REVIEW SUMMARY: A time-travel film that leaves the viewer asking questions.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Two engineers accidentally create a time machine in their garage. Things start out all fun and games as they use information from the future to make money in the present, but soon turn sinister.

MY REVIEW:

PROS: I absolutely loved the first four fifths of the film, especially the process of the creation of the device.

CONS: I think it’s almost required to watch this movie on DVD (rather than theatre). The film never slows down and doesn’t spend much time explaining things. The last 1/5 of the movie is lost on me, even after two viewings.

BOTTOM LINE: Be prepared to be befuddled. I hope someone else watches this movie so that I can talk to them about it.

On May 14th, The Discover Channel will air Alien Planet, an conceptual exploration of an alien world teeming with life. Apparently, the aliens have been designed by Wayne Barlowe, alien artist extraordinaire. Also, AP will have segments featuring the Official Theoretical Physicist of SFSignal, Michio Kaku and the Official Rapmaster of SFSignal, MC Hawking. It looks cool so fire up your Tivo(-like) devices now!

Paula Guran has posted an interesting article regarding Print-on-Demand. The slant of the article is setting Locus Magazine straight on the POD issues talked about in a recent issue.

[Link via Locus Online]

The local Half Price Books had a copy of The The Making of Star Wars, Episode III – Revenge of the Sith on prominent display, obviously in an effort to cash in on the ever-increasing hype. (I suspect that the movie, in fact, could easily have been called Revenge of the Hype with no decrease in the movie’s fanbase.)

Fanboy-in-denial that I am, I thumbed through the pages looking at all the juicy goodness which included shots from the movie as well as behind-the-scenes pix. I must say that they did a nice job of making Anakin look extra crispy. He reminded me of a piece of barbecue chicken. Or should I say barbecue ham? There was also an interesting picture of Amidala that was a spoiler for me. D’oh!

And no, JP, I did not get the book.

Here’s a game that uses Google to fetch images, display them, then asks the player to guess the keyword on which they are based. A simple idea that makes for a surprisingly addictive game.

[via Cynical C]

Ever watch the PBS series Computer Chronicles? It ran from 1983 – 2002. All the epsiodes are archived to meet all your nostalgic computer needs.

Here’s the synopsis for the show titled “Sleeper Shareware“, originally broadcast in 1991…

Most popular software titles get there as the result of an expensive sales and marketing campaign. Other programs are so popular they climb to the top of the charts just through word-of-mouth, or BBS chat. This program looks at several of these “sleeper” software programs that are worthy of note. Among the titles demonstrated are Commander Keen, PopDBF, Resident Task Manager, Prism, Pianoman, 4DOS, CommandPost, Windows Wallpaper, LCD 2.0, LJ2UP, MacBillboard, BigCheese, Ripper FKey, TappyType, Fish!, Globe, Solarian II, Melt DA, Address Book, FlashWrite, Stuffit, ToDo!, TidyItUp, DisKeeper, Red Ryder, White Knight, and Vietnam War. Guests include Jim Button, founder of the Association of Shareware Professionals.

For all you Firefly fans who’ve wished you could swear in Mandarin like the crew of Serenity, well, now you can! Rachel Kronick has put together a list of Mandarin phrases (note: not the oranges) that could fit right in with the Firefly universe. She hasn’t necessarily parsed the phrases from the show itself, but has used modern Mandarin to extrapolate likely phrases. Now you can cuss up a blue streak and no one will know. Well, aside from the tone of your voice that is.

There are a couple of F bombs tossed around so don’t let your kids read it.

Kevin Smith that is. He’s seen Revenge of the Sith and now he’s given us his review. Short take: He loved it. And he loved it as a Star Wars geek. He also goes into detail why he thinks this movie blows the first two away. There is some spoilage present, you are warned. If you don’t mind that, read away. Mr. Smith is a humorous writer and this review gives me hope for this movie.

Author Chris Moriarty has an interesting article about hard science fiction.

…hard SF is still going strong, fueled by writers and readers who thrill to that special hard SF combination of visionary speculation backed up by nuts and bolts ‘here’s how we get there from here’ science writing. It’s still about the science, and it always will be. But it’s also about people and politics and everything else in the known and unknown universe. It’s all up for grabs. Just like it always has been. . . .

Of related interest, I Googled around and found an Intro to Hard SF for the non-SF Reader, Hard vs. Soft SF as well as Grading SF for Realism. We’ve also discussed it here at SF Signal.

[Moriarty link via Nightshade Forum via Mumpsimus]

Since everyone and their mother has a blog, it was only a matter of time before fictional characters started having them, too. And who better to have a blog than Darth Vader? [Link via CNET]

It’s nice when someone notices a bad idea and does something about it. In this case, it took the efforts of a 12-year old to tone down the menacing look of the upcoming Loonatics, the futuristic “reimagining” of Bugs Bunny and friends.

…”early drawings” have been revised into characters that are softer and less menacing…

I’m still not sure what was wrong with the old look.

Here’s how I rated the award nominees for 1975:

The Mote in God’s Eye – 4.5

The Inverted World – 4

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said – 3.5

The Godwhale -2.5

The Dispossed – 2

Fire Time – 2

334 – 1

So, if I had a vote for the Hugo and Nebula, my winners would be The Mote in God’s Eye (Hugo) and Flow My Tears (Nebula). I’m also struck by the, in my opinion, lack of good stories up for the awards. Was there no other good SF in 1975? I’m also amazed to see how well Mote stands up thirty years later. It feels like it could have been written today, although Niven and Pournelle would have had to pad it out to meet today’s exacting space opera/hard SF standards. I’m also glad I had a chance to read The Inverted World. If not for this project, I would never had read it. Of course, I would never have read 334 either.

I know John didn’t break his down by award, so I’ll take them in the order he listed, and say that, for him, Flow My Tears would have won both awards. So, unofficially, taking both our ratings into consideration, Flow My Tears is the clear Nebula winner, with a three way tie for Hugo among Flow My Tears, Mote, and The Inverted World. We need some other reviewer, aside from Pete Klausner, to cast their votes and break that tie!

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: (Leveraged completely from John’s review) A brilliant physicist named Shevek tries to reunite the anarchist world of Anarres with its sister planet Urras.

PROS: Somewhat interesting exploration of the differences between two politco-social ideologies, the universe the story is set in sounds interesting although we don’t get to see it.

CONS: Slow moving, little action, dry writing, unmemorable characters (except Shevek), reads like a political textbook wrapped in a SF covering.

BOTTOM LINE: Much as I felt the first time I read it, I found The Dispossed to be a slow, dreary read, potentially interesting to people who are more interested in society and politics than in SF.

Read the rest of this entry

The Simpsons will be airing their 350th epsiode this Sunday. Only 3 series have had more episodes: Dallas (357 episodes – which will be surpassed by The Simpsons this year), My Three Sons (380 episodes) and The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet (435 epsiodes).

Go, go, Homer!

Including the Corn Pops from a previous merchandising link, you get them a Cingular Star Wars themed phone. Thanks go to Engadget for bringing this to my attention.

REVIEW SUMMARY: A hugely fun and entertaining read.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: The episodic tales of Roxanne Bonaventure, who receives a bracelet that allows her to travel through various timelines (time travel) and worldlines (parallel universes).

MY REVIEW:

PROS: Immersive; page-turning; a quick read; skillfully written; lots of fun!

CONS: None that I could think of.

BOTTOM LINE: Highly recommended.

Read the rest of this entry

As Tim mentioned earlier, the new Serenity trailer is now online at Apple’s site. Prepare to be breathless in anticipation until Sept. 30th, when you get to see River kick some major @$$.

Pete will be leaving our hallowed halls soon and what better way to send him off than with a page devoted to the Ladies of Star Trek?

Now if only there were some way I could convince him to turn this galaxy of galactic girlie goodness into a beautiful bag of buttery bagels…

Slate has an interesting article giving an overview of How To Finance a Hollywood Blockbuster. It seems that, due to tax regulations in other countries, movie studios can use feats of financial legerdemain to almost entirely offset the costs of big budget movies, which, with similar feats of financial legerdemain, almost always ‘lose’ money for the studio. After reading this article, you’ll know why we always get crappy summer blockbusters, SF or otherwise, and why its more difficult to get a modest budget movie made. So the answer is:

Film Consider Phlebas! That would rule. And it’s budget would have to be huge.

Suffereing an identity crisis? A butt-load of science fiction quizzes are avilable at Quiz Farm that will tell you who you are:

• Which Dune character are you?
• Which Lord of the Rings character are you?
• Which Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy character are you?
• Which StarGate character are you?
• Which Star Trek character are you?
• Which Narnia character are you?
• Which Lost character are you?
• Which Marvel comic character are you?
• Which fantasy character are you?
• Which Harry Potter character are you?

[via Cool SciFi]

You too can carry the Encyclopedia of All Things on your PDA. Here are some step-by-step instructions for copying Wikipedia to your handheld device. It uses the TomeRaider, a cross-platform reference and e-book reader. Currectly, image support in TomeRaider is spotty, but this is a great start!

[From MobileRead]

Dark Horizons has the scoop on the upcoming plans to put Star Wars on TV. Currently, two, yes two, shows are in the works; a CGI, half-hour series and a live-action, presumably hour-long series. Too bad. What we really need now is a computer animated Bea Arthur.

Another juicy tidbit in this post related to the long rumored, next Indiana Jones film. It seems Spielberg wants to make it his next movie, after the one he’s currently doing. Possible 2007 release date, and starring a retirement-age Harrison Ford as the aging, but still irreverent Indy…

Here are the results of the latest SF Signal poll.

QUESTION
Which Philip K. Dick adaptation was your favorite?

RESULTS

Hmmm. A much larger participation rate than usual. I suspect there was some ballot-stuffing going on – especially when I saw one vote count increase by 10 votes inside of an hour. For shame. I’ll change the poll properties of future polls to prohibit that somewhat.

As per Joss Whedon and one that I leeched from /. It is going to be available from Apple’s movie trailers site and then in theaters the following week.

I just finished watching the 4 DVDs for the series and it was quite good. Far above Fox’s level and I understand why they couldn’t handle it. I just wish a channel dedicated to Sci Fi might have picked it up – oh wait they don’t have one of those…

It’s no surprise to regular readers that I like used bookstores. They’re a great way to find out-of-print books, they are fun places to Gather and they are the perfect outlet for my own biblioholism. I have the most luck with the local set of Half Price Books stores – each of the 8 stores offer a great selection (did I mention I’m a Biblioholic?) including tons of science fiction. I also find lots of neat stuff on clearance. I’m not necessarily a bookstore chain lover, mind you. I still hold Mom & Pop used bookstores close to my biblioholic heart. You know, to help the Little Guy.

I had another questionable experience at a bookstore today. We were downtown, coming back from a trip to the Zoo and I passed a bookstore called 1/4 Price Books which was touting their “Best Houston Bookstore” claim in the window. Yeah, whatever. I had been to this store years and years ago and wasn’t very impressed at the time. Their prices were great and true to their name but their science fiction selection sucked. Fast forward to today and my accidental drive-by was met with hope that their prices were still as-advertised but their selection would be much improved.

Well, I was right about the selection. They had an impressive array of the old Ace Doubles among other treasures. Not a huge selection, but way better than last time. Curiously, much of the stuff was either price-tagged way above the cover price (forget about one-fourth the cover price) or wrapped in plastic without any price whatsoever. I learned that the unmarked stuff was just newly shelved, so, OK.

Three items of interest were a set of unpriced, mass market paperback copies of David G. Hartwell’s Foundations of Fear horror anthology (all three volumes with a cover price of $6 each). This interested me for a few reasons:

• The author/story selection looked interesting.
• Hartwell knows his stuff.
• I had just picked up one of those volumes just 2 days ago for half the cover price at Half Price Books (Hello…my name is John and…I’m a biblioholic).

Being unpriced but wrapped in plastic left little hope that I would get this bundle for $4.50. But I had to ask.

Since the books were unpriced, it required a “lookup”. Thanks to a beneficially placed portable computer, I was able to see that the “lookup” was nothing more than an Abe Books search. Hmmm…OK. I was then told that these mass market paperbacks were “first editions” and that they were selling for up to $29 each. However, the guy was going to graciously part with them all for the low, low price of $20. I said no, naturally, especially since I just picked up one of them 2 days ago for $3. Then I left the store. (OK, not empty handed. I bought a kid’s book for my kid and an old copy of Asimov’s Science Fiction for 75 cents. I might not have mentioned this before, but I’m somewhat of a biblioholic.)

Knowing something was fishy with this first-edition/$29 nonsense, I couldn’t help but do my own Abe Books web search when I got home. The books are beign sold anywhere from $1 to $6. (That’s a concise, but inaccurate, statement. Volume 1 only had a single seller pricing the book for $25!!! The next highest price was $7. The other two volumes are between $1 and $6. There. That’s more accurate.) What burned my ass was that I could easily get all three books for three bucks (plus shipping) and he knew that and had the cajones to offer me the low, low price of $20. Grrrr! I understand the concept of profit and I’m all for helping the Little Guy, but come on!

I got the last laugh though. When I got home, I realized that I already had the hardback version of Foundations of Fear already sitting on my bookshelf.

Oh, did I mention I have this biblioholism thing?