41/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Standout stories in this issue include “Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200” by R.S.A. Garcia, “The Ghasts” by Lavie Tidhar, and “The Music of the Siphorophenes” by C. L. Polk.
Geekery
Whatever I’m geeking out about at the time.
🎥 Bridget Jones’s Diary
Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001): ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Late ’90s/early ’00s Hugh Grant is always fun (Hugh at his peak Hugh Grant-i-ness), and this (along with one other) was a perfect choice to watch on an evening in during our New York to London voyage.
🎥 Notting Hill
Late ’90s/early ’00s Hugh Grant is always fun (Hugh at his peak Hugh Grant-i-ness), and this (along with one other) was a perfect choice to watch on an evening in during our New York to London voyage.
🎥 Strange Days
Strange Days (1995): ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Almost 30 years later, and this still packs a hell of a punch, and is still amazingly topical for the present day. I remember when this came out being pretty convinced that, save the sci-fi device, it was quite possibly an eerily accurate prediction of where we’d be societally at the turn of the century. Turns out that while the SQuID hardware still isn’t a thing, the rest was somewhere between right on point and just a couple decades too early. Plus an all-around stellar cast (I mean, come on: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Lewis, Michael Wincott, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Vincent D’Onofrio, Glenn Plummer, and Angela Bassett at her badass best, all in one film?) and a killer soundtrack.
📚 Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
40/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
More Discworld silliness, this time following the eighth child of an eighth child who, for very good reasons, is asking just why women can’t be wizards. Something of a mid-80’s take on feminism in fantasy literature.
📚 Clarkesworld Issue 203 edited by Neil Clarke
39/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’m using our vacation time to focus on eBooks, including finally diving into my ever-growing backlog of SF/F magazines. For me, the standout stories in this most recent issue of Clarkesworld are Stephen Case’s “Every Seed is a Prayer (And Your World is a Seed)” and M.J. Pettit’s “Empathetic Ear”.
📚 The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett
38/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I found this one to already be a bit better than the first in the series; it certainly had more moments that made me chuckle or laugh out loud. I’ve seen lots of comparisons between Pratchett and Douglas Adams, and while I could see that in the last one, it was definitely more evident here. As if with the first book, Pratchett and Adams definitely lived in the same town, but with this book they’re now next-door neighbors. On its own and if found without any prior knowledge, the first wouldn’t have hooked me; this one would have convinced me that I’d be interested in reading more.
📚 The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
37/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Though I’ve absorbed a certain amount of general Pratchett-related knowledge through decades of geek osmosis, until now I’ve not read any of his work (aside from his Good Omens collaboration with Neil Gaiman). Having been gifted a nearly complete selection of Discworld ebooks, after looking at several reading guides with various and sundry suggestions of where to start and how to continue, I finally just decided to start at the beginning and (over time) work my way through in publication order. Of course, this means that the first book I’ve read is one that many lists seem to agree might not be the best introduction to the series, which I suppose I can see – it does have a definite first-book “I have this idea for a humorous fantasy world series, let’s see if it works” feel to it. That said, it’s frequently amusing (particularly for someone old enough to have been reading fantasy in the 80s; much of this book might not land as solidly for someone raised on modern fantasy), and I actually found the idea of the Wyrmburg and its inverted dragonhold, where the riders walk along the ceiling by hanging upside down from rings by using hooked boots particularly imaginative. Admittedly, if I hadn’t already come across enough snippets, quotes, and other mentions of Pratchett and Discworld it might not be enough to solidly hook me, but as it is, I’m looking forward to reading on and seeing how Pratchett evolves the concept through the later books.
📚 War Drums by John Vornholt
36/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
An average adventure, mostly focusing on Ro and Worf as they try to manage confrontations between an unusually xenophobic Federation colony being beset by a band of young Klingons who have gone feral after crashing on a planet. Ro is presented pretty well, but Worf’s characterization often felt off – a bit too smiley, and whatever the situation, it’s difficult for me to see him dancing. Arguably there are reasons for this, but it just kept feeling wrong.
Year 50 Day 97
Day 97: At yesterday’s Norwescon picnic, I got a couple fun gifts from one of my friends. A full set of Star Trek glassware, with four glasses representing different planets and a shot glass representing a Borg cube, and a very cool but terribly impractical pizza cutter in the shape of the original NCC-1701 USS Enterprise. My friends know me well!