268 Pages Tagged “Science Fiction”

• Reviews (96)
• Writing (8)
• Blog Posts (164)

Reviews

• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ★★★★☆ Jules Verne (F.P. Walter Translation)
  Even though marine science and geology have passed it by, it’s still a gripping episodic adventure through a strange, hidden world of marvels.
• Automatic Noodle ★★★★★ Annalee Newitz
  A short but joyful tale of creating the future you want out of the present you’ve been stuck with, told by robots who would rather make noodles than war.
• Babylon 5: The Lost Tales ★★★⯪☆ It’s mixed. The first segment is essentially a bottle episode. The second is much stronger, and feels like a real return to Babylon 5
• Battlestar Galactica: The Plan ★★★⯪☆ Pulled together a consistent story from elements that were originally unconnected, but depended on the audience remembering the series and still felt like a clip show.
• The Birthday Of The World (And Other Stories) ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A collection of stories set in Le Guin’s Hainish universe, on worlds with vastly different gender relations. Plus a couple of stand-alone stories. Mostly ranging from good to great, with Solitude and Paradises Lost being my favorites of the batch.
• Calculating God ★★★★☆ Robert J. Sawyer
  What if there is scientific evidence out there for a supreme being, but to find it you have to correlate knowledge from multiple inhabited worlds across the galaxy?
• Changing Planes ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  Lighter than most Le Guin I’ve read, Changing Planes is a Gulliver’s Travels for the present era, the social satire made possible through interdimensional travel.
• City of Illusions ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  How can you be yourself when you don’t know who you really are? A story of isolation, adaptation, kindness, cruelty, trust and hope, and above all, how to piece together the truth (or at least pick out the lies) on a future, depopulated Earth.
• Cordwainer Smith: Short Fiction ★★★★☆ Paul Linebarger
  Three mid-century science-fiction stories about the future of war, space travel, symbiosis, and the dangers of cutting off your own humanity.
• The Defiant Agents Andre Norton
  An enjoyable space western with Apaches as the good guys, wrapped up in the cold war and tossing in the Golden Horde, a lost alien city and Russians with a mind-control ray.
• The Downloaded ★★★★☆ Robert J. Sawyer
  A short, fast tale of frozen people reawakening after the fall of civilization, built around the premise that you need to keep a frozen person’s consciousness active in VR, and there are very different reasons you might put people into cryo storage and a simulation. Not a lot of plot, mainly concepts and character studies.
• Eifelheim ★★★★☆ Michael Flynn
  Detailed and thoughtful exploration of first contact with aliens in the midst of the Black Death.
• Five Ways to Forgiveness ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  Five loosely-connected stories set in the final years of a color-based enslaving society, the war for liberation, and the messy aftermath.
• Flash Forward (TV Pilot) ★★★★★ The first episode of Flash Forward is one of the best-constructed pilot episodes I’ve seen in a long time, especially of an arc-driven series.
• FlashForward (Novel) ★★★★★ Robert J. Sawyer
  A fascinating exploration of time, destiny and free will after everyone on Earth gets a glimpse of the same moment 20 years in the future.
• Four-Day Planet ★★★☆☆ H. Beam Piper
  A fun frontier/sailing adventure, but nothing special. Sort of Moby Dick in space with everyone based out of a corrupt frontier town.
• Fuzzy Nation ★★★★★ John Scalzi
  Not sure it’s better, but it is more enjoyable than the original, with better characterization and less deus-ex-machina. Same overall story of colonization, corporate greed, enviromnental exploitation and who counts as people, but different enough to enjoy both.
• Fuzzy Sapiens ★★★★☆ H. Beam Piper
  Continuing the Mad Men approach to ecological space colonization, this sequel explores the growing pains of a company town becoming a democracy, a corporation losing its monopoly, and two species of people figuring out how to live together.
• Galactic Derelict ★★★☆☆ Andre Norton
  A decent outer space adventure from the anything-goes era of science fiction. The story drags a bit after it switches from time travel to space travel.
• Head On ★★★★★ John Scalzi
  The sequel to Lock In is a fast read with intriguing concepts, fun characters and an interesting mystery. This time locked-in FBI agent Chris Shane investigates the death of a locked-in athlete in a sport too extreme for human bodies, played with remotely-controlled robots.
• Heaven’s Vault ★★★★★ You play as an archaeologist, sailing among the moons of a habitable nebula linked by rivers, exploring ruins, interacting with townspeople, and translating ancient inscriptions. What starts as a simple quest to find a missing person ultimately reveals surprising truths about the history of the nebula and its people.
• Heaven’s Vault (Novels) ★★★★☆ Jon Ingold
  Aliya and the robot sail the Nebula, seeking clues to its history and future. The first two novels tell a story similar to the game, just different enough to feel new. Ancient writing appears throughout, sometimes translated and sometimes left for the reader. Book three picks up both after the game and long before, exploring a changed Nebula and the Loop.
• Interference ★★★★☆ Sue Burke
  An intriguing followup to Semiosis that weaves several drastically different sentient species (both plant and animal) into a story about factions, community, freedom, communication and war.
• Invasive ★★★★☆ Chuck Wendig
  Swarms of killer ants genetically altered to target humans are as much nightmare fuel as you would expect.
• The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport ★★★★★ Samit Basu
  Starts as a cyberpunk take on Aladdin and gleefully launches into a glorious mishmash of robots, legacies, secrets and political upheaval in a crumbling spaceport slowly sinking into the mud on a backwater planet.
• Jurassic Park (Movie) ★★★★★ Steven Spielberg
  The original Jurassic Park film is still great, more than 30 years later. The dinosaurs are still impressive, it’s well-paced and dramatic, and despite contemporary reviews, the characters are engaging.
• Justice (ST:TNG, Season 1) ★☆☆☆☆ Some old TV shows are better than you remember. Planet of the Jogging Bimbos…isn’t.
• The Kaiju Preservation Society ★★★★★ John Scalzi
  Escaping the pandemic by learning to survive on a world with gigantic monsters.
• Key Out Of Time ★★★★☆ Andre Norton
  Lost in time, lost in space, out of their depth, a handful of humans are caught in the middle of a four-way power struggle on the high seas of an alien world.
• The Lathe of Heaven ★★★★★ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A surreal tale of dreams changing reality, global stakes anchored by the three people involved. Be careful what you wish for.
• Little Fuzzy ★★★★☆ H. Beam Piper
  An enjoyable tale of first contact, colonialism, environmental stewardship, corporate greed vs. ethics, and most importantly, who counts as “people” on an alien world that turns out not to be uninhabited after all.
• Mrs. Davis ★★★★★ A friendly world-dominating AI vs. a surly nun. A tale of our dependence on technology and the lengths people will go to feel appreciated, wrapped in the weirdest take on the Holy Grail I’ve ever seen. Seriously absurd, and occasionally absurdly serious.
• Murderbot Season 1 ★★★★★ A pitch-perfect adaptation of All Systems Red. Alexander Skarsgård is dead on as the socially-anxious security cyborg who just wants to be left alone to watch its shows, but has to protect its humans from alien creatures, their own naivete, and rival corporations willing to kill.
• Mysterious Galaxy ★★★★★ Bookstore specializing in sci-fi and mysteries, involved in local community and conventions.
• New Spring (Comic Book) #1 The first issue of the New Spring comic book was surprisingly good.
• New Spring (Comics): The Long Publishing Saga It’s taken a long time (and three publishers) to complete this adaptation of the Wheel of Time prequel, even though it only covered eight standard-sized comic books
• No Man’s Sky ★★★★★ Open-ended, self-directed sandbox game of exploring space. Amazing graphics. Gameplay switches smoothly between solo and multiplayer modes.
• Nomad of the Time Streams ★★★⯪☆ Michael Moorcock
  A 19th-century British soldier in India is flung into three wildly different future wars, forcing him to reexamine the world he thought he was building.
• The Old Iron Dream ★★★★★ David Forbes
  An extended essay tracing the strand of military authoritarianism and white male supremacy in science fiction, from John Campbell through Heinlein, Pournelle and other major names up through the then-present of 2013.
• Outer Wilds ★★★★★ A fascinating game of discovery in a finely-crafted, tiny solar system trapped in a time loop. In a ship made of plywood, sheet metal and duct tape. Where you can roast marshmallows on every planet.
• The Outer Worlds ★★★★★ Immersive space RPG that at once satirizes corporate control while asking you to make hard choices within it.
• Overgrowth ★★★⯪☆ Mira Grant
  Invasion of the Body Snatchers from the POV of an alien plant person who grew up human. Now the invasion has started, and she’s sorting out friends, family, and who she can trust from either planet.
• Parable of the Sower ★★★★★ Octavia Butler
  Hard to put down. And hard to pick up again. It’s certainly not a fun book, but it’s extremely engaging, despite the bleakness of the slow-apocalypse setting and story.
• Paradise The ST:DS9 episode “Paradise” tries to make a point about self-reliance without technology, but misses the mark by not actually showing any benefits.
• Paradises Lost ★★★★★ Ursula K. Le Guin
  An intricate novella about the middle generations of a multi-generational spaceship, and the religion they’ve developed that believes nothing outside the ship is real, and both Earth and their destination are myths.
• People of the Crater ★★★☆☆ Andre Norton
  Standard fantasy rescue-the-princess adventure with sci-fi trappings, nodding vaguely toward Hollow Earth tropes.
• Planet of Exile ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A tighter story than Rocannon’s World, with better-drawn characters, and more ambitious in its worldbuilding and themes.
• Quantum Night ★★★★☆ Robert J. Sawyer
  Intriguing premise, well explored: Quantum entanglement, psychopaths, and mob behavior. Can we reboot humanity amid a rising tide of xenophobia?
• Ready Player One (Book) ★★★☆☆ Ernest Cline
  Back when I read it, the nostalgia and scavenger hunt were enough for me. Now, not so much.
• Ready Player One (Movie) ★★★★☆ Steven Spielberg
  Better than I expected, having soured on the book by the time it came out. Not a straight adaptation so much as a rewrite of the same premise that’s more character-driven and yes, more cinematic. With Spielberg.
• Rocannon’s World ★★★☆☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A serviceable quest story that melds fantasy and sci-fi. Engaging enough, but I’d only recommend it to someone who’s read her later work.
• Semiosis ★★★★★ Sue Burke
  A fascinating take on space colonization, intelligence, and language, following multiple generations of humans on a world dominated by sapient plants.
• Short Circuit ★★★★☆ The comedy about a robot coming to life and the humans trying to catch him or help him escape holds up better than I expected.
• Solitude ★★★★★ Ursula K. Le Guin
  The people of Eleven-Soro live alone except for a bare minimum of human interaction. But what is that bare minimum, and what does it mean for people who avoid all other contact?
• Solo: A Star Wars Story ★★★☆☆ Solo isn’t high art, and it’s got some rough edges, but it’s a fun ride.
• Space Oddity ★★★★⯪ Catherynne Valente
  Not quite as fun as the first book, but it’s just as absurd and chaotic, and exactly what I needed in the weeks leading up to the 2024 election.
• Space Opera ★★★★★ Catherynne Valente
  Fun sci-fi social satire from Catherynne Valente. The world is a mess, but we can find the sublime in chaos.
• Stan Lee’s Starborn Stan Lee, Chris Roberson and Khary Randolph
  An unpublished writer discovers that the science fiction saga he’s been building since childhood is actually very, very real. And it wants him dead.
• Star Born ★★★★★ Andre Norton
  An adventure woven through the post-war struggles of an alien world, with humans caught on both sides, exploring identity, colonialism and prejudice. Definitely worth the read.
• Star Hunter ★★★☆☆ Andre Norton
  A standard survival adventure with mismatched partners and ruthless rivals, only with weird stuff going on and in space.
• Star Trek (2009 Movie) ★★★★☆
• Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 ★★★★☆ Star Trek with the pace of Farscape, weaving through existing lore and focused on one crew member’s quest for redemption.
• Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 ★★★☆☆ The stand-alone episodes are good, and the Burnham/Spock family dynamics, but the main arc gets really frustrating in the second half.
• Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3 ★★★★☆ I liked Season 3 a lot better than season 2. It finally got to be its own Trek. And they did some really interesting things with the future of the 'verse and how the Discovery crew adapted to it.
• Star Trek: Discovery - Season 4 ★★★★☆ Burnham comes into her own as captain, the Federation faces a large-scale scientific hazard, and people make disastrously bad choices, along with some cool xenoarchaeology and a fascinating first contact with aliens who are very much not human.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks ★★★★★ Hilarious self-parody of TNG-era Star Trek. Funny on its own, but even better if you know the shows it’s riffing on.
• Star Trek: Picard - Season 1 ★★★⯪☆ I have mixed feelings about the first season of Picard. But later seasons have given me a new appreciation for it.
• Star Trek: Picard - Season 2 ★★★☆☆ Hard to pin down, with a weird start, then a few good time travel episodes, before throwing in not just the kitchen sink but everything in the sink.
• Star Trek: Picard - Season 3 ★★☆☆☆ If season one was like The Last Jedi, this is The Rise of Skywalker, complete with gratuitously resurrected villains, young characters freaking out about their genetics, a family/found family theme that only sort of makes sense, and a galactic-level threat that can only be defeated by taking out that one resurrected villain.
• Star Trek: Section 31 ★★☆☆☆ As a Star Trek pilot it’s merely OK. As a stand-alone movie, it’s a mess. It could have been retooled as a good heist film, but wasn’t.
• Star Wars: Andor - Season One ★★★★☆ A more serious take on Star Wars, with a bit more personal scope showing how oppression grinds people down, and what sacrifices rebellion can require.
• Star Wars: Attack of the Clones ★★★☆☆ I think it’s the weakest of the prequels and of the six that George Lucas was actually involved in.
• Star Wars: Dark Forces (Remastered) - First Impressions ★★★★☆ The remastered Dark Forces is the game you remember playing back in the day, not the game you actually played.
• Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett ★★★☆☆ The flashbacks were great! But I couldn’t get into the present-day story.
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi ★★★★☆ The performances are way better than most of the prequel trilogy, and the story is the first theatrical Star Wars to break new ground in ages.
• Star Wars: The Phantom Menace ★★★★☆ Better than I remember. It’s well constructed, and there are incredible subtleties and thematic elements hidden among the flashy (and cheesy) A-plot.
• Stellaris - First Impressions ★★★★☆ An empire-building game, like Heroes of Might and Magic in Space, but more complicated, with diplomacy, espionage and alliances along with base building and battles.
• Subspace Rhapsody ★★★★⯪ The first time through my reaction was: OK, that was fun. The second time I really appreciated the way it was put together and immediately went looking for the soundtrack.
• Tales From The Bully Pulpit ★★★★★ Benito Cereno and Graeme MacDonald
  A sci-fi comedy graphic novel featuring a time-traveling Teddy Roosevelt and the ghost of Thomas Edison, battling a descendant of Adolf Hitler. On Mars. Wearing mecha armor.
• The Telling ★★★★★ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A thoughtful tale of discovery, as an observer from Earth struggles to find and understand fragments of the lost cultures hidden beneath a society that’s thrown away its past in favor of a single vision.
• The Three-Body Problem (Book) ★★★★☆ Liu Cixin, Ken Liu (Translator)
  Not a proper review of the book, but a collection of comments I made while reading it back in 2018.
• Time Breakers ★★★★☆ Rachel Pollack and Chris Weston
  This comic book from the 1990s flips the familiar time-cop trope on its head: Instead of protecting time from paradoxes, the protagonists are trying to create more paradoxes, convinced that the very existence of life depends on it.
• The Time Machine ★★★★☆ H.G. Wells
  A bit dry, but it draws you in, and if the plot is simple, it’s enough to wrap around some thought-provoking speculation about the future of humanity - and a critique of industrial society.
• The Time Ships ★★★⯪☆ Stephen Baxter
  A sequel to H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine that drastically expands the scope across multiple timelines, from the dawn of time to the far future seen in the original. Now with Dyson spheres, nanobots, and a seemingly endless war that can only be stopped in the past.
• The Time Traders ★★★★☆ Andre Norton
  A fun time-travel spy thriller through the bronze age that’s very rooted in the cold war.
• Tin Man ★★★☆☆ The Wizard of Oz meets The Dark Crystal by way of 1930s scifi was fascinating as a concept, but they managed to make it dull and tedious.
• Transformers (Movie) ★★★☆☆ Better constructed than I expected, with impressive effects, plausible story logic, but a lot of the humor is forced and it feels like they missed the big picture in trying to get the details right.
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ★☆☆☆☆ In some ways it wasn’t as awful as I’d heard, and in some ways it was worse. I’m glad I waited for the second-run showing and only spent $1.75.
• Triggers ★★★☆☆ Robert J. Sawyer
  It’s an interesting take on memory and identity, but not one of Sawyer’s best.
• Unofficial Trilogy of Cheese The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Van Helsing, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow should make a trilogy of sorts.
• Usurpation ★★★★☆ Sue Burke
  A different sort of book than Semiosis and Interference, taking place entirely on Earth long after the second Pax expedition returns. Can the bamboo keep humans’ chaotic conflicts in check? Where do the robots fit in? With so many forms of intelligence, who counts as a person, anyway?
• Vaster Than Empires And More Slow ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  An intriguing story of a dysfunctional crew dealing with each other and a planet that, at first glance, appears to have no sentient life, only plants.
• When The Moon Hits Your Eye ★★★★☆ John Scalzi
  A fast, enjoyable read with a few gut punches hidden throughout. Not so much about the moon turning into cheese as how lots of different people react to the moon turning into cheese.
• The Wind’s Twelve Quarters ★★★★⯪ Ursula K. Le Guin
  A collection of short stories from early in Le Guin’s career, spanning her first sale through the time when she’d begun to be recognized as a major force in the genre.
• The Word for World is Forest ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  Infuriating to read…and that’s the point. A story of colonial exploitation, asymmetric warfare, dehumanization and environmental destruction.
• Worlds of Exile and Illusion ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
  Interesting to see Le Guin as she’s developing her craft. Not the best place to start with her work, but absolutely worth reading.

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Writing

• Auron Survivors Servalan, as Sleer, has once again become Supreme Commander, her Project Turnabout proceeding on schedule. Avon, suspecting Cally might still be alive, seeks answers from the Auron refugees.
• Blake’s 7: Return to Action A Post-Gauda Prime fan story in the Blakes 7 universe, following the Scorpio crew as they escape Gauda Prime and forge alliances with other rebels.
• Breakdown Rebellion breaks out on Gauda Prime as the President visits to inspect Project Turnabout, and Avon and Darya fight to the death on the battlefied of Avon's subconcsious.
• Escape The Scorpio crew has been captured, and Servalan reveals her plans for Gauda Prime.
• The Hunted Become the Hunters As the crew flees Gauda Prime, old allies become enmeshed in the Federation's plans.
• Resurrections An old enemy returns, bent on destroying Avon and anyone who stands with him. The resistance gathers its forces, and Avon discovers the truth about Dorian and their year with the Scorpio.
• Reunion The crew are reunited with Cally as unrest develops on Gauda Prime, and the new Supreme commander learns unsettling news from the President.
• Search and Seizure Project Turnabout's star subject heads into action, and Avon's search for Cally takes them back to Terminal.

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Blog Posts

• We Have Met The Ferengi, And They Are US

  We finished re-watching Deep Space Nine a few days ago. Quark’s rants in the second-to-last episode about rolling back the reforms regarding gender and worker protections, complaining that Ferengi society has been infected by a disease, and declaring that if he becomes Nagus he’ll bring back what made Ferenginar great again sound eerily familiar. There’s […]

  (Jan 2026)
• Avatar and Manta’s Gift

  This is kind of funny. When I watched the movie Avatar way back in 2009, I was struck by the similarity of the premise to Timothy Zahn’s 2002 novel Manta’s Gift: The main character, a human who’s suffered a severely disabling injury, is offered the chance to place his consciousness into an alien body and […]

  (Nov 2025)
• Eclipses and World Building

  I can go with your scifi/fantasy story’s super-impossible thing being associated with an eclipse. It’s activating or deactivating people’s super-powers? Sure! Certain magic spells can only be cast during an eclipse? Sure! The moon transforms into cheese? OK, whatever. (pun not intended) But please, please get the basic mechanics right!

  (Jul 2025)
• Ursula K. Le Guin eBook Bundle (Ended)

  Humble Bundle is offering 30 books* by Ursula K. Le Guin supporting the Literary Arts charity, including all of Earthsea, several Hainish novels, Catwings, short stories, Gifts/Voices/Powers, nonfiction writing… I’ve read the Earthsea series (good-to-great) and most of the Hainish novels (some great, some good, some OK), plus Lathe of Heaven (great), and I’ve got […]

  (Nov 2024)
• Striking the Crowd

  Today I found myself thinking of Terminator 3, specifically the plotline in which all kinds of random computer crashes are spreading across the internet. For obvious reasons. In today’s real world incident, it’s a bug in an auto-pushed update for widely-used security software by CrowdStrike, ironically used to protect mission-critical systems. In the two-decade-old movie […]

  (Jul 2024)
• Saucer Country is finally complete!

  I really enjoyed the original run (Saucer Country) at Vertigo and the second run at IDW (Saucer State)…that ended on a cliffhanger, and I’m really looking forward to being able to read the conclusion! Saucer Country is a dark thriller that blends UFO lore and alien abduction with political intrigue, all set in the hauntingly […]

  (Jan 2024)
• Catching up on Recent Trek

  We ended up not watching Star Trek: Discovery when it launched because we didn’t want to add another streaming service at the time. Same with Picard. Sometime during the last two years we ended up adding Paramount+ (or whatever it was called at the time) for some reason, and earlier this year we decided to […]

  (Jun 2022)
• New Year’s Eve: 2019 vs 2020

  Stay safe tonight.

  (Dec 2020)
• Whale Call

  Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home holds up better than I thought it would. At the end, I found myself trying to imagine the conversation between the whales and the probe. Probably something like this…

  (Nov 2020)
• Murder Hornets? Really?

  Remember the opening from the 1980s Flash Gordon, where the villain has a dashboard with buttons labeled with various disasters? He used it like a sound effects board: Press the Earthquake button and it would trigger an earthquake. Press the Hurricane button and trigger a hurricane. Press the freaking Hot Hail button and it would […]

  (May 2020)
• What do you think’s in the pizzas?

  This place often posts movie and TV quotes on its marquee, but sometimes their choices are a little…odd. #ToServeMan

  (Feb 2020)
• Time Gate

  When did they install the Guardian of Forever at this park?

  (Feb 2020)
• The Rise of Skywalker vs. the Other Star Wars Sequels (spoilers)

  I saw The Rise of Skywalker last week, and I’ve had some thoughts bouncing around in my head for a while. I think it’s been long enough. So, to start with, let’s look at the major themes of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. The Force Awakens: There will always be a new generation of fascists, […]

  (Dec 2019)
• Cloud City Princess Leia Hairstyle

  May the Fourth Be With You! @CasualCosplayKatie: Easiest #princessleiahair by a long shot. Now with full ‘bound outfit (even if I’m not bound anywhere today)!

  (May 2019)
• Going Mirrorless: WonderCon 2019 Cosplay Photography

  Last fall, I conceded that phones have caught up to casual cameras and I’d have to get a nicer one to get better image quality. Well, I finally bought a mirrorless camera. The kiddo found my old SLR, and we’ve split a few rolls of film (re)discovering how to shoot with it. Then he started […]

  (Apr 2019)
• I made my final post on Google+ yesterday

  “Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future … and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future … or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, because if we […]

  (Apr 2019)
• Cloudy with a Chance of…

  Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (movie): New tech leads to an economic boom, but politics and greed conspire to ignore warnings from a scientist about the long-term dangers of this man-made climate change until disaster strikes. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2: A tech company without ethics is run by a nerd who […]

  (May 2018)
• LOST, but Not in Purgatory

  People are still arguing over whether the Lost castaways were “in purgatory the whole time?” The finale was very clear on that: everything on the island happened. The afterlife didn’t come into play until the final season. That last season featured glimpses of what looked at first like an alternate timeline in which the plane […]

  (May 2018)
• Catching Up on Two Years of Comics

  Last night, I did something I haven’t done in ages: I read a bunch of this week’s new comics. Over the last two years I’ve gotten behind on just about every comic book I read, and the further behind I get, the harder it is for me to catch up. (Making things worse: I stopped […]

  (Sep 2017)
• Predictive Frameshift

  I’ve been thinking a lot about Robert J. Sawyer’s Quantum Night the last few months. It links human cruelty, psychopathy, and mob behavior to the nature of consciousness, mostly focusing on the main characters but playing out against a global crisis brought on by a rising tide of xenophobia. More recently, I’ve been thinking about […]

  (May 2017)
• Rogue One (Star Wars) and Imperial IT (SPOILERS!)

  Spoilery thoughts on Star Wars’ IT practices and where the Rogue One characters actually find the Death Star plans.

  (Dec 2016)
• Newsflesh: Worst Case Zombies, Best Case Survival

  Mira Grant’s Newsflesh features the worst-case scenario of zombie design, yet humanity survives with civilization mostly intact.That’s really optimistic.

  (Oct 2016)
• Still amused whenever I pull Order 66 (Oct 2016)
• Why Kilgrave’s Power is Scarier than a Jedi Mind Trick

  It’s not just that Kilgrave’s a sociopath and Jedi are compassionate. The Sith aren’t known for mercy, but Force users’ mind control has limits.

  (Dec 2015)
• Do Not Taunt the Octopus

  Some thoughts on Mira Grant’s latest Newsflesh novella exploring the post-zombie world, and some parallels to Scalzi’s Lock-In.

  (Jul 2015)
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Finally. It should have gone to bed earlier.)

  Let’s face it: This is the first live-action Star Wars movie in ten years, and it reunites the original cast on screen for the first time in thirty. Nobody *really* cares what it’s called.

  (Nov 2014)
• Order 66, Extra Crispy

  Appropriately, the kiddo was wearing his Darth Vader shirt.

  (Oct 2014)
• Comic-Con 2014 – Now That’s Better! (Writeup, Photos and Cosplay)

  We managed to do a lot more of what we planned at SDCC this year, from signings to swag to media events…and even got in on the cosplay scene.

  (Aug 2014)
• Empire Strikes Back (Hoth) Leia Hairstyle

  Katie decided to go with an Empire Strikes Back Leia hairstyle this year.

  (May 2014)
• Vorlon in Wonderland

  The caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland is totally a Vorlon. He’s always asking “Who are you?”, has a short temper, speaks cryptically…

  (Jan 2014)
• Party like it’s 1977…

  Believe it or not, the record player is new. It turns out there’s a whole subset of the toy market for retro toys. It’s a bit different under the hood – I’ve had to fix it once already, and it’s actually chip-driven, not classic music box works. I figure it’s probably cheaper these days to […]

  (May 2013)
• May the Fourth Be With You (May 2013)
• Les Mis Break: From Paris to Mars for Red Planet Blues

  This week I’m taking a break from my epic Les Miserables re-read for Robert J Sawyer’s latest, Red Planet Blues: a sci-fi hard-boiled detective yarn. Talk about contrast.

  (Apr 2013)
• How The Hobbit Will (and Won’t) be Like the Star Wars Prequels

  A visionary director returns to his high-profile trilogy years later with a prequel in which some of the same characters establish key elements of the original backstory. Hmm….

  (Dec 2012)
• The Saga and the Franchise

  I suppose it’s silly, but after thinking about it for a bit, what really bothers me about the Lucasfilm/Disney deal is that by continuing the movie series with Episodes 7-9, they are undermining the distinction between the Star Wars saga and the Star Wars franchise. Originally posted on Facebook

  (Oct 2012)
• I knew those looked familiar!

  These are the voyages of the starship Epinephrine. Please help support its continuing mission.

  (Oct 2012)
• Chicon 7: Something for Everyone at Chicago’s Worldcon

  Chicon put on a great scifi/fantasy convention this year, proving that there’s still life in the genre. Plus it was fun to visit Chicago for the first time.

  (Oct 2012)
• Car Trek

  License plate spotted today: ★TREK11

  (Dec 2011)
• Cynicism in DS9 vs. B5

  In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, Accession, an ancient Bajoran ship comes out of the wormhole with a single passenger who claims HE is the Emissary of the Prophets.

  (Jun 2011)
• What the Hell Happened To Crusade: What the Hell Happened?

  I stumbled on “Crusade: What the Hell Happened? vol.1” while packing, and wondered what happened to book 2. Apparently I’m not the only one wondering that.

  (Mar 2011)
• Boba’s Long-Lost Cousin?

  I keep passing this sign on the way home from work on nights that I take the 405. After a lifetime of Star Wars, my brain really wants to rearrange the double letters.

  (Feb 2011)
• (Mad) Scientific Fact: The Girl Genius Novel is Out!

  Phil & Kaja Foglio’s Agatha H. and the Airship City adapts the first storyline from their award-winning Girl Genius comic series to prose novel form.

  (Jan 2011)
• TRON

  Just watched TRON: Legacy. Realized the plot of the first movie can be summarized as “Information wants to be free.”

  (Jan 2011)
• Obvious Transformers Knockoff is Obvious

  It’s not quite as good a title as Transmorphers, but seriously: look at that logo! It’s a dead ringer for Transformers: Armada, down to the extra capital letter.

  (Nov 2010)
• Links: 1.0 Releases, Sci-Fi and Science Fact, The Missile that Wasn’t

  Matt Mullenweg on Apple, WordPress & tech release strategy. 1.0 Is the Loneliest Number Robert J. Sawyer on the relationship between science fiction and science fact: The job of sci-fi isn’t to predict “THE future,” but “to suggest a smorgasbord of possible futures, so that society may choose the one it wants.” Mystery California missile […]

  (Nov 2010)
• Links! Alarms, Ghosts of History, Firefly Trek, WW2 Star Wars & More

  Hazards of too many alarms; Merging historical and modern photos; Computer lightning safety; Allergies, Star Wars as World War II; Firefly as Star Trek, SMBC’s Logogeneplex.

  (Aug 2010)
• Links: Identity, Kindle, Language, and the Moon

  Linkblogging: Privacy in terms of identity. The new Kindle. The future of old-timey language. Geek Merit Badges. The Moon Hoax debunked as a comic.

  (Jul 2010)
• Comic-Con Quotes: Twisting Genres

  Authors China Mieville, Naomi Novik, Scott Westerfeld, Daryl Gregory and more discuss mixing things up with books that defy classification.

  (Jul 2010)
• SDCC, Universal, and Not-Produced-Here Syndrome

  It’s funny how some companies will go out of their way to avoid acknowledging the competition. Does anyone really think that the Comic-Con audience will best remember Sigourney Weaver for a supporting role in Baby Mama?

  (Jul 2010)
• A Day at Westercon 63: Confirmation

  Smaller than the typical media event that comic cons have become, Westercon provides a more literary approach to sci-fi and fantasy fandom.

  (Jul 2010)
• National Park Service vs. Robots From Space

  A 2009 turn-off-your-phone PSA featured a movie production trying to arrange blowing up Mount Rushmore with the NPS. Now, a Transformers movie is trying to arrange with the NPS to use the National Mall for things that ‘simply are not done.’

  (Jun 2010)
• Spaceballs: The Beer

  The latest seasonal beer at Oggi’s* is The Schwartz, a Belgian IPA. And just in case the “May the Schwartz Be With You” tagline wasn’t clear enough…well, check out the poster: Sorry about the image quality. I wasn’t sampling the brew, it’s just the phone camera in low lighting. *Oggi’s (pronounced OH-jeez) is a chain […]

  (May 2010)
• Farewell to FlashForward, Heroes & Better Off Ted

  So, the last few TV shows I was waiting to hear about have been officially canceled. FlashForward is two episodes away from its season — now series — finale. I’ll miss it a little, but I think I’ll miss what it could have been a lot more than I’ll miss what it actually was. The […]

  (May 2010)
• LOST Commercials Explained

  Theory on LOST’s weird commercials: They figure anyone still watching doesn’t need to be convinced, so they might as well have fun.

  (Apr 2010)
• Officebot

  New design for Optimus Prime? Or maybe that should be Office-mus Prime.

  (Mar 2010)
• Whatever Happened to B5: Crusade?

  Ever since J. Michael Straczynski started selling his Babylon 5 script book series, I’ve been hoping we’d get a book with the scripts from the spinoff Crusade. Especially the scripts that were finished, but never produced, and would have set up the real story. That whole thing about finding a cure for the Drakh plague […]

  (Feb 2010)
• Pon Farr Perfume

  In honor of Valentine’s Day, check out this bizarre sight we found at (of all places) Borders a while back: Yes, it’s Star Trek perfume inspired by the Vulcan mating urge. But, wait, there’s more! Apparently, they want you to believe that Starfleet Medical has isolated the factor that made Captain James T. Kirk a […]

  (Feb 2010)
• LOST: Return to LA

  It’s off to a good start. They made a cosmic reset button work as a story device, explained some things, and set up an intriguing direction for the final arc.

  (Feb 2010)
• New Year’s Eve & Avatar

  10 years ago I had just started working at an Internet provider and was very glad they didn’t want me in the server room at midnight for Y2K. I just ordered tickets to Avatar in IMAX 3D. It actually *was* cheaper to see Xanadu on stage, even including parking! Made it into Avatar. Got surprisingly […]

  (Dec 2009)
• Star Wars Band Names

  Take the name of a real band and alter it to make it a Star Wars reference.

  (Nov 2009)
• Found Shell Beach

  Listening to the Dark City soundtrack while scanning a roll of old photos. Just picked up a photo of the sign for Shell Beach.

  (Nov 2009)
• Geeky Pumpkins of Halloweens Past

  I’m not much of a pumpkin carver myself, but Katie likes to get creative. Here are some Jack-O-Lanterns she’s done, inspired by science fiction, fantasy, comics and games. From 2003… Gourdzilla! Inspired by a Grand Ave. strip earlier that week. Also, Aeryn Sun from Farscape! More about these: 2003 Halloween Madness From 2005… Puzzle Pirates’ […]

  (Oct 2009)
• Droidmark

  I wonder if Lucasfilm will try to assert trademark over the Motorola/Verizon Droid?

  (Oct 2009)
• Sci-Fi Remakes

  There was a meme running through Twitter today to come up with movie titles for #scifiremakes. Here are my contributions. Shaka Sulu Schindler’s Arcology Obi-Wan Hur Droids on the Side Shuttlecraft 54, Where Are You?

  (Oct 2009)
• Star Wars Holiday: So Bad It’s Worse

  XKCD on the Star Wars Holiday Special True. Absolutely true. Update: It’s true. All of it.

  (Oct 2009)
• Most Disturbing Use of an Alarm Clock

  And the award for Most Disturbing Use of an Alarm Clock in a Prime Time Show goes to… FlashForward! I got a weird kick out of recognizing it as Clocky (before the disturbing part).

  (Oct 2009)
• Rereading FlashForward

  I’ve been re-reading Robert J. Sawyer’s original Flashforward novel…for obvious reasons. It’s been interesting to compare the TV adaptation…

  (Oct 2009)
• Optimus Prime(s)

  Realized why the Japanese name for Optimus Prime bugs me: “Convoy” implies more than one vehicle. Maybe it’s a translation issue?

  (Oct 2009)
• About Those Robots…

  I don’t know how I missed this easter egg before: In Firefox, type about:robots into the location bar. (via @Aeire & @IsobelWren) If you’re a science fiction fan, you’ll get a kick out of it!

  (Sep 2009)
• Arctic Lairs

  Ah, the Onion! Melting Ice Caps Expose Hundreds of Secret Arctic Lairs. I’m trying to remember whether Dr. Impossible had an arctic base.

  (Sep 2009)
• Second-Best. Ripoff. Title. Ever!

  From the makers of Alien vs. Hunter and Snakes on a Train, it’s Transmorphers: Fall of Man.

  (Sep 2009)
• Competing Clanks

  Standing in the movie theater lobby, listening to competing CLANKing from Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation.

  (Aug 2009)
• Cyborgs: Terminator Salvation and Surrogates

  Finally got out to see Terminator: Salvation at the second-run theater. It was a passable action flick, though a bit overblown and tedious at times. I thought it was better than T3: Rise of the Machines, at least. T3 was too caught up in repeating the first two movies (a Terminator is sent back in […]

  (Aug 2009)
• Flash Forward Looks Incredible (Comic-Con)

  They showed 2 acts of the pilot at Comic-Con, and it looks great. Different from the book, but they’re adapting the concept, not the story.

  (Aug 2009)
• Mad Science: The Science Behind Science-Fiction – Fringe, Eureka! and Caprica

  Sci-Fi show reps talk about horror, space, killer robots, undead legal testimony, and the implied “don’t try this at home” factor with Walter Bishop.

  (Jul 2009)
• Stalker Watch, Immortality, Fast Food Crossover

  Spam subject: “Your watch will find you no matter where you are.” What if I don’t want Stalker Watch to follow me around? @BadAstronomer writes a short-short story: Beware of what you wish for… Immortality is boring. Waiting for food at Rubio’s. Employees are trying to get the lyrics straight for the latest Jack-In-the-Box commercial.

  (Jul 2009)
• Why, the NERV!

  Spam from “Gendo Ikari” selling lava lamps. The mind boggles. Edit: I guess that orange goo in the finale wasn’t Tang after all.

  (Jun 2009)
• Casablanca…IN SPACE!

  Babylon 5 has been described as Casablanca in space, so it was weird to catch an episode of Deep Space Nine that really *was* Casablanca in space.

  (Jun 2009)
• Crossover Names

  Have you ever run into a name that you can’t help associating with a completely different context? Like when people realize that one guy in Office Space is named Michael Bolton? Or when you look at “AD&D,” and instead of “Accidental Death and Dismemberment” your first thought is “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons?” Yeah. Especially in […]

  (May 2009)
• TV Shows: End of Spring Status

  A quick look at TV shows we’ve been watching this season. Lost – Good season, learned a lot more than I expected about DHARMA, major cliffhanger. Renewed for a final season…in 2010. (Hard to believe that’s less than a year away) Pushing Daisies – managed to maintain the tone & quality, but canceled halfway through […]

  (May 2009)
• Drazi Peeps

  Green! Purple! (For an explanation, read up on the Drazi effect.)

  (May 2009)
• S. Darko

  Good grief. Donnie Darko direct-to-DVD sequel comes out tomorrow. I liked the original, but nothing in it demanded a sequel.

  (May 2009)
• Cardassian Reality TV

  Every time I hear an ad for “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” It sounds like “Keeping Up With the Cardassians” Does the Star Trek universe have reality shows?

  (May 2009)
• Zap, Tom said shockingly

  Weird: Apparently Tasers were named for a Tom Swift invention, as in “Thomas A. Swift’s electric rifle.”

  (May 2009)
• Not So Farscape

  This logo really reminds me of the Farscape logo. It’s not the same font, but it’s close enough to evoke the same feel.

  (Apr 2009)
• Lol Lol Binks

  Jar-Jar Binks speaks LOLCat – or rather LOLcats speak Gungan. — (Katie on rewatching Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace)

  (Apr 2009)
• Star Wars Disaster Movie

  Is that the one in which millions of voices suddenly cry out in terror, and are suddenly silenced?

  (Mar 2009)
• Battlestar Galacticake

  BSG Cake – Angled, originally uploaded by alenxa. For last night’s BSG finale, Katie made a cake in the form of the Battlestar Galactica itself! More photos and making-of tidbits in the Battlestar Galacticake set. And yes, it tasted good too!

  (Mar 2009)
• Rewatching Star Wars: A New Hope

  We watched Star Wars last night, the DVD version. It’s been about four years since I last saw it. When Revenge of the Sith came out, we came home and immediately re-watched A New Hope, then caught the next two films over the following week or so. It’s been long enough that memories have blurred, […]

  (Jan 2009)
• Midseason TV Watching

  Battlestar Galactica As we move into the second half of the final season, will all really be revealed? Season Four has been good, definitely better than Season 3 (which IMO got bogged down by the Starbuck/Apollo “plot”), though the logic of the Final Five Minus One doesn’t make much sense. — Returns Friday, Jan. 16 […]

  (Jan 2009)
• Video Linkblogging: Mac vs. PC

  Found this fun short movie: Mac vs. PC. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. It’s been done a million times. But how many times have the Mac and PC been Transformers? There’s a strong element of Terminator in there, as well. (via Major Spoilers, though it apparently hit Digg a week ago)

  (Dec 2008)
• Best Ripoff Title Ever

  Several months ago I was browsing the local Blockbuster video store for a movie to rent, and I stumbled across one that made me laugh out loud. It’s the title on the right, and you’ll see why if you compare it to the rather more well-known title on the left. I mean, seriously, look how […]

  (Nov 2008)
• Knowing too much

  Finally watched A Scanner Darkly this weekend. Better than I expected. One sequence pulled me out of the film, though, and only because I live in Orange County. In the middle of the film, several characters start a road trip to San Diego. They start on the 5 freeway in Anaheim and drive south until […]

  (Sep 2008)
• Fringe at Two Episodes

  Somehow, we’ve found ourselves watching a lot of shows on Fox this fall. And two out of three are returning, so we can be confident that they’ll actually finish out the season. The third is Fringe, and I’m still trying to decide whether I want to keep up with it. So far it basically seems […]

  (Sep 2008)
• More B5 Books: Babylon 5 Chronology

  Wow.  The Babylon 5 Scripts team keeps finding more ways to get my money.  The latest: The Chronologies of Babylon 5.  And it includes every single piece of B5 canon, down to the six short stories JMS wrote after the series ended and even the unproduced Crusade scripts. The script books have mostly been interesting for […]

  (Aug 2008)
• The Singing Fly

  The latest newsletter for the Center Theatre Group includes a mention of The Fly: The Opera.  Yes, The Fly, based on the sci-fi film about a scientist who gets combined with a housefly in a teleportation accident.  And its remake. As an opera. 😯 Plácido Domingo conducts the U.S. premiere of the LA Opera-commissioned opera […]

  (Aug 2008)
• B5 Script Series Shutting Down

  I just got an email with the reminder that J. Michael Straczynski’s Babylon 5 Script Book Series is going out of print at the end of the month. Monday, June 30 is the last day. It’s hardly a surprise, since the series was always advertised as a limited edition. The weird thing is that they’re […]

  (Jun 2008)
• Cataloging Worlds

  What’s the best way to catalog a fictional multiverse? Clear definitions, or fluid? Names or numbers? How do you choose the numbers?

  (Mar 2008)
• Completing the Series

  Yesterday I finally had time to finish reading To Trade the Stars, the final book in Julie E. Czerneda’s “Trade Pact Universe” trilogy. Now I’m ready to pick up The Briar King again, since the final book of Greg Keyes’ fantasy quartet, Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, comes out at the end of the month. […]

  (Mar 2008)
• Skiffy Links

  Comic-Con 2008 hotel post-mortem at The Beat, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Starship Captains at IO9, and Computer Love Day from Mandriva.

  (Feb 2008)
• Those Glowing Red Eyes

  So, how appropriate is it that Lee Thompson Young, who played Cyborg on Smallville, would show up in an episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles? (Not, as far as we can tell, as a cyborg this time.)

  (Feb 2008)
• Babylon 5 Scripts: The Bonus Volume

  Hard to believe, but J. Michael Straczynski’s Babylon 5 Script Books are almost done. Volume 13 of 14 just shipped (my copy arrived today by UPS), and it’s time to talk about the bonus volume 15, only available to people who’ve bought a complete set. This is the book that has alternate versions of several […]

  (Jan 2008)
• Golden Compass, Tin Man

  Saw The Golden Compass. Enjoyed it a lot, though it felt very rushed, and I think it would have benefitted from having the actual ending instead of cutting it off early. Here’s hoping they do well enough in the long run to greenlight the next film. Now I can re-read the books. Also watched Tin […]

  (Dec 2007)
• Phantoms and Rock(y Horror) Operas

  Watched Phantom of the Paradise this weekend. It’s a bizarre 1974 mash-up between The Phantom of the Opera and Faust set in a satire of the 1970s music industry. The movie casts Paul Williams (who wrote all the music for the film) as a reclusive recording mogul, Swan, who steals a struggling songwriter’s pop cantata […]

  (Nov 2007)
• Londo/G’Kar in 2008!

  This just showed up in my email from Babylon 5 Scripts: From JMS’s Cafe Press store (the same site through which he’s selling his script books with commentary): With the coming 2008 elections, there aren’t a lot of candidates we can agree upon. So as a public service, we are now providing a slate of […]

  (Nov 2007)
• Cylon Sighting

  Hmm, does anyone else think that the logo on this sign…. …looks a bit like a Cylon Basestar?

  (Sep 2007)
• BEM: Ladies Man

  A bizarre PSA I found in a 1967 comic book: Brains, Emotions and Muscles each try to chat up a girl at a party, but only BEM will convince her to dance!

  (Sep 2007)
• Lost Finale

  That makes two very good season finales this week. Lost was more plot-focused, while Heroes was more character-focused. And we learned some very interesting things about the fate of the islanders. Spoilers follow.

  (May 2007)
• Exit stage left, pursued by a Claire.

  Yeah sure, Heroes X-Men blah blah blah, but wait, there’s more. I’m getting a distinct vibe from the latest episode that has less to do with mutants than with good TV. This makes me very happy, all the more because I didn’t pick up on it until the third-to-last ep of the season. Of course, […]

  (May 2007)
• LOST Renewal / Story Arcs vs. TV Scheduling

  Here’s a surprise: Lost has been renewed for a three-season deal… but each season is only 16 episodes long. The writers are glad that they have an endpoint, because now they know how long they have to tell the rest of the story they have in mind. (Call me credulous, but I’m inclined to believe […]

  (May 2007)
• 300 Thoughts

  I haven’t seen 300 yet. But not because I’m not interested in the story.

  (Apr 2007)
• Sci-fi mommy

  I can’t believe nobody’s made this comparison yet……it looks like the producers of “Lost” picked the wrong SF TV-show lead to be Alex’s mom: Of course, it’s entirely possible that they might be able to land Claudia for a recurring guest spot as her “mother” (flashbacks maybe?), and thus call into question through visuals alone […]

  (Feb 2007)
• Heroes Genetics

  Genetics has been built into the show concept for Heroes from the beginning. Mohinder’s father was tracking a genetic marker, and it’s all about humans evolving powers (in response to what selection pressure, I don’t know, but it’s comic book science). So the question of what can be inherited is built into the show’s premise. […]

  (Feb 2007)
• Scifi Question

  For some reason, the plot device of Time Travel via Massive Head Trauma seems familiar, but I just can’t place it. Any ideas?

  (Feb 2007)
• Dear George: Why I’m not buying the Star Wars Limited Edition DVDs

  I already own the DVD edition of Star Wars, and what I want from the theatrical edition is the original substance *with* the remastering you did in 1997.

  (Sep 2006)
• Mary Shelley’s Bride of Frankenstein

  I’ve been working my way through the classic Universal Frankenstein movies, some of which I’m sure I’ve seen before, and some of which I’m sure I haven’t. Of course, they get filtered through having read the book at least three times and having watched Young Frankenstein many times. Last weekend I watched Bride of Frankenstein. […]

  (Sep 2006)
• Stargate: The Gatekeeper Wars?

  Apparently Stargate: SG-1 has been canceled after 10 seasons. I wasn’t a fan, but you’ve got to admit, 10 seasons is a serious accomplishment. But I found one remark interesting: Ironically, this is the first year since Season Four that plans were already in place, both creatively and in signed actor contracts, for another year. […]

  (Aug 2006)
• Drazi Drinks

  Last week, after going out to see Superman Returns, we wandered over to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. I ordered the new honeydew ice blended drink. Katie ordered the pomegranate-blueberry drink. When we picked them up from the counter, though, the combination struck us both as funny: Yes, they were green and purple.

  (Jul 2006)
• Variations on a Theme

  I read Shadowpact #2 last night. So far the book does read better than Day of Vengeance, probably in large part because Bill Willingham can set his own schedule instead of the must-be-6-issues policy of the Infinite Crisis lead-ins. One of the villains struck me as familiar, though: an albino swordsman with a magic sword, […]

  (Jun 2006)
• Six of one, half a dozen of another

  Last night we went to see a screening of Twelve Monkeys, still one of my favorites. There was an odd moment in the middle, though. In the scene in which Bruce Willis and Madeline Stowe are attacked in the abandoned theater, just after Willis’ character kills the attacker, is this exchange: “You killed him!” “All […]

  (Jun 2006)
• The Drazi Effect

  Despite growing up in Orange County, I never managed to go to Medieval Times. It’s a dinner show with knights on horseback staging a medieval tournament. Last month in Las Vegas, Katie talked me into going to the Tournament of Kings at Excalibur, which is the same type of show. When you purchase your tickets, […]

  (May 2006)
• Bad Science. Good Sci-Fi.

  There are certain ideas that I find completely acceptable in the context of science-fiction, but completely looney in the context of actual science. Take, for instance, Erich von Däniken’s premise that gods were really ancient alien astronauts. It’s an interesting idea, but it’s way out there in terms of science. It assumes that (a) myths […]

  (Apr 2006)
• Klingon Honor Roll

  You’ve all seen those bumper stickers that say things like, “My child was an honor student at XYZ school.” You’ve probably seen parodies like “My child can beat up your honor student.” But have you seen the Klingon version? Sorry about the phone resolution: it reads, “My child has more honor than your child.” And […]

  (Mar 2006)
• B5 Scripts

  JMS’ new site is getting more interesting all the time. Or rather, what he’s selling through the site. It started out as a 15-volume set of all of JMS’ Babylon 5 scripts, but it’s turned into, in Straczynski’s words, the definitive “Making of B5,” complete with production notes, backstage photos, introductions to each episode, etc. […]

  (Nov 2005)
• Serenity and MirrorMask: Worth the Wait!

  It’s refreshing when a movie you’ve anticipated for years actually lives up to your expectations. It’s unprecedented when it happens twice in one weekend.

  (Oct 2005)
• His people are coming

  You know that new site selling JMS’ Babylon 5 scripts? Within 48 hours, fans subscribing to the announcement list filled up the database. The remark in that message is a variation on a line JMS would use when he told stories about trying to get a big enough room for B5 events at conventions: “My […]

  (Sep 2005)
• Good-bye Global Frequency

  Last year, a pilot was made for a TV show based on Warren Ellis’ Global Frequency, a series of one-shot stories about a worldwide organization of on-call specialists who take down threats to humanity. JMS would have been involved if it had been picked up. It didn’t make it to the air, though it was […]

  (Jul 2005)
• Familiar Footfall

  Years ago, I put the Niven/Pournelle novel Footfall in my to-read box. I finally started reading it today. After a prologue that takes place mostly at the press conference for the 1980 Voyager 1 encounter with Saturn, the first chapter opens (years later) with a drive up Hawaii’s Kona coast and inland to the observatories […]

  (Jul 2005)
• Separated at Birth: Willy Wonka and…

  I’ve been trying to figure out who Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka reminds me of, and it finally hit me. OK, maybe that’s not the best choice of words…

  (Jul 2005)
• Grievous Entrance

  We went to see Howl’s Moving Castle (Miyazaki’s latest, excellent as always) tonight, and as we walked past the Oakley store, I suddenly realized: that’s why General Grievous looked familiar! Though Katie pointed out, it also looks rather like the Omni-Droid.

  (Jun 2005)
• Jedi vs. Sith, Order vs. Chaos

  I was thinking about Star Wars, the “bringing balance to the Force” prophecy, and RPG character alignments, and realized that while you can neatly map the Jedi and Sith to good and evil (Anakin’s confusion notwithstanding), you can’t map them so neatly to order and chaos. The Sith are a chaotic organization. They thrive on […]

  (Jun 2005)
• Revenge of the Sith: Decisions That Almost Changed Everything

  If these Star Wars characters had made some minor choices differently, they could have changed the course of history. Also: thoughts on viewing order.

  (Jun 2005)
• The Star Wars Audience

  I don’t know if it was the show time we picked or just a matter of who sits where in the theater (we were about halfway back), but the largest demographic group in the audience when we watched Revenge of the Sith was not teenage boys, thirty-something men, families with kids, or twenty-something couples, though […]

  (May 2005)
• Star Wars: Meditations on the Sarlacc pit

  A collection of comments, thoughts and images, some highly spoilerish and not all of them canon. 1. I framed through the end of the Vader vs. Obi-Wan battle in A New Hope after being a bit confused by it last night. Watch closely, and you’ll notice two things. First, Vader’s lightsaber appears to go through […]

  (May 2005)
• Star Wars – Third time’s the charm

  We went out to see Star Wars: Episode III last night. And for once, we weren’t disappointed. This is the kind of movie the last two should have been. There was a feeling of urgency throughout this movie that wasn’t present until the first battle of the clone army in Attack of the Clones. A […]

  (May 2005)
• Star Wars Classical

  I woke up this morning to the music from Episode III playing on the clock radio. What’s odd is that I recognized it immediately despite the facts that I had not listened to the soundtrack, and the section I heard was all new music. None of the recurring themes from the other films was present, […]

  (May 2005)
• If you’re not with me…

  Regarding the furor over Revenge of the Sith/Post-9/11 parallels: Get over yourselves. You know, I could see parallels in Star Wars: Episode II and post-9/11 America. Palpatine’s emergency powers = PATRIOT Act. Militarization in response to the separatist movement = attacking Afghanistan and rattling sabers at Iraq. And there are conspiracy theorists who think that […]

  (May 2005)
• Star Wars Prequels…Overdone CGI-fests? Nope!

  Pixar has shown over and over again that you can make a CGI movie with heart. It’s time to stop blaming the Star Wars prequels’ problems on the effects.

  (May 2005)
• Hitchhikers Review

  Some things worked, some didn’t, but overall I liked it.

  (May 2005)
• No DWG Necessary!

  Someone at MIT had way too much fun writing up the press release: The Time Traveler Convention – May 7, 2005. As they point out, you only need one. (via CNET Missing Links)

  (May 2005)
• Farce Cape

  A caption I always wanted to write. From “Crackers Don’t Matter,” one of Farscape’s more comedic episodes.

  (Mar 2005)
• Limited Resources

  I was thinking about VR.5 recently. Had it survived into a second or third season, Anthony Stewart Head might not have been available for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Can you imagine *anyone* else as Giles?

  (Mar 2005)
• Cancellations: Fallen Angel & B5

  Fallen Angel is ending with #20, and Babylon 5: The Memory of Shadows has fallen through. However, JMS has always said, “If they can do a Brady Bunch movie, you can be sure that sooner or later, somebody’s going to do a B5 movie.” Even better, it turns out that while Warner Bros. owns the […]

  (Feb 2005)
• New meaning to PDA

  OK, this is bizarre. Apparently a Hong Kong software company is preparing to release a Virtual Girlfriend for high-res mobile phones. It—or I suppose I should say “she”—is structured as an online game, on the virtual pet model. (Remember the tamagotchi fad?) You hold conversations with “Vivienne,” give her virtual gifts, even work up to […]

  (Feb 2005)
• Fargate!

  Okay, this has got to be one of the strangest pairs of sci-fi news stories I’ve seen in a while. First, Farscape star Ben Browder (John Crichton) will join the cast of Stargate SG-1 for its ninth season. (No word yet about his character, though I suppose he could appear as Daniel Jackson’s long-lost brother.) Now it turns […]

  (Dec 2004)
• Spoiler-free FPKW Review

  Three words: Holy frelling dren! Alternate review: “Boom. Boom boom boom. Boom boom. Boom! Have a nice day!”

  (Oct 2004)
• Sci-Firewire

  You know how you see some numbers in one context so often that you think of that meaning when you see them somewhere else? Seriously: If you’ve spent a lot of time on the web and you notice the clock reading 4:04, or a price coming up as $4.04, etc., chances are you find it […]

  (Sep 2004)
• Revise and Rewrite

  Yes, Star Wars has changed again [archive.org]. Looking at the comparisons, it seems most of the changes really have just been cleanup. They finally fixed the compositing in the Rancor pit, for instance. And some of the Special Edition bits that didn’t work quite right, like the Jabba scene in A New Hope, have been […]

  (Sep 2004)
• Effective Oxymorons

  On the way to work this morning, Katie noticed one of those ubiquitous catering trucks and remarked, “With a name like ‘Superior Coffee,’ you know it probably isn’t.” It’s a useful guideline: if a company has to tell you something is gourmet, for instance, that means it can’t count on its reputation alone. That reminded […]

  (Sep 2004)
• One door closes…

  Since we’ve started showing Babylon 5 to a new group, I’ve been surfing the Lurker’s Guide and other sites. I came across an interesting tidbit about the spinoff series Crusade that I had forgotten. At the point that TNT cancelled Crusade (13 episodes into filming, and months before it aired), Warner Bros. tried to sell […]

  (Aug 2004)
• Philosophy of Time Travel

  We went to see the director’s cut of Donnie Darko. I walked out of there wishing The Philosophy of Time Travel was a real book.

  (Aug 2004)
• They’re already here

  A couple of weeks ago, the landscaping wonks for my work building ripped out all the hedges in the parking-lot divider islands and heavily mulched the ground. They didn’t put anything new in until the middle of last week, when I noticed a slew of newly-planted birds of paradise on the exit side as we […]

  (Aug 2004)
• Pining for the Fnords

  I’m about halfway through The Illuminatus! Trilogy, and the most apt description is, if you’ll pardon the language, a mindfuck. Once the writing settles into a coherent structure (or perhaps once the reader is attuned to it), the mind starts noticing connections. Everywhere. It’s as if it was written specifically to induce apophenia. The most […]

  (Jul 2004)
• (Firefly) Serenity Preview

  It started out with Joss Whedon showing a video clip from the movie. Then the ENTIRE cast came out for discussion, though fans’ Q&A was focused on Joss.

  (Jul 2004)
• Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars Preview (SDCC 2004)

  The Farscape cast and producers showed off an incredible trailer and held a fun Q&A session for the miniseries that follows the show’s cliffhanger.

  (Jul 2004)
• Viewing the Impossible

  I knew someone once who had no interest in science-fiction, and dismissed it with “That could never happen.” That seems to be the mainstream attitude toward SF — try to pit Farscape against Survivor and you know exactly what will happen — and yet they love to see films about the impossible. (Well, as long […]

  (Jul 2004)
• Sorting the Leviathan

  I realized this morning what struck me as odd about the original crew of Moya: they’re not a crew, they’re a D&D party. Two warriors, a priest, a thief, and Ordinary Guy (who’d probably be classed as a bard). We started trying to categorize everyone else who shows up and realized that we’d need to […]

  (Jun 2004)
• Cancellations

  When it comes to serial entertainment, everything will end at some point. I’m sure even Superman and Spider-Man comics will cease someday. A show can end before or after it’s run out of things to say, but it’s worst when it hasn’t finished speaking. We’ve all seen shows that kept going long after, by any […]

  (Jun 2004)
• Not where I was expecting it!

  The mystery of where the Farscape miniseries will air has been answered! From Sci-Fi Wire [archive.org]: SCI FI announced it will be bringing back Farscape with an all-new miniseries — called Farscape: Peacekeeper War — slated to air in the fourth quarter of this year. WTF? OK, it’s not the last place I’d expect – […]

  (Apr 2004)
• Neo Genesis Revangelions

  Saw The Matrix: Revolutions yesterday after hearing almost nothing but bad press. We went in expecting nothing, so except for the crappy dialogue, it wasn’t bad at all while we were watching it. Afterward, though, once there was time to digest everything in the context of a single movie as well as a trilogy, it […]

  (Nov 2003)
• Vertical Horizon winning the filk wars

  It’s official: Vertical Horizon now has ten songs to their name that we’ve determined to be at least 75% appropriate for sci-fi, fantasy, or anime music videos. The only other band that comes close to this is the Wallflowers, with four. Don’t ask me how they do this. We just watch (and occasionally read) stuff, […]

  (Nov 2003)
• Fuzzy logic?

  I finally saw Terminator 3 this weekend, and something has been bothering me about the ending (aside from watching the end of the world). Skynet’s a distributed system. Presumably its intelligence scales along with the number of nodes it has. Those nodes are computers all over the world. Those computers are most concentrated in major […]

  (Aug 2003)
• Science Meets Fantasy: Wheel of Time genetics

  I’m beginning to understand why someone would jump out of a bathtub and go streaking through the streets with a fantastic new idea. Recently, in the shower, my brain decided it wanted to write a graphic novel. The day after, it worked out a genetic explanation of channeling in the Wheel of Time universe. If […]

  (Jan 2003)
• Fantasy vs. Science Fiction

  Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen a number of articles in places like Time Magazine about how popular culture is abandoning science fiction for fantasy, usually tying it into either pessimism about technology and the future (“Where’s my flying car!”) or nostalgia in a post-9/11 world. They generally cite the enormous success of Harry […]

  (Jan 2003)

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