A science fiction blog featuring science fiction book reviews and with frequent ramblings on fantasy, computers and the web.
And I’m not talking baseball. No.
Joystiq has a short item on Halo 2 presales figures. Unbelievable, 1.5 million pre-sales. Wow!
In related news, sorta, there are three quick reviews on Half-life 2. Looks good so far, in fact, better than that. Tim will let us know when he gets it….
Filed under: Games
REVIEW SUMMARY: This mini-series represents a real ending for the Farscape series. It included most of the characters from the original series, and was a great visual treat. The story moved along at the right pace and ties off the series in a very appropriate manner. I really enjoyed the show.
MY RATING: 
Filed under: TV
Here are the results of the latest SF Signal poll.
QUESTION
If you could have one of Superman’s powers, which would it be?
RESULTS
33% – X-Ray vision
33% – Flight
28% – Invulnerability
6% – Super strength
0% – Heat vision
0% – Super breath
(Total votes: 18)
Filed under: Polls
The Sci Fi Channel gets a full page writeup in this week’s Entertainment Weekly. They talk about the standards…ratings (Battlestar Galactica was last year’s most-watched cable miniseries; the premiere of Stargate: Atlantis drew 4.2 million viewers) and demographics (43% of the audience is female). They also talk about how NBC, overseeing the Sci Fi channel since its merger with universal, sees the Sci Fi Channel as “the next big thing”. They also mention upcoming projects like Ursula K. Le Guin’s EarthSea, Frank Darabont’s remake of The Thing, Ridley Scott’s remake of The Andromeda Strain and and armageddon-ish miniseries by Martin Scorcese.
Filed under: TV
December 14th is the day when The Lord of Rings Trilogy will be released on DVD (the same day that the extended edition of Return of The King is released).
These are the extended editions – 12 discs in all. MSRP is $120, Amazon is pre-ordering for $78.
Filed under: Movies
REVIEW SUMMARY: The original title was probably “Thunderbirds vs. the Axis of Evil.” Definitely not a movie for the kiddies (noted the R rating). First off, I was never a fan of the puppet-style animation. But the sets look great, and watching them blow up is just sauce. This movie is basically South Park using puppets stewed in hilarious Matt Stone/Trey Parker politically incorrectness. As each Hollywood celebrity-spoofed puppet get blown up, I know we all secretly wish that the real corresponding loudmouth were there being dealt the same treatment. After watching this movie, it was some time before I stop saying my Ls as Rs…
MY RATING: 
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Team America, based inside Mt. Rushmore, fights the Axis of Evil led by the commie we all love to hate, Kim Jong-Il, and his Middle Eastern fundamentalist stoolies to prevent them from destroying the world with WMDs.
MY REVIEW:
PROS: Funny, politically incorrect, irreverent, cussing, and soft-core marionette porn.
CONS: Needed More: Jokes, Michael Moore torturing, Hollywood -bashing…
BOTTOM LINE: It has its moments: Funny jingles, racial stereotyping, Hollywood celebrity-bashing, and hotdog-munching, socialist-extraordinaire, public enemy #1 – Michael Moore. I wouldn’t call it non-stop laughing beginning to end; but it will be a “Most Likely To Buy” DVD.
Filed under: Movies
REVIEW SUMMARY: Theoretical physics is a good gig.
MY RATING:
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: The book’s subtitle says it all: “A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps and the 10th Dimension.”
MY REVIEW:
PROS: Interesting topic; engaging writing.
CONS: The biographical passages; started strong and got weaker.
BOTTOM LINE: A good book if you’re in the mood for something educational.
Filed under: Book Review
In the ongoing effort to curb comment spam (50 more today before the IP address was banned!) the following changes have been made to the blog:
So, the blog takes a few minor usability hits but I hope the result (less spam) is worth the effort.
Many sites advocate turning off comments altogether. One argument in favor of this says that blogs should be less interactive and more like a read-only station. However, for me at least, part of the fun of the blog is having commenters discuss the topic. Without input from others, the blog is nothing more than a soapbox. So I believe that turning off commenting altogether is not really a worthwhile solution.
Another recommendation I frequently see is turning off HTML in comments. I’m holding off on that one (for now) because of the minor inconvenience of having to cut and paste a URL instead of clicking the link.
Another measure that we can take is registration. This, to me, is no solution because, as I understand it, the reg info is kept in a single MT repository for all blogs. That means the spammer need only take a few moments to create a new user name (easy to do) and then he can spam away. Bottom line: no effect.
Yet another measure we can take is to force human interaction on a comment post. That is, we would display some machine-unreadable code that the user would type every time he wanted to comment. While this is a bummer, we could keep the nuisance level low by making the code short, say 2 characters.
Anyone have any opinions on this?
Filed under: Meta
This rant echoes what I’ve said before – many books are just way too long. I’ve always maintained that Battelfield Earth was a passable book up until the midway point when the main bad guy died and shark bankers took over. Ack! Another title I remember as being longwinded: Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. There are lots of others. Writers (and the editors) should just tell the story and cut the fluff. Yeah, yeah…we know you are a great “literary master”, but get on with the story already!
I look at a 200-pager by Theodore Sturgeon and wish more books were the “right” length for the story they tell. Other short (and excellent) works: The Genocides by Thomas M. Disch, Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney and The Man Who Fell To Earth by Walter Tevis. Notice anything? They are all older books. Its as if the publishers want an excuse to charge $26 bucks for a hardback that should rightfully clock in under 300 pages. Books, and the pricetag, should be lighter.
And while I’m ranting, no more of this splitting up nonsense. Scott Westerfeld’s short (and excellent) novel The Risen Empire was originally the first part of a single, longer book that could easily be a single manageable book. Instead we get two smaller books with larger type. Nice way to squeeze more money out of the public. Not.
Filed under: Books
I know, hard to believe, but its apparently true. SciFi is working on a Darwin’s Radio/Children mini-series. Unbelieveable. Actual SF content to air on the SciFi channel. The usual suits in the boardroom must have all been in the executive washroom when this got approved.
Now, I realize Darwin’s Radio won the 2001 Nebula Award, but I found it to be a rather slow read and I haven’t picked up the sequal. Having said that, I’ll have to watch to the mini-series because its actually a scifi story. Of course, they could Riverworld it and turn it into a steaming pile. We shall see.
Filed under: TV
As previously posted, this year marks the 30th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. Saturday, October 16th is Worldwide D&D Game Day. News of this comes to me through CNN, who mentions the new book celebrating the past 30 years of D&D.
While cruising the Wizards website I perused the books section (not that I troll used bookstores looking for clearance copies of D&D books or anything) and found that they have an awesome site detailing much of the universe, including some cool artwork/wallpapers and book synopses. I particulary like the Forgotten Realms Novel guide, which I’ll turn to as soon as I get my semiannual jones for fantasy.
I wouldn’t mind hearing what others think of the D&D books. Which sub-series is better? Dungeons & Dragons? Dragonlance? Forgotten Realms? Where is a good place to start? What should a newbie reader avoid?
Filed under: Games
Q: What Sucks?
A: Comment spam.
SF Signal, along with countless other Moveable Type blogs, has been inundated with comment spam lately. Posting blog spam is, of course, the pastime of ass-clowns everywhere. But wethinks we’s gots a solution.
The way these programs work is to post the the well-known moveable type comment CGI file called mt-comments.cgi. To block the spam programs, all you need to do is change the name of that cgi file to something unique (like, say, blog-comment-spammers-suck.cgi). Then, modify your mt.cfg file to set the CommentScript variable like so:
CommentScript blog-comment-spammers-suck.cgi
That’s it.
Time will tell if this works. A comment spammer would have to specifically pull your unique name for him to start spamming again, the ass-clown. And if all Moveable Type blogs implement this, then it no longer becomes economically fruitful for these ass-clowns to profit. I Googled this hack after I implemented it and found that the same technique is working for this guy. Let’s cross our collective fingers or else we resort to some other ass-clown-deterrent like ever-revving MT-BlackList, image verification, comment registration or (yikes!) disabling comments altogether.
Filed under: Meta
As if the previously-posted collection of SF Lists wasn’t enough, here are some more.
About.com‘s SF/F section has a series of lists for science fiction and fantasy movie fans:
Filed under: Movies
Finally got a chance to see the Battlestar Galactica miniseries this week. I though it was very good, as did this recent reviewer in the UK. It reminded me of the best gritty space opera reads with its multiple story lines and surprise plot twists. It was very dark. I particularly liked the space battle scenes with their muted blasts and missile tracers.
I had only a casual acquaintance with the original series, maybe that’s why I don’t really see this as a name-hijack so much as the well-advertised “re-imagining” label. At any rate, this is good stuff. I’ll be looking forward to this in January. (Although, the reviewer points out that it premieres Oct. 18 on Sky One.
Filed under: TV
Locus Magazine contributor Claude Lalumiere has written an awesome career retrospective of sf grandmaster Robert Silverberg.
Silverberg’s bibliography is huge. He has received and been nominated for numerous awards. All this and his career even included several retirements from sf! Earlier this year, I read Silverberg’s Nightwings and loved it.
Filed under: Books
Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver, Volume 1 of The Baroque Cycle, can now be yours in audiobook format…for $75.
[link via The Eternal Golden Braid]
Filed under: Books
