Harlan Ellison is odd fellow. At age 72 when Dreams With Sharp Teeth was put together, he seems just this side of madness as he rants and raves about the world around him. But then, he has always ranted and raved about the world around him. I have never been a huge fan of Harlan Ellison’s writing. I can’t name even a single story of his that I can remember reading, though I must surely have stumbled across one or two over the years. No, it’s more stories about Harlan Ellison than story by Harlan Ellison that spring to mind.…
Tag: sci fi
Torchwood Miracle Day
In Torchwood Miracle Day death takes a holiday-and it looks more like a permanent leave. The interesting Torchwood bit is that Captain Jack, our hero, has been immortal-until Miracle Day that is. So is it all a plot to kill off Captain Jack for good? The first season of Torchwood had a high sexual content, as many British sci-fi shows do these days. The second season they dropped it down a couple of notches. The third season had little to no sex that I recall. This latest Torchwood, from the BBC and Starz held the sex back until episode three…
Total Oblivion-More or Less
One of the hallmarks of post apocalypse stories is that things go from bad to worse on a very regular basis. But most of them start off in the fairly familiar, fairly common world and something goes terribly wrong-zombies, atomic war, pandemic plague, EMP, or just some mysterious something that puts an end to life as we know it. But rarely have I seen a mysterious something else quite as odd as the one used in Total Oblivion-More or Less. The Earth finds itself over run by hordes of barbarian Scythians and people from something like the Roman Empire. But…
The Man In The High Castle
Philip K Dick was a prolific writer of short stories and novels, and he continues to supply a steady source of material for people who make movies. The Adjustment Bureau was based on a Philip K Dick short story. I first read The Man In The High Castle in about 1982 while I was working my way through of a number of the best SciFi books ever written. I was heavily into Asimov, Heinlein, Lem, and a number of other great writers of science fiction who had found their way onto Best Sci Fi Lists of one kind or another. …
Paul-An Alien Road Picture
A man in black shoots a radio and says-It was a boring conversation anyway. Just one of the many inside sci fi, super nerd jokes in the silly sci-fi flick Paul. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who everyone seems to think are gay, find themselves in nerd heaven-Comicon in San Diego. As a nice follow up they decide to hit all the famous UFO sites in the western USA. They visit the the Little A’Le’Inn and The Black Mailbox and Vasquez Rocks where the reenact the battle between Captain Kirk and The Gorn. While at the Black Mailbox they see…
Being Human on Syfy
Being Human is the story of three friends sharing an apartment-one vampire, one werewolve, and one ghost. The show started out on the BBC, which makes sense since having a flatmate is the normal state of affairs in cities like London and Bristol. I had my doubts about the basic premise working in America, where everyone has their own place. But it looks like it will be fine. One of The Wife’s complaints is a simple one-NBC Universal is run by idiots. Or as my hero Rickey Gervais would say, NBC Universal is run by fucking idiots. They have a…
Stargate Universe Canceled by Syfy
The Syfy channel seems to be more interested in Wrestling and Paranormal BS than actual science fiction. Maybe that’s why they changed their name. The Syfy channel canceled Stargate Universe only weeks after canceling Caprica. The only shows remaining are Warehouse 13, Sanctuary, and Eureka. Tick tick tick That’s the sound of your life running out. I never liked Caprica, it was too much a show about The Matrix and too little a show about Battlestar Gallactica. But it was starting to get a little interesting, just when they axed it. I didn’t like Stargate Universe either, for similar reasons. …
The Writer’s Market
The Writer’s Market is to aspiring writers what seed catalogs are to aspiring gardeners-something to drool over and think about and have long, usually unrealistic, fantasies about. I bought my first Writer’s Market when I was in high school, submitted my first short stories and poems as quickly as I could roll them out of my old manual typewriter. What a lovely sound those keys made as they slapped the paper. I miss that once in a while. I soon moved up to an electric typewriter. I still refer to the Return key and get blank stares from people who…
Code 46 Can’t Tell The Players Without a Genome Card
We open with several pages of legalese explaining that it is against the law to have children with people who have either 100%, 50%, or 25% of the same genetic code as yourself. At the same time we see Tim Robbins flying over a vast desert, which surrounds the city of Shanghai. Clearly something has happened, something bad. We are never told what this something is. We are given hints that sunlight is bad-so bad that everyone now works at night and sleeps during the day. We are also told that clones and test tube babies are common. And most…
Inception-Dreaming The Matrix
I’ve been waiting for someone to make another Matrix movie since 1999 and Inception is pretty close. It’s a sci fi movie, sort of. Sort of because there is no real science mentioned as to how the people in this universe share dreams. This is not a problem, since we are never sure what reality really is and if there is a higher level where the real technology of Dreaming exists. We are shown a number of realities, all of which have differences in how time passes, so that the 30 seconds it take a van to fall from a…