Category: Science Fiction

My First Hugo Awards Voting Adventure – Best Novels 2014 and 1939

I took the plunge this year and decided to buy a supporting membership to WorldCon so I could vote in the Hugo Awards. What pushed me over the edge?  The Best Novel (or Series) nomination for Ancillary Justice and the entire Wheel of Time series.  I could not let this opportunity pass me by without making my meager voice heard.

I spent (or wasted, depending on your point of view) over two decades reading (and re-reading) and waiting to read the Wheel of Time series.  At one point, upon Robert Jordan’s death, I gave up hope of ever being able to complete the series.  I made my peace with that, prayed for his family, and went on with my reading life. 
Continue reading “My First Hugo Awards Voting Adventure – Best Novels 2014 and 1939”

Everything You Never Knew About The Making Of Last Starfighter

http://io9.com/everything-you-never-knew-about-the-making-of-last-star-1602703884?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

I’ve gone all nostalgic now.  I love this movie.   I should buy it so I can enjoy all these behind the scenes goodies myself.

Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon

Review: ‘Women Destroy Science Fiction!’ : NPR

http://www.npr.org/2014/06/28/322544552/women-are-destroying-science-fiction-thats-ok-they-created-it?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20140629

Time to buy my first issue of Lightspeed mm agazine.

Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon

31 Essential Science Fiction Terms And Where They Came From

http://io9.com/31-essential-science-fiction-terms-and-where-they-came-1594794250?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Some of my favorites include: android, terraforming, posthuman, dystopia, multiverse and cyberspace.

Interesting list and origins.

Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon

Movie Review: Godzilla (2014) – 3.5 stars

Godzilla (2014)

3.5 out of 5 stars

Watched opening weekend (May 17, 2014)

My husband and I watched Godzilla on opening weekend at our favorite local movie theater, taking advantage of their VIP seating.  One recent change to their pricing has me a bit rumbled.  The Legends 14 Theater’s matinee pricing stops at 4:00 p.m. now, instead of the traditional 5:00 p.m.  This means the main attraction, like Godzilla, only has one matinee per day in the large screen theater.   I prefer matinees more for the time slots than the cost savings (since I’m paying extra for VIP service anyway), but still.  Irksome.

I had read a couple of reviews before deciding to watch this movie in theaters.  I have many fond memories of Godzilla week on the local Kansas City television stations in the 70s.  I’d come home from school and the after school movies would feature Godzilla classics from the 50s and 60s.  My forty-year foggy memory doesn’t recall much of the plots, but I do remember them being entertaining.

This latest iteration of Godzilla took me a bit by surprise.  Continue reading “Movie Review: Godzilla (2014) – 3.5 stars”

Kirk Got Something Right

According to io9, Captain Kirk is right when it comes to diplomacy, despite (or because of) his bad press.

Kirk, in particular, comes in for a lot of bad press, as a captain whose life gets horizontal in ways that have nothing to do with gravitational anomalies.

Chortling aside, the article above had some interesting observations.  Enjoy!

Book Review: The Martian Chronicles by Bradbury (2.5 Stars)

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

2.5 out of 5 stars

Recommended by the GoodReads SciFi/Fantasy Book Club August 2009 Selection

Read in August, 2009

Synopsis (courtesy Wikipedia):

The Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists. The book lies somewhere between a short story collection and an episodic novel, containing stories Bradbury originally published in the late 1940s in science fiction magazines. The stories were loosely woven together with a series of short, interstitial vignettes for publication.

My Thoughts:

This collection of stories about Mars reminded me of Edgar Rice Burroughs stories. But where Burroughs entertained with adventures and action, Bradbury expounded on various themes, mostly anti-war and anti-establishment.

Continue reading “Book Review: The Martian Chronicles by Bradbury (2.5 Stars)”

Book Review: The Copper Crown by Kennealy-Morrison (5 Stars)

CopperCrownThe Copper Crown by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

5 out of 5 stars

Read at least five times since the late 80s

Synopsis:

WHEN EARTH MEETS KELTIA WILL STAR EMPIRES FALL?

When lore became legend on ancient Earth and the powers of magic waned, the Kelts and their allies fled the planet for the freedom of distant star realms.

But the stars were home to dangerous foes, and millenia later, the worlds of Keltia still maintained uneasy truce with two enemy empires -the Imperium and the Phalanx. Then, at the start of the reign of Aeron, mistress of high magic and queen of all the Kelts, an Earthship made contact with her long-fled children. And while Earth and Keltia reached out to form alliance, the star fleets of the enemy mobilized for final, devastating war….

My Thoughts (Warning: Spoilers):

Every couple of years, I get the urge to pull out this novel and re-read it. Continue reading “Book Review: The Copper Crown by Kennealy-Morrison (5 Stars)”

Great Unsung Science Fiction Authors That Everybody Should Read

http://io9.com/great-unsung-science-fiction-authors-that-everybody-sho-1552276689?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_twitter&utm_source=io9_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

More books to be added to my TBR stack.  I will be scrutinizing the female authors closely.

Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon