Sunday SciFi: New Star Trek: Phase 2 trailer
If you haven’t seen Star Trek Phase 2 yet, check it out!
Sunday SciFi: John Carter
Saw John Carter last night, in 3D on an IMax screen.
Excellent adventure flick by one of the early masters of the genre, Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was based on the first of the John Carter of Mars books, A Princess of Mars. It was written 95 years ago (1917), so it’s in the public domain. You can download it from the Gutenberg site or get the Kindle version for free.
The show was completely sold out and the audience was a mix of young and old, including a lot of families. Glad I saw on the big screen.
Update: Ed Morrissey reviewed John Carter and gave it a thumbs up as well.
John Carter has plenty of surprises and edge-of-the-seat action all the way to the very end. It won’t win a nomination for Best Picture, but as a fun adventure and popcorn movie, it’s terrific and smarter than most, especially this time of year. Don’t be surprised at the end if you’d like another trip to Mars very soon.
John Carter is rated PG-13, with a lot of violence, some of it quite bloody (even if the blood might be another color at times) and very intense. It has no foul language or nudity — a few skimpy outfits for Collins, but nothing one wouldn’t have seen on a Xena: Warrior Princess episode.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Digital Assassin
Way back when, I was working on some of the first commercial grade digital movie servers. One of our customers was a large pay for view service, so as part of the testing process, I had to watch a lot of B-Movies. This turkey was one of them. It has since be released under a new name, probably in an attempt to get anybody to watch it who wasn’t required to, like I was. So if you run across Cyberjack, same movie. Makes your typical B-Movie look like a snooty art film. Quick summary, Michael Dudikoff plays an alcoholic ex-cop haunted by the criminal who killed his partner. He is currently working as the alcoholic janitor of a high tech research facility that produces sophisticated computer viruses. The facility is taken over by a criminal gang lead by, yup, you guessed it, the same criminal who haunts the janitor’s cheap booze soaked nightmares. The drunken janitor must face his fears and remember all the training in close quarters urban combat with assault rifles that he learned as a rookie street cop and save the day. Brion James plays the criminal in question and delivers the best acting in the movie. The only other notable part of the movie was Suki Kaiser, providing good eye candy as the beautiful and brilliant Dr. Alex Royce.
If there were still Drive-In movie theaters in numbers enough to matter, this would be the second feature that you ignore in order to have cramped car sex with your date.
Monday Book Pick: The Sixth Column
Filed under: Baen Books, Monday Book Pick, Science Fiction
The Sixth Column by Robert A. Heinlein
The first published work by Robert Heinlein, originally as a serial in the pulps of the 1940s. Based on an outline by John Campbell, Heinlein took some of the edge off the overt racism in the outline. Keep in mind that was written in the 1940s and incidents such as the Rape of Nanking were know. It’s good Heinlein, not great Heinlein.
Monday Book Pick: Perigee
Perigee by Patrick Chiles
A near future novel about the way we should be traveling now! A ripping good yarn with steely eyed Missile Men and Women doing the Right Stuff. To make it even better, the science is so hard it throbs.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Colossus – The Forbin Project
HT to my friend John for reminding me of this Cold War era classic. A 1969 spin on the classic Frankenstein story, except this time it’s with highly “intelligent” super computers running the nuclear arsenals of both the United States and the Soviet Union.
Another Edition of Dungeons and Dragons is in the works
Here is the executive summary. The 4th Edition rules were a bad business decision and resulted in decrease in market share.
This new edition is supposed to be a return to their “roots” in a effort to win back their core fan base.
For more details, try Ace’s take on the Forbes story.
HT to Mr. Reynolds, and oh BTW, there have been several Traveller movies. Namely Serenity and Dark Star.
Marc Miller and Loren Wiseman never made a dime off those however.
Monday Book Pick: Princess Valerie’s War
Princess Valerie’s War: A Space Viking Novel by Terry Mancour
The second in a series that follows on to one of my favorite books, Space Viking.
This is follow up book to Prince of Tanith, which was my pick back on 12/12/11. There is clearly at least one more book after this one.
Monday Book Pick: Prince of Tanith
Prince of Tanith: A Space Viking Novel by Terry Mancour
A well written sequel to one of my favorite books, Space Viking. Like most of H. Beam Piper’s work, Space Viking is in the public domain, so sequels like this are fair game. Luckily this one is well written. It takes place after Lucas Trask marries his new love, Lady Valerie, and picks up the action pretty fast. It has all of your old friends and enemies, plus a few more. Fair warning. It ends in a cliff hanger. More about the ‘third’ book in the Space Viking Series later.
Sunday SciFi: A Middleman/Doctor Who Crossover story
Written by Middleman creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach!