A Star Wars Jawa for you garden
This Star Wars Jawa garden gnome almost makes me wish I had a yard to put this in. It’s made of solid resin and it stands nearly a foot tall. You can pre-order it now from the official Star Wars Shop and it will ship on December 9, just in time for Christmas. The price is $34.99.
‘Star Wars’ trash compactor bookends
Though this looks totally awesome, I’m not sure it’s worth the $189.99 the official Star Wars shop is charging for it. It’s made by Gentle Giant Studios and as the photo demonstrates, it’s the perfect size to use with DVDs.
It doesn’t come out until April 2010, so I guess that gives people time to save up their dimes and nickels. It states that you can pre-order it now, and your credit card wont be charge until it ships.
There is nothing more American than deferred debt.
From Dead to Worse
From Dead to Worse, the eighth book in the Sookie Stackhouse “Southern Vampire” series, wasn’t the worse thing I’ve ever read, but it wasn’t the best either. I started reading the series a few years ago long before it became a series on HBO, True Blood.
I was nearly halfway through the book when I realized something very interesting about the book: it did not have a plot. I realized I had no idea what this book was about. A story is supposed to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. From Dead to Worse was all middle. It had no real beginning and it had no real end.
Charline Harris is a gifted writer. Her stories that have beginnings, middles, and ends are definitely better than the ones that don’t. Stories like From Dead to Worse.
‘The Matrix’ on Blu-ray
I was perusing through the Best Buy circular this morning when when I stumbled upon an ad for a high definition Blu-ray version of The Matrix, the first movie in the popular Matrix movie triligy. It goes on sale Tusday, March 31.
I’ve been wanting to buy this on Blu-ray since first buying a Blu-ray player. The movie was available on Blu-ray up until now only in a boxed set with the other two Matrix movies, sequels that I personally would like to forget even exist. The first movie is a masterpiece. The other two are borderline awful.
I’m still not entirely convinced that Blu-ray movies are really all that much better than good old fashioned regular DVD, especially when the DVD movie is played on a player with DVD upscaling or upconversion. My Blu-ray player has it and it makes good old fashioned DVDs look great.
The Battle of Five Armies
Behold artist Justin Gerard’s beautiful rendering of the The Battle of Five Armies from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. To see a much larger version, as well as lots and lots of other great pieces of art based on The Hobbit and other subjects, go to Justin’s blog.
Seeing this painting makes me want to re-read The Hobbit.
‘Battlestar Galactica’ final was a colossal disappointment
After watching the final episode of Battlestar Galactica over the weekend, I find myself wishing I hadn’t spent so much time watching the series these past few years. If I had known it was going to end like it did, I would have preferred to have spent my time watching the Weather Channel.
Seriously, it was bad.
I’ll skip the first part and get right to the end where the whole series falls off the rails. The remnants of humanity along with their Cylon friends find themselves orbiting a blue planet that you and I know as Earth. It’s approximately 150,000 years ago. The most advanced humans are living in Africa, but they don’t even have language yet.
Not even chirps, clicks, and whistles.
The humans and Cylons decide that instead of using their technology to make this new world (Earth) a better place, they are going to ditch everything they have and each go their separate ways. They collectively decide that what they all need more than anything is a “clean slate”.
They sent all of their space ships into the Sun. They will try to blend in with the primitive humans, breed with them, and tech them how to speak.
Seriously, the final hour was just awful.
The Sci-Fi Channel changes it’s logo
They have got to be kidding. The Sci-Fi Channel is changing it’s logo form the nice looking one featuring a planet to one without a planet. Not only are they removing the planet, but they are changing “Sci Fi” to read “SyFy”.
Why would they do this?
If syphilis was traded on the NASDAQ, SYFY would be it’s symbol.
Harlan Ellison sues Paramount and the WGA
Science Fiction writer Harlan Ellison is suing both Paramount and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) over the original Star Trek episode City on the Edge of Forever.
From ICv2:
Harlan Ellison filed suit on Friday against Paramount and the Writers Guild of America over the Ellison script for the Star Trek episode City on the Edge of Forever. Ellison alleged that he has received no accounting or payment from Paramount for uses of his teleplay, and that the WGA has failed to act on his behalf on the issue.
Among the uses of the script for which Ellison wants compensation from Paramount are a trilogy of paperbacks, the Crucible series, which use elements of the script, and a Hallmark Christmas ornament in which a character speaks lines from the episode.
Ellison is asking only $1 (plus fees) from the WGA, with which he’s been closely associated throughout his career.
Ellison described his motivation with his typical élan. “…[A]t the moment some studio mouthpiece calls me a mooch, and says I’m only pursuing this legal retribution to get into their ‘deep pockets,’ tell ‘m Ellison snarled back, ‘F*****in’-A damn skippy,’” the announcement of his suit said. “I’m no hypocrite. It ain’t about the ‘principle,’ friend, it’s about the MONEY! Pay Me! Am I doing this for other writers, for Mom (still dead), and apple pie! Hell no! I’m doing it for the 35-year-long disrespect and the money!”
City on the Edge of Forever is my favorite original Star Trek episode. Ellison wrote the original script, but it had to be rewritten many times before it was used on the show. If I remember correctly, Ellison’s original story involved a drug dealer that escapes from the Enterprise and goes back in time and alters the time-line resulting in the Enterprise becoming a pirate ship. Not a old fashioned wooden sailing ship from the 18th century, but a space pirate ship.
I’m not familiar with the Crucible series of Star Trek novels, but evidently the stories involve time travel and use the City on the Edge of Forever’s Guardian of Forever device. If that’s true, they wouldn’t be the first Star Trek novels to use the Guardian of Forever device. Peter David’s Imzadi also featured the Guardian of Forever device.
Why is Ellison not suing for that?
Sometimes I have to remind myself that Ellison is above all, a science fiction writer. I tend to just think of him as just a guy that enjoys suing people for dumb reasons. Has anyone ever been sued over a Hallmark Christmas ornament before? Is this what some mean when they talk about a supposed war on Christmas?
A copy of the lawsuit can be read here.
I do not ever want to get on President Laura Roslin’s bad side
I’ve got to say, when President Laura Roslin said the line, “I’m coming for all of you“, I sort of got chills. I think I’m going to turn it into a ringtone for my cellphone. Maybe then I would hear it when I have a call.
This past Friday’s episode of Battlestar Galactica entitled Blood On The Scales was one of the best. I’m going to miss this show when it comes to a close at the end of this season. Not only is it the best science fiction to appear on the TV since Firefly, it’s the best drama currently on television.
This is what I call really bad ad placement
If you watched the Battlestar Galactica Friday, you might have witnessed this really inappropriate commercial immediately after a very heavy and important scene involving an important Battlestar Galactica character, Anastasia “Dee” Dualla.
Wow, it doesn’t get any worse than this.
Don’t watch this clip if you aren’t up to date with your Battlestar Galactica viewing. Also avoid watching it if you are at all squeamish.
Also, on another note, what is the deal with Felix Gaeta’s fake leg? They can’t make him something better than that? They somehow are able to make faster than light (FTL) drives for their ships, but they can’t make a better fake leg than that? Drunken pirates in the 18th century had better fake legs than that thing.
Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi sit down to talk
John Scalzi, my new favorite author (Old Man’s War, Zoe’s Tale), sits down with Cory Doctorow to talk about such things as tapping bacon to cats and writing in the first person as a 16-year old girl. This is part one and there is also a part two to the conversation.
Whitest man in the UK becomes the new Doctor Who
BBC News reports that 26-year old Matt Smith is to become the 11th actor to take on the role of the Doctor in Doctor Who.
Though I enjoy good sci-fi — to be perfectly honest, I also enjoy quit a bit of bad sci-fi — I’ve never really gotten into Doctor Who. I’ve tried. It’s just never appealed to me. That doesn’t mean its bad. Its just not for me.
Not only is Matt Smith the youngest actor to ever play the role of Doctor Who, he also has to be the whitest. Has the man never gone outside? He has the skin color of whole milk. And what’s with the hair? Would it kill the guy to get a haircut every once in a while?
Celebrate Christmas at warp factor 9
The SciFi Channel is celebrating the Christmas holiday by showing Star Trek: The Next Generation from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. the next morning.
Looking at the lineup of episodes, it looks like they are only showing the best of the best. At least they are the episodes I remember being the best. Unfortunately, my personal favorite episode, The Inner Light, didn’t seem to make the list. That’s really strange, especially considering the fact that this episode won the Hugo award in 1993 for Best Dramatic Presentation. It was one out of only two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation to win the Hugo. The only other episode was All Good Things…, the show’s final episode.
At least they are being consistent. The SciFi Channel isn’t showing that one either.
Leave it to the SciFi Channel to show a Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon and leave out the two award winning episodes.
These times are eastern, so you live someplace other than the east coast, you are going to need to do some quick math.
How exactly is that Sci-Fi?
Sheri and I were out and about today doing some Christmas shopping and we stopped by her mother’s house for a visit. My mother-in-law was watching a movie on the Sci-Fi Channel. I knew this because the Sci-Fi Channel logo was proudly displayed in the bottom right of the TV screen.
If it wasn”t for that logo, I never would have known I was watching the Sci-Fi Channel.
The scene on the screen featured a young woman being accosted by two men who proceeded to wrap her legs in duct tape. They then placed a metal pipe under her feet. Then one of them took a hand axe and cut off her feet. At least that’s what I thought was done to the poor woman. The camera cut to her face and from the look she was giving the camera, she looked to be in severe pain. As though she just has her feet chopped off.
Why exactly was this movie on the Sci-Fi Channel at 3:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday?
Trailer for ‘Star Trek: 90210′ now online
The official trailer for the new Star Trek movie is now up on the Apple website and it looks like this will not be a movie for me. Not only does Captain Kirk look to be younger than just about everyone in his crew, it looks like they are building the Enterprise not in an orbiting ship yard in space, but somewhere on the ground here on Earth.
Watch remastered episodes of classic ‘Star Trek’ on the CBS website for free
Just when I thought Paramount Studios was incapable of passing up an opportunity to make a nickle from anything Star Trek related, they turn around and make remastered versions of classic Star Trek episodes available for free on the CBS website.
The Accidental Time Machine
The Accidental Time Machine
Joe Haldeman
Ace Books
ISBN 978-0-441-01499-6
This book begins in the 2050’s. Matt Fuller is a twenty something graduate assistant in the physics department at MIT. His life is going nowhere. His girlfriend just left him. His dissertation is dead in the water. While working as a lab assistant, he constructs a calibrator that emits one photon per chronon. He quickly learns that there is a problem with the calibrator. When he presses the reset button, the device disappears and then reappears.
Matt notices that each time he presses the button, it takes longer for the calibrator to reappear. He begins to keep a log of how long it takes to reappear after pressing the button and soon learns that each time it disappears and reappears, it takes twelve times as long as the previous journey. It also physically moves from the time before.
Matt ascertains from this that the calibrator is traveling forward in time. He has accidentally created a time machine.
He realizes that if he attaches a metal container to the calibrator with a wire, the metal container and anything in the container will travel with the calibrator. He first tests this out with a turtle he purchases from a pet store. He then decides to attach the calibrator to an old car, get inside, and press the button.
Every time he does this, he travels farther and farther through time, traveling twelve times as long as the journey before. Each time he appears in the future, he finds a far different world from the one he left before. In this, the book is similar to Haldeman’s science fiction classic The Forever War in that the central character finds that society is constantly evolving and changing.
I enjoyed this book. I love time travel stories and this is one of the best I’ve read. I highly recommend it.
Grimspace
Grimspace
By: Ann Aguirre
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Ace (February 26, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0441015999
Sirantha Jax is a jumper. She has a rare gene that allows her to navigate a spaceship through Grimspace, a mysterious void that allows quick travel between two distant points in space. A jumper can find beacons in Grimspace that serve as the jump points, the on and off ramps of grimspace. It’s unknown who (or what) created the beacons. What is known is that only people with the J-gene can detect the beacons.
People like Sirantha Jax.
Grimspace was just a lot of fun to read. It’s space opera at it’s very best. To say that I loved this book is an understatement. When I go to Borders or Waldenbooks and I peruse the science fiction section looking for something decent to read, this is just the type of book I’m hoping to find.
I can’t recommend this book enough.
George Lucas explains why ‘Clone Wars’ used new voice actors
Clone Wars, the animated feature film that looks more like the World of Warcraft online game then an actual movie, opens this weekend. If you were looking forward to watching the flick and hearing the familiar voices of Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, or Frank Oz, don’t waste your time. They aren’t in the movie. Instead, their parts are being voiced by unknowns.
Why would George Lucas do something like this? He explains to the good people of MTV:
“It used to be in animation you just had [unknown] actors do the parts. The idea of hiring a really good actor – Tom Hanks [for instance] – was a really revolutionary idea,” Lucas said. “Partly they did it because they were great actors, partly they did it cause they wanted to use them for publicity. To be very honest with you, I don’t really think I need to hire a big movie star to publicize my movie. I don’t need Angelina Jolie here. That’s what it comes down to in the end. They have two days in the studio and then they have like two weeks doing press. They are mainly paid for the press stuff.”
Thank you George Lucas for telling us how it was in the olden times, you douche. Angelina Jolie? Why bring her up? She has nothing to do with the Star Wars universe. If he’s going to do yet another Star Wars movie, he ought to at least bring back all of the actors to reprise their roles.
The characters aren’t going to look anything like they looked in the movies. They might as well sound like they sounded in the movies.
New Ben Bova novel on the horizon
The science fiction novel Mars Life, the next book in the science fiction Grand Tour series by Ben Bova hits shelves on August 5. If you place an order with Amazon before it is releases, you will get an extra 5% discount.
Ben Bova is the only author I have an automatic buy policy on when it comes to their books. As soon as one of his books is published, I buy it. I don’t read reviews. I don’t wait for the paperback. I immediately buy it and read it. It doesn’t matter if I am currently already reading something else. I put that book down and read the new Ben Bova book.
His novels are that good.
Though the books fall very much into the realm of since fiction, the various technologies presented in the books are based more on science then fiction. You wont find anyone beaming down to a planet or spaceships that are capable of faster then light (FTL) travel.
Check it out.
Frakkin’ $75 toaster!
If you attend this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, you will have the opportunity to buy one of these snazzy official Battlestar Galactica toasters. They are being made available from NBC Universal at $75 each. The production run is limited at 1,000.
The term “toaster” is a racial slur used by the Colonists against their hated enemies, the Cylons.
Tim Brazeal removes the FedconUSA message forum
FedconUSA convention promoter Tim Brazeal has begun the impossible task of purging all incriminating evidence against him and his company by deleting the entire message board at FedconUSA.
Click on the image to see a full sized version.
Not that I am surprised he is doing this. He pulled the plug on the show after it had already begun. I’m only surprised he waited this long to take the message board down. Most of the people posting to the FedconUSA forum were highly pissed off over what had been done to them.
I only wish the people who attended FedconUSA had picked somewhere other then the FedconUSA website to be ground zero for their angst. A website Tim Brazeal couldn’t remove. Hopefully one of them will quickly register a site and create a quick I.P. Board forum to replace the one Tim Brazeal removed.
These people have every right to be angry.
Science fiction covention canceled the day after it began
FedconUSA organizer Tim Brazeal canceled the convention almost 24 hours after it began, leaving celebrity guests and fans — some dressed as Klingons — stranded in Dallas with nowhere to go. Personally, I don’t know what I would hate more – being dressed as a Klingon or being stuck in Dallas.
Tim Brazeal posted a message on his website concerning the cancellation:
For a first time convention, getting financial support in today’s economy is next to impossible. There are so many upfront costs – flights, hotel rooms, convention space, food, guest fees, etc – that need to be paid before the convention even gets under way. From day one, FedConUSA has been operating in the red, with hopes of recouping our funds and making enough to continue on and make this an ongoing and fantastic convention experience for all of America.
Obviously, that just didn’t work out. We had expected much more walk-in attendance than we received, and hoped that we would have been able to pull things together enough that the show could go on. As you know, that didn’t happen. We are truly sorry to everyone for what has happened and disappointed that we couldn’t have put on a better show.
Expected more walk-in attendance? That’s a lot like expecting to win the lottery even though you don’t buy any lottery tickets.
If Brazeal wanted to cancel, he should have done it before the event was to take place. He shouldn’t have done it during the convention.
Over on the FedConUSA message board, there is a argument taking place between FedconUSA organizer Tim Brazeal and Aaron Douglas, “Chief Tyrol” from Battlestar Galactica. I don’t expect the message board will be around much longer.
Escape Pod 161: Alien Promises
This week’s episode of everyone’s favorite science fiction short story podcast Escape Pod is the young adult story Alien Promises by Janni Lee Simner. It’s read by Anna Eley, wife of Escape Pod Editor-In-Chief Steve Eley.
Even though the story is labeled as a being for young adults and I am very much an old adult, I enjoyed the story immensely. It’s about a young girl who dreams that one day aliens will come and take her away. Not the kind of aliens who stand in front of Home Depot looking for work and who speak only Spanish, but the kind who travel in silver space ships and communicate through telepathy.
It was a good story.
Anna Eley does a fine job reading the story. Her voice has a quality to it that meshes nicely with the story’s main character and it brings life to the first-person narrative. My only criticism is that I think she pronounced reader as leader. It’s at about the 2:40 mark of the story. I listened to it a couple of times and it sounds like leader even though reader is the only word that makes sense.
It is stories like this that makes me appreciate the Escape Pod podcast for everything it brings.
Read any good Nazi Gnome stories lately?
I stumbled on this image today while looking for something else. Something that didn’t involve gnomes armed with bull whips and wearing swastika armbands. What really struck me with this image was not the book itself, but the snippet from a review from the New York Times.
Why would the New York Times even review a book like this?
I tried to find something about the book’s author, John Christopher. As it turns out, that is not his real name. It’s only one of the many pen names employed by British writer Samuel Youd.
They don’t write books like this anymore. Maybe if they did, someone from the New York Times would review it.
The art of Greg Staples
I stumbled upon a website of artist Greg Staples. He has done a lot of artwork for Magic: The Gathering and comic books including 2000AD and Judge Dredd. I don’t know a lot about art, but I know what I like. I like the art of Greg Staples.
Kristen Bell as Slave Girl Leia
From the upcoming movie Fanboys.
Keith Parkinson 1958 – 2005
I was looking online for fantasy based art today when I stumbled upon some very sad news. Artist Keith Parkinson passed away two years ago to Leukemia. I wasn’t aware of this sad news. I even had a Keith Parkinson calender for 2006 and I didn’t know he was gone. This truly sucks. I have always been a fan of his work. He created fantasy art that always had a very realistic look to it.
He used to work for TSR where he was responsible for some of the best Dungeons & Dragons artwork. That’s how I became familiar with this work. His artwork was also featured on Magic The Gathering cards. He also did the box art for the EverQuest massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
He will be missed.
A Klingon Stormtrooper hybrid
This photo all but destroys a theory of mine. It used to be that when you went to a comic book convention, you would see dozens and dozens of Klingons in attendance. Now instead of Klingons, you see lots of Stormtroopers.
I had a theory that the Stormtroopers killed off all the Klingons. That was until I found this photo on Flickr. This appears to a hybrid Klingon-Stormtrooper. Perhaps the Stormtroopers didn’t kill off the Klingons. The Klingons may have instead evolved into Stormtroopers. Or, when the Stormtroopers started to show up at comic book conventions, the Klingons may have just killed the Stormtroopers with their bat’leths and took their plastic Imperial Stormtrooper armor as their own. That would explain why this Klingon Stormtrooper is not wearing a Stormtrooper helmet. He may have lopped off the Stormtroopers head with this bat’leth and in his battle frenzy, forgot to retrieve the head.
This would certainly explain a lot.
There very well may be inside every Stormtrooper, the beating heart of a Klingon.
Photo by Flickr user carencey
1/18 scale diecast Mad Max Interceptor
This is a 1/18 scale diecast model of the car used by Mel Gibson’s character in the movies Mad Max and The Road Warrior. Its made by the Japanese company AutoArt.
The Mad Max Interceptor started out as an Australian 1973 XB GT Ford Falcon Coupe.
Like all diecast cars made by AutoArt, the car appears to be very detailed. In fact, it even has a 1/18 scale machete. From the looks of it, the machete appears to come out of it’s scabbard. I wonder if its sharp? Knowing AutoArt’s eye for detail, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Link (HobbyTalk)
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