Category Archives: Sci-Fi Saturday
If you know me at all, you know I was already a science fiction fan when Star Trek began. (It’s a rare occasion I get in on the ground floor of something.) I adored Kirk and crew. It took some episodes, but I came to love Picard and crew even more. The Trek story still unfolds, but I left that fold around the fifty-year mark. (Or rather, Trek left me.)
More recently (the rebooted) Doctor Who became my favorite SF TV series, but it’s starting to look like it won’t have the staying power that Trek did. I haven’t been as engaged the last many seasons, and the shift to the 13th Doctor hasn’t worked for me.
Currently I’d have to say my favorite SF TV series is The Expanse.
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6 Comments | tags: Boston Legal, Captain Kirk, Chris Chibnall, Dark Matter (TV series), David Tennant, Denny Crane, Doctor Who, Jessi Combs, Jodie Whittaker, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, science fiction, science fiction TV, Star Trek, The Doctor, The Expanse (TV series), William Shatner | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday
Okay, here’s one that’s been sitting in my Drafts folder since 2012. The last time I even edited it was back in 2016. (Wow. Four years already?) The problem has been turning it into a post. At this point it’s like a lazy twenty-year-old who won’t move outta the house.
If you were a serious fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the post’s title might ring a bell. It involves an episode with a very interesting idea about a communication problem between different species despite a “universal translator” that makes the words clear.
It isn’t a matter of language, but of metaphor.
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9 Comments | tags: Darmok, metaphor, Picard, relationships, Star Trek | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday, Writing
One of the older notes on my board just reads: “Armageddon (1998) vs Deep Impact (1998)”. On weirdness points, the note could just as easily have read: “Antz (1998) vs A Bug’s Life (1998)”.
The coincidence that both coincidences take place in 1998 (ah, the good old days) does makes it a bit weirder, but weird coincidences aren’t the point of my note or this post. The point is how audiences reacted to the films.
For this Sci-Fi Saturday, I thought I’d ramble about some SF Yin-Yang pairs that have struck me over the years.
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9 Comments | tags: Frank Miller, George Lucas, Michael Bay, Mimi Leder, Peter Jackson, Robert Heinlein, science fiction movies, SF, SF Movies | posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday
Neal Stephenson, like Greg Egan, is a hard science fiction author who never fails to delight me with something new and tasty. Both Stephenson and Egan seem able to leave footprints in otherwise well-trodden ground. Stephenson, in particular, often makes me LOL.
That’s not an acronym I use very often, but it seems especially appropriate here given this post is about The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland. The book has so many tongue-in-cheek military acronyms (DODO, DTAP, DEDE, MUON, etc) that it has a glossary at the back.
The story concerns parallel worlds, wave-function collapse, and witches.
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7 Comments | tags: hard SF, Neal Stephenson, Nicole Galland, science fiction, science fiction books, SF, SF Books, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., witches | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday
Recently I posted about Manifold: Time, the first book in a trilogy by Stephen Baxter, a writer new to me. As I wrote, I wasn’t very whelmed, but a bad meal at a new restaurant can be a fluke — it’s only fair to give the chef at least one more chance. (A single data point doesn’t mean much.) And I did find the overall themes a little intriguing.
As it turned out, I rather enjoyed the second one, Manifold: Space. The story stayed grounded and engaged me throughout, plus there were several cool science fiction ideas I’d never encountered before (which is kinda the point of reading hard SF). So a definite thumbs up on book number two.
Unfortunately, the third book, Manifold: Origin, didn’t do much for me.
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9 Comments | tags: Fermi Paradox, Stephen Baxter | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday
Yesterday, courtesy of Cloud Library, I finished Manifold: Time (1999), by Stephen Baxter. It’s my first exposure to Baxter, who has written 60 science fiction novels — none of which I’ve read. Per his Wiki bibliography, he’s written only a half-dozen short stories, also none of which I’ve read. (There are SF authors I’ve only met in short story collections. He isn’t one of them.)
Time is the first of the Manifold trilogy (which has a fourth book, Phase Space); the second and third books are Space (2000) and Origin (2001). Each of the books tells a separate story in a separate universe.
I enjoyed the first book, but I can’t say I was hugely whelmed.
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24 Comments | tags: hard SF, science fiction, science fiction books, SF, SF Books, Stephen Baxter | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday
Here’s yet another unplanned post, mostly because there was something important I forgot to mention yesterday, but also because I started watching three different Netflix shows (or maybe call it two-and-a-half), and all three are fit for a Sci-Fi Saturday post, so here I am again.
I dither about three because one of them wasn’t new, it was season two I started of Siempre Bruja. But I hadn’t yet seen any of Lost in Space or the new Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. I’ve been suspicious of the former, and the latter isn’t quite my cup of tea on several counts.
But first you should know about (Your) CloudLibrary!
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32 Comments | tags: Always a Witch, Angely Gaviria, cloudlibrary, science fiction, science fiction TV, SF, Siempre Bruja | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday
I’ll get to the delightful alien eyes later, but I want to start this Sci-Fi Saturday post with a different delight: A Trick of Light, a novel by Stan Lee. Yeah, that Stan Lee. Along with Kat Rosenfield. And no, there are no pictures, comic or otherwise.
What is there is a fast, breezy, comic-book-like story about a guy and a gal and some interesting stuff that happens to them. I read the whole thing in one long afternoon, night, and into the AM, because it was hard to put down. “Just one more chapter” grew to reading the whole thing. It was a lot of fun.
There is also an interesting but somewhat less delightful book (a trilogy, actually) to tell you about. I have some definite mixed feeling about the author and his books.
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9 Comments | tags: A Trick of Light, Electric Dreams (TV series), Jack L. Chalker, Kat Rosenfield, Philip K. Dick, science fiction, science fiction books, science fiction TV, Stan Lee, Well World | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday
I finished Fall: or, Dodge in Hell, the latest novel from Neal Stephenson, and I’m conflicted between parts I found fascinating and thoughtful and parts I found tedious and unsatisfying. This division almost exactly follows the division of the story itself into real and virtual worlds. I liked the former, but the latter not so much.
Unfortunately, at least the last third of the book involves a Medieval fantasy quest that takes place in the virtual reality. The early parts of the story in the VR are fairly interesting, but the quest really left me cold, and I found myself skimming pages.
I give it a positive rating, but it’s my least-liked Stephenson novel.
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17 Comments | tags: Fall; or Dodge in Hell, fantasy, hard SF, Neal Stephenson, science fiction, science fiction books, SF, SF Books, soft SF | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday
I’ve been a fan of Neal Stephenson since Snow Crash (1992), his third novel. I’ve read much of his work — the big exception being The Baroque Cycle, descriptions of which haven’t captured my interest yet. I like his writing enough that I’ll probably enjoy them if I ever take the plunge.
Stephenson writes pretty hard SF, which I love, and he explores such interesting ideas that I’m generally quite enthralled by what some see as fictionalized physics books. The thing is, I’d enjoy reading those physics books, so having it come coated in any kind of frosting is a win in my (pardon the pun) book.
I’ve just gotten started on his most recent novel, Fall; or, Dodge in Hell.
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16 Comments | tags: Fall; or Dodge in Hell, hard SF, Neal Stephenson, science fiction, science fiction books, SF, SF Books, Snow Crash | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday
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