Geekery

Whatever I’m geeking out about at the time.

🎥 Strange Days

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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.

📚 Clarkesworld Issue 203 edited by Neil Clarke

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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”.

Me holding my iPad with Clarkesworld Issue 203

📚 The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

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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.

Me holding The Light Fantastic as an ebook on my iPad

📚 The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

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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.

Me holding The Colour of Magic on my iPad

📚 War Drums by John Vornholt

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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.

Me holding War Drums

Year 50 Day 97

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Me sitting in a chair in front of a bookcase, with boxes for Star Trek glassware and a pizza cutter in the shape of the original Enterprise in my lap, holding the pizza cutter.

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!

📚 Imbalance by V.E. Mitchell

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35/2023 – ⭐️⭐️

This one starts with an interesting premise, as the Enterprise is sent to negotiate with aliens only briefly encountered before, the Jarada (the unseen, highly demanding aliens that were the B story in “The Big Goodbye”). But while there are hints of an interesting society, the rest of the book doesn’t hold together well. Actions are taken by the aliens that are never really explained, and Enterprise characters are either reduced to repetitious mannerisms (Dr. Crusher brushes locks of her flaming red hair out of her face nearly every time she’s mentioned) or simply badly portrayed (I know Keiko and O’Brien have difficulties, but in this book they’re both rendered nearly incompetent by their insecurities). Toss on a rather abrupt end to the whole thing, and this is one I wasn’t disappointed to reach the end of.

Me holding Imbalance

🎥 Invitation to a Murder

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Invitation to a Murder (2023): ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This starts as a very fun homage to Agatha Christie movies, with a very 10 Little Indians basic setup and a lot of other classic Christie tropes wrapped up all together. But somehow by the end it just sort of feels like it fizzles out, with the final resolution depending on some things that felt very out of place and anachronistic. Mostly a lot of fun, but needed a better way to wrap things up at the end.

More spolieriffic details follow…

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🎥 Renfield

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Renfield (2023): ⭐️⭐️

Almost gets three stars, because it was entertaining, and really, how high were anyone’s actual expectations for this? But though I enjoy the cast, Cage is just as ridiculous as you’d expect him to be, Hoult somehow (very amusingly) channels 90s era Hugh Grant (seriously, Renfield Nicholas Hoult : 90s Hugh Grant :: Heathers Christian Slater : 70s Jack Nicholson), and there are a lot of clever lines that made me laugh, the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts. The editing during the fight scenes is far too quick and choppy, resulting in fights that are sometimes hard to track and often give the impression that the fight choreography just wasn’t there and they had to try to save them through the editing. And the decision to go with 70s-martial-arts/horror-style over-the-top fountains of gushing blood somehow didn’t quite work for me. I don’t regret watching this, but it’s not one I’ll ever have much need to watch again.