iPhones and movie tickets) than just show up and camp outside a store until it opens. But if we're broadening this topic to "most eagerly anticipated" books, yes, there are quite a few that I am anxiously awaiting. The most desirable is probably The Doors of Stone, Patrick Rothfuss' third entry into his Kingkiller Chronicle series of fantasy novels... which is so far out in the future that Amazon doesn't even have a product page or a release date set up for it yet.

If you're a fantasy novel enthusiast and haven't yet read the first two installments of Kvothe's adventures, you are sorely missing out:

ASIN: 0756405890	The Name of the Wind Product Type: Book
	Amazon's Price: $ 9.99 Buy Now!

ASIN: 0000000000	Product Type:
	Amazon's Price: Price N/A Buy Now!

Mind you, these are not quick reads. The two books together, in trade paperback format (not even the tiny little mass market pages), weigh in at a combined 1,680 pages! Rothfuss even has a contest on his blog where users submit humorous or clever pictures of them reading his book. He received so many entries he had to break them up into categories, including this one   poking fun at how heavy the book is.

The series is amazing, but the first book was published way back in 2007, and the follow-up was published in 2011. The latest news is that they're shooting for a 2016 release, which means we're still at least a year and a half away from the conclusion to his trilogy. However, for those familiar with the series, there are actually two novellas that Rothfuss has or is soon to publish set in the same world. The first was a novella about the character Bast, which is featured in George R.R. Martin's new anthology:

ASIN: 0345537262	Rogues Product Type: Book
	Amazon's Price: $ 19.29 Buy Now!

And later this month, another novella centering on the character of Auri will be released as a standalone:

ASIN: 0756410436	The Slow Regard of Silent Things Product Type: Book
	Amazon's Price: $ 19.95 Buy Now!

I bought Rogues mostly for Rothfuss' story (although the additional stories by Scott Lynch, Gillian Flynn, Neil Gaiman, and Joe Abercrombie will also be a nice treat), and I'll probably buy The Slow Regard as soon as I finish the Bast story. I'm trying not to rush them, though, since I've got several months to wait until the next full book. *sigh*