Through a fluke set of circumstances, I ended up beginning to read the story, “Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle.” You may recognize this as the derivation of the acronym TASER (Thomas A. Smith Electric Rifle). Not knowing much about the story, who wrote it, or when it was published, I dove in. As I …
Category Archives: Fiction
Starship Captains
Through the good works of SF Signal, I’m referred to Top Twenty Starship Captains, by Kunochan. I actually didn’t find this posting to be all that great, but I commented on the thread, so I’ll link it here. If nothing else, it is extensive.
Robert Jordan is Dead
I can’t believe this slipped past me for two days. Robert Jordan, author of the voluminous Wheel of Time series, passed away on the September 16th due to a disease he was diagnosed with a year and a half ago.
The Children of Men
I finally slogged my way through The Children of Men by P.D. James. You may recall that there was a movie out last spring which was much hyped. It came to my attention through science fiction circles that this was based off of a science fiction book. I am opposed to seeing movies without first …
Stardust
We went to see the movie Stardust last night, starring Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Robert DeNiro, among others. It was written by Neil Gaiman, and is possible the best movie I’ve seen in the last five years. Way better than the Lord of the Rings or Narnia or any other of the …
The Call of Cthulhu
Finally! It’s only been about twenty years since I first ran across Cthulhu, in the form of the role playing game Call of Cthulhu, in which if your character is not dead or insane by game’s end, you haven’t been trying hard enough. Now I’ve finally read the original short story that this is all …
Scifi Summer Movie Project
Way back at the beginning of the summer I posted a list of scifi movies that I either needed to see, or see again. Let’s see how I’ve been doing. Gattaca: Nope Blade Runner**: Nope Digitally scragged Return of the Jedi (I was so fed up with Lucas after his “improvement” of episode IV and …
Reshelving Non-Scientific Books
gacked from Pharyngula Biologist Helping Bookstores has a quest. He reshelves books without a science theme to parts of the book store he feels appropriate. I’m of two minds about this. My first mind thinks that he’s right; Michael Behe does not belong in the science section any more than Harry Potter does. My other …
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (No Spoilers)
Friday last, Jenn and I waited in line to purchase the last book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The line and the party at our local Barnes & Noble were just as crazy as we expected. An arguably entertaining event were the two guys at the door who were …
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Broke My Rule
I broke my rule of avoiding all Harry Potter related news. It seemed safe enough, and it turned out to be horribly amusing predictions from someone who doesn’t take the Harry Potter universe very seriously. Definitely worth the read. The best quote from the whole article is this one, concerning killing off main characters at …