By
JP Frantz | Thursday, December 23rd, 2004 at
2:41 pm
REVIEW SUMMARY: 500 years in the future, mankind has reached the stars, colonizing and terraforming as they go. The crew of the trampship Serenity prowls the frontier looking for work (legal or not), trying to stay ahead of the Alliance police.
MY RATING: 
MY REVIEW: This is what good SF on TV looks like. Its funny, has great character interaction and good stories. Its a shame Fox screwed around with Firefly and cancelled it after airing only 11 of 14 episodes.
PROS: Strong ensemble cast, interesting world-building, focus on storytelling.
CONS: A weak episode here and there, small budget makes some scenes look cheap and unbelievable.
BOTTOM LINE: If you like SF, then you simply must watch Firefly. Either buy it or rent it. It won’t disappoint you.
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TV
By
JP Frantz | Thursday, December 23rd, 2004 at
12:51 pm
You know you wanted it, now you can have it. A gallery of pulp SF magazine covers containing Babes in Space!
I bet Pete has already hit the link…
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Web Sites
‘Tis the season to get facelifts, Fa-la-la-la-la La-la-la-la!
Two sf-relates websites got facelifts this week: the newly redesigned SciFi Wire (The Sci Fi Channel’s news site) and SF Crowsnest. Both are sporting a brand spankin’ new look & feel that is a big improvement over the old layout.
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Web Sites
Another edition of The Internet Review of Science Fiction is available, featuring:
- Editorial: Looking Forward
- Interview: Arvid Nelson (co-creator of Rex Mundi comic book series)
- Con Report: Icon 2004, Israel
- Sub-Genre Spotlight: Cyberpunk (An overview of the cyberpunk movement, its seminal works, and its themes.)
- Essay: Can’t See the Story for the Trees: Two Thoughts on the Mind, Experiences, and Writings of J.R.R. Tolkien (The importance of WWI communications and trees in Lord of the Rings.)
- Essay: The Career of Jack Vance
- Review:Wizardry and Wild Romance by Michael Moorcock
- Review:Storming Gehenna: The Rifters Books
- Reviews: Various Short Fiction
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Web Sites
Over at Locus Magaine Online Lucius Cook has written a piece about Science Fiction Video games.
Filed under:
Games
Seems like horror movies are not is short supply. Witness trailers for The Ring 2, The Amityville Horror (remake) and High Tension. I bet they’re still nowhere near as scary as The Exorcist in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies.
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Movies
TrueFen.net points us to an article by serious sf fanboy Rober Ebert about growing up with science fiction. Did you know he was buds with Charles Emmerson Winchester III?
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Meta
View SFSignal on the go with the PDA-friendly URL http://www.sfsignal.com/pda.htm. Basically, it’s the same home page as the normal version, but the left and right sidebars have been removed.
Coming soon: support for commenting via PDA. So you can call me a Star Wars fanboy by the poolside.
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Meta
Here are the results of the latest SF Signal poll.
QUESTION
This week, the DVD box set of Lord of the Rings is being released. Do you plan on buying it?
RESULTS
32% (6 votes) – No, I didn’t like those movies.
37% (7 votes) – No, I own 1 or more of the individual DVD releases and that’s enough.
0% (0 votes) – Yes, even though I already own 1 or more of the individual DVD releases.
32% (6 votes) – Yes, my precious, I’ve been holding out for the box set for 3 long years.
(Total votes: 19)
Filed under:
Polls
From The Dragon Page comes this link to the Jar Jar Binks Death Kit. In includes a puppet, fake knife and blood, instructions and a mystery gift! It’s the perfect gift for the Star Wars fanboy purist!
You know, it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
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Star Wars
By
JP Frantz | Saturday, December 18th, 2004 at
3:36 pm
Wait until the Covenant Chronicles movies come out. There are seven big books available now, with two more on the way. Each of which is as big as The Lord of the Rings is in its entirety. Yikes.
From a movie perspective, I really don’t see these books as making good movies. Covenant is not a ‘hero’ throughout most of the books and their subject matter is challenging and not necessarily cut-out for being a summer blockbuster film. I don’t see these movies being a hit with the general public and I certainly don’t see Hollywood being able to adapt them for film without completely destroying them.
Filed under:
Movies
By
Tim | Friday, December 17th, 2004 at
5:06 pm
Basically since Gabe and Tycho over at Penny Arcade are running their christmas special The Last Christmas. And our favorite little fiend is on the cover – Cthulu…
Filed under:
Web Sites
By
Kevin | Friday, December 17th, 2004 at
10:44 am
REVIEW SUMMARY: A vampire saga in the far north, where the sun doesn’t rise for a month during the winter.
MY RATING: 
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Each year on November 19th in Barrow, AK the sun sets for the last time in a month. A troop of vampires descends on the city and goes on a 30-day reign of terror. A group of desperate survivors hides in an old furnace, fighting starvation and waiting for daylight.
MY REVIEW: In Barrow, AK the sun doesn’t rise during a 30-day stretch each winter. A troop of vampires descends on the city, cuts off all communication links, blocks exits from the city and begins a killing rampage. One small group of survivors, including the story’s protagonists – the sheriff and his wife, hide out in an unused furnace, waiting for daylight.
PROS: evocotive art by Ben Templestreet completely fits the mood; interesting premise
CONS: art is sometimes so abstract I couldn’t determine what it was trying to convey – even with the words; not an incredibly deep story, and all of the ends are not neatly tied up (there are sequels); sometimes implausible (okay, vampires are implausible, but if you buy into the ‘rules’ of vamirism, then there were still some implausible things – like how the vampires manage to cut off every single means of transportation to the outside world); horrible ending
BOTTOM LINE: If you like vampire stories, you might like this – and you can borrow it from me!
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Movies
SF Site has opened their annual Reader’s Choice Poll for Your “Favourite” Books of the Year. The info page also lists past Reader’s Choice Polls from 1998-2003 as well as Editor’s Picks for 1997-2003. Vote eraly, vote often. 
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Books
A couple of years ago, I ran across The 5k Project, a website that ran a contest challenging web page designers to create something truly creative with less than 5 KB of data. I thought this site was really neat and showed what could be done with very little code. Some of the pages are straight DHTML, some use Flash. Either way, the winners all showcase a fair amount of creativity.
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Web Sites
I wonder how this teenager got such fast hands?
[Link via the MorgueFile]
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Games
By
Tim | Wednesday, December 15th, 2004 at
5:12 pm
Thats right ladies and gentlemen, Anarchy Online has now offered a totally free MMORPG. I played this one early on and the lag was horrendous, but I have heard its improved immensely since then. It might be worth trying out since it is free for the client and no subscription fees…
Filed under:
Games
Clive Barker‘s hellraiser film series is being adapted fr television, Sci Fi Wire reports. That’s cool beacuse I just can’t get enough of Pinhead!
Filed under:
TV
By
JP Frantz | Tuesday, December 14th, 2004 at
2:41 pm
When you can go to MuseumReplicas and get your reproductions of olde timey weapons and armor? Like, say, a Two Hand Scottish Claymore? You know that ain’t crap! This place is chock full of medieval hand-to-hand warfare goodness. Too bad there’s no trebuchet or catapults…
Filed under:
Web Sites
