25/2024 – ⭐️⭐️
Six mediocre short stories set between the first and second films, each focusing on a different primary character. Nothing astounding here. The upside-down shot of the Enterprise on the cover is amusing, though.
Lisa Frankenstein
Lisa Frankenstein (2024): ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Delightfully, adorably dark and weird. Oddly paced from time to time, but a lot of fun, with a great soundtrack, and it’s good to see something from Diablo Cody again.
Trolls Band Together
Trolls Band Together (2023): ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Continues to be a very enjoyable series. It’s bright, colorful, and cheerful, it has a lot of fun music, the humor covers the gamut from simple stuff that kids will enjoy to jokes for the adults that will fly right over the kids’ heads, and the animation and creature design is wonderfully cute (and occasionally amusingly horrifying; the RV in this one is a thing of hilarious nightmares), and the whole package has an ongoing current of hallucinogenic weirdness that I love. Particularly enjoyed the design of the antagonists and their entire part of the world, which was a clear homage to the art and animation styles of the ’30s, and whose clean balloon-like designs contrasted nicely with the everything-is-just-slightly-fuzzy world of the trolls.
Year 50 Day 340
Day 340: Not much to say about today. A quiet Saturday at home. Watched a couple movies. Not a whole lot else.
📚 Clarkesworld Issue 211 edited by Neil Clarke
24/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A particularly strong issue this month. I really enjoyed “The Lark Ascending” by Eleanna Castroianni, “An Intergalactic Smuggler’s Guide to Homecoming” by Tia Tashiro, “The Indomitable Captain Holli” by Rich Larson, “The Rambler” by Shen Dacheng, translated by Cara Healey, and “Occurrence at O1339” by Kelly Jennings.
Year 50 Day 339
Day 338: Just getting away from the computer for a few minutes and hanging out in the very ’70s/’80s institutional chic of our employee lounge/breakroom.
Year 50 Day 338
Day 338: An important part of my nightly duties — preparing our tea as we relax before going to bed.
Year 50 Day 337
Day 337: A shirt that came with me to con this year, but didn’t get worn (because it’s been worn at con the past few years, and while many of my shirts get worn every year, some of them do need to be rotated out every so often).
Year 50 Day 336
Day 336: Made it through my first day of work back in the real world! Not nearly as many fairies, aliens, Imperial Stormtroopers, or Starfleet officers, but I suppose these humans I work with are nice enough.
📚 Star Trek II Biographies by William Rotsler
23/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Something of a historical curiosity now, these “biographies” of the principal characters have since been nearly or entirely overwritten by later films or more official pseudo-canon works. Still, it’s a fun artifact of this point in Trek’s real-world history, and as the first published material giving Uhura’s first name of “Nyota”.
