NPR’s top picks for SciFi and Elf Porn
NPR has distilled the input they got for people’s top picks for SciFi & Fantasy down to 100 selections, and are asking people to pick their top ten. There is some utter dreck in the list, along with some of the true classics in the field.
Go vote, but if your choices don’t include Heinlein, Pournelle, Niven, or Farmer, just hang your head in shame.
Sunday SciFi: The Middleman
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.
Monday Book Pick: Phoenix Rising
Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris
The first in a new Steampunk action/adventure/romance series. Not a bad first outing for the writing team of Ballantine and Morris. Good solid formula adventure, the kind Lester Dent made a very nice living writing during the Golden Age of Pulp. That is a favorable comparison by the way. This novel, which takes place in the 1890’s, complete with airships, Analytic Engines, steam powered bar bots serving beer and a mystery filled “Ministry” protecting the British Empire. This series follows two agents of that Ministry, a studious “Archivist” aptly named “Books” and the uber-field agent, Ms. “Braun”, who wears a bullet proof corset (Ministry issue of course), is a crack shot with her two customer revolvers and has a fondness for explosives.
Stop groaning! The plot flows well and has enough twists and fight scenes to keep you engaged. In all a good, fun read. I’ll be looking forward to the next installment in this Steampunk series.
Sunday SciFi: NPR’s looking for the Top Five SciFi books
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:
- Space Viking – H. Beam Piper
- The Probability Broach – L. Neil Smith
- The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
- To Your Scattered Bodies Go – Philip Jose Farmer
- 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.
Monday Book Pick: The Hot Gate
The third in his latest series, which is “old school SciFi Space Opera”. Ya, we got your epic space battle right here, and in case you forgot no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. They have their own battle plans, that is why they are called the enemy. Sometimes you don’t win, but not losing can still carry the day. A damn fine read. May Mr. Ringo continue providing his ‘reader crack’ a pace that destroys laptops but pays for many new ones.
Not all humans are weaselly Weiners
For a change of place, I came across a bit of pure awesome RPG fiction over at Leslie Bates’s Living in the Surreal World. Go read the whole thing, but here are some of my favorites:
We poison our air and water to weed out the weak. We set off fission bombs in our only biosphere. We nailed our god to a stick. Don’t fuck with the human race.
We drink poison too, and derive enjoyment from the temporary malfunctioning it causes in our higher brain functions. The higher the toxin level the greater the beverage; diluting the toxin with water is severely frowned upon.
Humans are so hardcore their first innovations were ways of making killing easier. Don’t mess with homo sapiens sapiens.
Humans consider one of the greatest career paths available to be piloting conveyances that use explosions for thrust.
The human capacity to change is fascinating.
I myself have witnessed a human military officer, who is tasked solely with the purpose of abusing his subordinates until they bond, take a group I suspected of severe genetic ailments – excess fat tissue, panic during crisis situations – and turn them into the perfect murder machines that we have come to know and fear. We have long suspected that humans in their homelands are weaker than those we regularly encounter, but it is clear that even the weak ones can become dangerous with minimal effort.
I would not advise an invasion of any human-controlled system at this time.
Not just good advice…take care not to tease the apes. They will fling more than poo when angered.
Just one more, from the page Leslie got the source material from:
“I once met a Human at a waystation on a Class 1 world. It did some kind of rough work for one of their colonies. It called itself a “search and retrieval expert” but I’m guessing the translation software couldn’t find the proper words. A few weeks later, it returns to the waystation, sans its trans-grav (rented, I might add). Apparently the people it was hunting took down its transport, but it continued on foot after escaping the wreckage and patching itself up. The scary part was that it was wearing clothes fashioned from Tharge pelts, had its targets’ ears on a necklace (DNA proof, I guess), and had fashioned a spear from a jagged piece of the trans-grav’s hull and an Iron-root. And it was honestly none the worst for wear, just sauntered over to the AENet terminal and collected on its kills.”
R.I.P Jeff Conaway
Jeff Conaway, who played Zack Allen, the troubled Security Agent who ended up being Chief of Security on Babylon 5, died on Friday.
Conaway was also known for some other work he did in some musical and a TV sitcom, but IMNSHO, his best work was on Babylon 5.
Thank you for sharing your talent with us Mr. Conaway. Rest easy beyond the Rim.
Monday Book Pick: Flaming Zeppelins
Flaming Zeppelins by Joe R. Landale
A nifty little farce combining multiple historical and fictional characters in a series of adventures, complete with cross dimensional rifts to stir the pot a bit. Reminded me of lot of Philip Jose Farmer’s writing as various fictional authors, with just a dash of Robert Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast thrown in for good measure. The cast includes Annie Oakley, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill Cody’s animated head, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Martian invaders and more. That includes Ned the Seal. Ned doesn’t talk, that would be silly. He does write a lot on a notepad he wears on a chain around his neck though.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Looker
Ya, it’s Friday the 13th, but I’m going to skip the obvious horror film selection, and go with this Michael Crichton classic from 1981. Sort of a SciFi suspense/thriller about your average Hollywood plastic surgeon getting caught up the murder of beautiful young actresses/models. It has a good cast, which includes James Coburn, Albert Finney and Susan Dey.
SciFi Quote of the Day
The life of a Browncoat is filled with pain and bitter remorse.