Various and Sundry

Babylon 5: The Best Imperfect Space Opera?

The new Babylon 5 movie is out and, since it’s not readily on any of the streaming services I subscribe to, my thrift will delay me seeing it soon. At the same time, when I do see it, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it immensely. Right in time for its release, Tor.com has re-published a wonderfully truthful article by Jennifer Giesbrecht from 2019 that goes into how Babylon 5 is great even as it is not…

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Raves Various and Sundry

A Viewing Guide for Babylon 5

With the announcement of a B5 animated feature, I have been reminded that many people have not seen the original Babylon 5, that ambitious and inventive science fiction series from the 1990s. As of May 2023, you can currently watch the entire series for free on Tubi as well as renting or buying it streaming on Amazon. But should you watch Babylon 5? My answer is a resounding yes if you: This last factor of…

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Producing Writing

The Anthropology of The Expanse

How I managed to miss this article last year is something I chalk up to the vast depth of the Internet, but still: I love The Expanse and part of that ardor is absolutely the multi-layered world-building. Those of you who have checked out my space opera Rogue Tyger and its ever-growing “Encyclopedia of the Imperium” will not be surprised at that fact. So I was all into this article by James Hoare for The…

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Writing

Sci Fi versus Fantasy

A meme tickled Twitter users’ fancy late last month and for good reason: it was a pair of pithy comments contrasting science fiction and fantasy and skewering the related tropes for both. Mignon Fogarty has a good collection over at the Grammar Girl, but be warned! You’ll start wanting to do your own. To whit: Sci Fi is this blog on an encrypted server you’ll need some cyberpunk hacker to access. Fantasy is this blog…

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Writing

A Lot More Q&A with Rod Serling

After watching the Rod Serling video compilation back in July, I’ve gone down a modest Rod Serling rabbit hole looking for other videos and talks and interviews he’s given. As you might imagine, YouTube does provide. This nearly hour-long entry is essentially a long question-answer session from UCLA circa 1971. As with many of the other videos I’ve come across, many of his answers and references are very topical to 1971, so be warned that…

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Various and Sundry

Go Boldly, Any Way You Can

I’m working on some more writing this week, so it felt like time to share this: In my own series, Rogue Tyger, the characters refer to an “FTL drive,” but they also talk about “jumps” so you can deduce that ships in the ‘Tygerverse’ use a form of jump drive. Visually, it’s probably best been represented with the recent incarnation of Battlestar Galactica, but a major inspiration for how the drive works and the variations…

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Writing

How Might They Update the Foundation of Foundation?

Just a little over a year ago I posted the teaser trailer for Foundation, a TV series adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s highly influential work of the rise and fall of galactic civilizations. Well, we’ve got a new trailer and a premiere of September, so gird your space opera loins! Already, I’ve seen chatter on the interwebs about some apparent departures from the books, some of which is also hinted at in the io9 piece on…

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Various and Sundry

Wait! That Wasn’t the Last Starfighter After All

I’m pretty sure every film-loving kid grows up watches a series of thoroughly-enjoyable-yet-not-mind-blowing movies from their era that may not make all the “classics” lists, but age okay and hold onto that “that was solidly entertaining” air. Some of this premise comes from watching many a film that my dad enjoyed growing up. And of course he treated us to the unequivocal classics of cinema both foreign and domestic, but he also made time to…

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Various and Sundry Writing

Your Next Favorite SFF Sitcom?

With the release of WandaVision, we got to see a new genre mashup from the Marvel Cinematic Universe: superheros and sitcoms. Certainly this isn’t the first time there’s been a mashup of superheroes and outright silliness (The Tick is the one that pops in my mind most concretely as it has had several TV incarnations). And the sitcom backdrops in WandaVision actually lay a foundation for some distinct non-comic plotlines (that’s the limit to how…

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