Sunday SciFi: Traveller

May 13, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Science Fiction, Sunday SciFi 

The classic SciFi RPG is Traveller.  Originally released in 1977 by GDW (Games Designer Workshop) and written by Marc Miller.

It consisted of three little black books:

1. Characters and Combat

2. Starships

3. Worlds and Adventures

That’s it and it was all you needed to get started.  Define your character, how to get to other planets, and what you find once you get there.

Oh there was more, GDW published additional rule books, adventures, and other supplements, including two reworkings of the rule set. Those were MegaTraveller and Traveller: The New Era.

Steve Jackson Games put out a licensed version for their GURPS rules, and Mongoose Publishing is producing books with that LBB (Little Black Book) feel.

I’ve enjoyed Traveller for a lot of years, and it has a very rich and detailed game history that you can use or ignore as you desire.

Sunday SciFi: John Carter

March 11, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Movies, Science Fiction, Sunday SciFi 

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.

Sunday SciFi: A Middleman/Doctor Who Crossover story

December 11, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Science Fiction, Sunday SciFi 

Written by Middleman creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach!

Part I

Part II

Part III

Epilogue 

Sunday SciFi: UFO

November 27, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Movies, Science Fiction, Sunday SciFi 

UFO was live action SciFi show from the puppet master himself, Gerry Andersen, that ran for a single season of 23 episodes back in 1970.

Great actors, dark thoughtful scripts that always didn’t have a happy ending, sharp miniature work, and a late 60s sense of style and fashion made this show really stand out.  Oh and the purple haired moon chicks in silver miniskirts.  The cast included Michael Billington, who, according his wikipedia entry, was screen tested for the role of James Bond more than any other actor.

The show also other cool eye candy, including the gull wing door cars, nuclear submarines with a jet fighter mounted on their bow, space interceptors and S.I.D. (Space Intruder Detector).  What really made the show was the dark, thought provoking scripts, complex characters and some fine acting by Billington, Ed Biship and Gabrielle Drake.

There is a UFO movie, based on the series in the works.  Currently scheduled for a Summer 2013 release.

Sunday SciFi: Classic Star Wars Poster

September 11, 2011 by · 4 Comments
Filed under: Movies, Science Fiction, Sunday SciFi 

Ah yes, the original 1977 Star Wars, not episode IV, not “A New Hope”, just a low budget SciFi film with a bunch of relatively unknown actors as stars and a director who’s last movie was about hot rods in the early sixties.   The version where Han shot first because he was a rogue, a smuggler, one who operated outside the law.

Star Wars was a  B movie, complete with the Wilhelm scream, and we loved it.

Sunday SciFi: Castle/Firefly Crossover

September 4, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Science Fiction, Sunday SciFi 

Yup, that is Molly Quinn, who plays Alexis Castle, dressed up as Mal Reynolds, Nathan Fillion’s character on Firefly.

Sunday SciFi: Star Trek Weapons

August 14, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Photography, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Sunday SciFi 

 
 Yes, I own both of those.  No problem with Geek Cred here.

This is the same image I have loaded on flicker, just punched it up a bit.

Sunday SciFi: The Middleman

July 10, 2011 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Science Fiction, Sunday SciFi 

I’ve only caught a few episodes so far from this one season wonder, but so far I really like The Middleman and his Sidekick Wendy Watson. It’s delightfully low budget, in an old school Doctor Who way, funny, a tribute to the pulp era, and the cast is clearly having fun.

The Middleman himself is a clean cut, all American, milk drinking former Special Forces veteran with authority issues and what appears to be a id case with Doctor Who’s psychic paper in it.  Hmmmm….a Doctor Who/Middleman crossover.  I’m sure there is some fan fic out there that covers it.

It’s good low budget fun entertainment.  It’s got robots, gadgets, blasters, intelligent apes, the supernatural and a spunky sidekick that steals the show.

It didn’t run in a drive-in, so I don’t know what Joe-Bob Briggs would say, but my advice is to check it out.

Sunday SciFi: NPR’s looking for the Top Five SciFi books

June 26, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Science Fiction, Sunday SciFi 

OK, not really, since they are lumping fantasy in as well.  So you have crap written by George R.R. Martin listed along really good SciFi.  Ya, I am biased here.  I am much more of a SciFi fan than a fantasy one, and perhaps GRRM may be able to be write decent Elf porn or whatever passes for mainstream fantasy these days, but his attempts at SciFi that I have read have been utter drek.

You can enter your top five books or series under comments for this NPR story on their quest for summer reading. Fair warning, you have to register to post.

The five I entered were:

  1. Space Viking – H. Beam Piper
  2. The Probability Broach – L. Neil Smith
  3. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
  4. To Your Scattered Bodies Go – Philip Jose Farmer
  5. The Mote in God’s Eye – Dr. Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven

This list could change on any given day by one or two entries.

Sunday SciFi: Babylon 5

March 6, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Science Fiction, Star Trek, Sunday SciFi 

Very good, nay, excellent SciFi. Especially for TV.  This show wasn’t just SciFi, it was Space Opera in the best sense of the genre.

Grand sweeping story arcs over five seasons, great battles; personal, man to alien, and large fleets of space craft battling for control over this corner of the galaxy.

Much, much better than the Star Trek knock off of Babylon 5.  Yes, gentle readers, Star Trek: Deep Space 9 was a cheap knock off of Babylon 5.

The B5 pilot aired first, even though Paramount rushed ST:DS9 to the small screen before the B5 series was approved and made it to the airways.  The best ST:DS9 seasons were the ones where they did what B5 did the season before.  The ST:DS9 “creative” team even hired the same actor B5 used the season before in appear in what was essentially the same role.  The B5 team found this out when they tried to bring the actor back to reprise the role and found out he was over at Paramount filming a DS9 episode.  JMS responded by killing off the character and replacing him!

Five full seasons, plus a handful of made for TV movies.  Enough to keep you busy for a while if you enjoy really good SciFi.

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