Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

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📚 twenty-four of 2020: E.T. the Extraterrestrial by William Kotzwinkle ⭐️⭐️⭐️

An odd adaptation, likely done from an earlier draft of the script. I never realized E.T. was quite so romantically enamored with Elliott’s mom! That got kinda weird a few times.

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📚 twenty-three of 2020: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1968 Hugo Best Novel

A neat blending of western SF sensibilities with the Indian pantheon of gods; enjoyed this one more than I expected given that I didn’t much like Zelazny’s prior Hugo winner.

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While there’s never a good time to have an internet outage, in the midst of a pandemic when both people in the house work from home and depend on ‘net access for both work and socializing is a really, really bad time.

In other news, after two days down, we’re back online!

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📚 twenty-two of 2020: Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp ⭐️⭐️⭐️

On its own, a fairly standard action thriller. But as the source material for Die Hard, it’s a fascinating artifact. Surprisingly similar, and all changes made for the film were for the better.

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📚 twenty-one of 2020: Matter’s End by Gregory Benford ⭐️⭐️

An average collection of short stories, some of which show their age more than others—especially one that starts with a riff on Mormon missionaries and ends with what comes across as (unconscious?) Islamophobia.

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Forty-seven! While I don’t really have any basis for comparison, so far, this quarantine birthday hasn’t been too bad.

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📚 twenty of 2020: Starman by Alan Dean Foster ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A pleasant and easy adaptation of an 80s SF film that I remember enjoying when it came out. It’s another of the “benevolent alien meets paranoid humans” contact stories, but does it simply and well.

Plague Puzzle Two

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We actually completed this one a couple weeks ago; I just forgot to post the photos until now.

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