Just watched the first episode of Star Trek Picard. What follows has spoilers, but only from the early parts of the episode. It takes place about 15 years after the events of the last Next Generation movie. Picard appears to be living in retirement in his family vineyard, apparently with a couple of Romulans, presumably … Continue reading Star Trek Picard
Category: Science Fiction
Lost in Space
When I was very young in the early 70s, I remember coming home after school and watching afternoon TV, a lot of syndicated shows from the 60s. One of those shows was the original Star Trek, in the early years of its syndication run that would pull it out of oblivion and eventually turn it … Continue reading Lost in Space
Recommendation: The Expanse (season 4)
Season 4 of The Expanse TV show was released Friday on Amazon Prime, so I just spent today binging on it. There was a lot of uncertainty about the show last year when SyFy canceled it, but within a short period Amazon stepped in and saved it, renewing it for a fourth season. And earlier … Continue reading Recommendation: The Expanse (season 4)
Ad Astra: Apocalypse Now in space
The movie Ad Astra is a strange mix. In many ways, it's a visually stunning film with excellent production values. And it has first class name stars, most notably Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones. But the plot has serious issues. On balance, I enjoyed it, but this is a case where your mileage may … Continue reading Ad Astra: Apocalypse Now in space
Recommendation: Silver (Inverted Frontier Book 2)
I just finished reading Linda Nagata's new book, Silver, which is the second book of her new Inverted Frontier series. It's a sequel to the first book, Edges, which I recommended earlier this year, and Memory, which I described and recommended a few weeks ago. Characters from both books feature heavily in the new story. … Continue reading Recommendation: Silver (Inverted Frontier Book 2)
Recommendation: Memory
I've noted before that I think science fiction author Linda Nagata is an underrated talent. She crafts mind bendingly imaginative tales. I've recommend several of her books, all in The Nanotech Succession series, which she has recently started adding to again with her latest book: Edges. (Technically the newer books are part of a new … Continue reading Recommendation: Memory
Recommendation: Altered Carbon: Download Blues
I posted a while back on the Netflix series, Altered Carbon, based on the books by Richard K. Morgan. The series presents a universe where everyone has a device implanted in their brainstem shortly after birth that records their personality, so that if they die, the device can be moved to either another human body, … Continue reading Recommendation: Altered Carbon: Download Blues
Recommendation: The Warship
Back in January, I recommended Neal Asher's The Soldier, the first book of a series called The Rise of the Jain. The series takes place in Asher's Polity universe, a future interstellar civilization run by AIs (artificial intelligence) and featuring androids, various degrees of posthuman citizens, and lots of aliens, both in AI and organic … Continue reading Recommendation: The Warship
Recommendation: Children of Ruin
Last year I recommended Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time, a novel about the far future involving a struggle between an interstellar ark of refugees from a dying Earth and an accidental civilization of uplifted spiders over the one terraformed world known to be available. Children of Ruin is a sequel, although a substantial portion of … Continue reading Recommendation: Children of Ruin
Reflections on Game of Thrones
(Warning: Here be spoilers!) Last week was the series finale for Game of Thrones, a series I'd been watching from the very beginning. Indeed, I first discovered George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books way back in 2002. I still remember seeing the first book in the store, with the cover … Continue reading Reflections on Game of Thrones
