Life, The Universe and Scifi

Star Trek: Deep Space 9: Avatar Part 1 and 2 (books)

2013-05-16T06:07:16Z

Deep Space 9 is my favorite Star Trek series, and yet while I do occasionally read a Star Trek book I had never read any of the Deep Space 9 books. This is because the series actually had an ending which ended things, but while it might be a bit hard to imagine there are books written about Deep Space 9 after the series ended. They do this by keeping the characters who were on the station and adding a few more in then moving on. And that it works is a remarkable example of how much depth the show had because most of the main characters left.

The books that start the new era of Deep Space 9 are Avatar part 1 and 2. And since they take place after the Deep Space 9 series finale there are spoilers just in explaining the basics of what is happening. That said, the returning character you would know from the show are Kira, Dr. Bashir, Dax (not the good one), Nog, Quark and Kasidy Yates, Jake Sisko and Morn(because when Morn goes home it’s all over). You may also recognize the name Ro Laren who has taken over as security chief. On top of this they add a new first officer and a Jem’Hadar who was sent by Odo to learn about other cultures.

Even though many of your favorite characters aren’t here everyone does begin to take on new roles (except Bashir who is still a doctor). Kira is in command, Nog is chief engineer, Ezri is considering going in to command, Kasidy is giving birth to a religious icon, Jake is following bajorin prophecies and Quark is, well Quark is the same, but he has some new things to do which at the least are interesting.

Avatar as a book had a lot to accomplish before it got to the story at all and it suffered a bit for that. The difficulty was that the characters who were left didn’t have a lot to do. The major threats had been dealt with and half of them weren’t really main characters. It also had to explain why Ro was on the station, who the new first officer and other crew members were. It also includes the Enterprise crew and while they didn’t have a lot to do you couldn’t really ignore Ro’s connection and betrayal of Picard. Overall though it felt as if it dealt with this reasonably well.

On the other hand the story felt a bit like one you might find in a pilot. Not bad, but also not great. There was one good surprise that showed a lot of thought on the part of someone in which they let you assume something about a new character and subverted that. But beyond that most everything was setting up characters and trying to understand them a bit better without as much focus as one might like.

I have often said that I’d rather watch bad Star Trek than most stuff on TV and this isn’t bad. It’s just not great either. Still, it does capture the feeling of Deep Space 9 and lets you check in on what has happened after the war. So, if you loved Deep Space 9 and aren’t quite ready to let it go this is a reasonable substitute with plenty of Quark humor and hints at bigger stories that are coming. Still, it feels more like a pilot for a spin off show than actually being Deep Space 9.

Iron Man 3: On The Mandarin

2013-05-10T06:02:56Z

There are more than enough reviews of Iron Man 3 out there already so I won’t be giving one beyond saying that I enjoyed the movie, but certainly didn’t see it as flawless. What I do want to comment on is an issue that this movie spotlights well. That is the question of how faithful an adaption of a comic book should be. Specifically, do you owe it to comic book fans to keep the characters and stories they like faithful to the comic books or is it acceptable to change things.

For those who have watched the movie you already know what I’m going to discuss, for those of you who haven’t there will be spoilers and you should continue at your own risk.

I am of course talking about the Mandarin. A character who had his name in the show, but that was about it. Now I fully admit that I don’t have all of that strong a connection to Iron Man or his enemies. I’ve read some of the classics and a few random books, but mostly I’ve seen him in other people’s books, so perhaps if it was a character that I loved I would feel a bit differently, but I enjoyed what they did with the Mandarin.

Primarily I like it because it surprised me. I recognized early on that there was something more going on as they went out of their way to say that Mandarin meant advisor to the king, which implied that there was a king, and I even suspected who that was likely to be. There simply weren’t all that many options. My suspicions aren’t the point though. The point is that the Mandarin wasn’t really all that much of a villain. He certainly didn’t have ten magic rings. He was simply an actor on some type of drugs being used by someone else. This was reasonably funny, but I can understand why people who were looking forward to the Mandarin might be upset by this, but beyond that the question is whether there is anything wrong with it.

To begin with it’s worth considering how many people even knew who the Mandarin was enough to really care. Assuming that ten percent of the audience are comic book fans (which is a stretch) and that a quarter of them are fans of the Iron Man books. That would mean that 2.5% of the audience really cares at all about the character, and some of them aren’t going to really care that it was changed. Of course this is the 2% who were most excited about the movie and drug their friends to it, but they are still a small number and financially upsetting them simply isn’t going to matter all that much.

There is another reason that I think people tend to overlook though. There is a reason that the Mandarin is a popular villain. Something about the character worked. By changing it you’re saying that the writer of this movie knew better than the dozens of writers who have refined that character over the years, but you’re also admitting that this is a movie, and not a comic book, and just like some costumes simply won’t work on screen some characters are going to need to be adjusted as well and honestly the Mandarin was probably one of them. And while he certainly didn’t need to be moved as far away from the character as he was I can understand the worry they may have had, especially if they wanted to get the movie released in China.

I didn’t love the way they did this, and I can understand the frustration, but in many ways having the Mandarin be nothing was better than at least one possible alternative. They could have had him actually be the Mandarin but gut most of what he was. The reason this would be worse is because as it is they can still use the Mandarin character in another movie. The name might have to be changed but they didn’t destroy their options.Not in Iron Man 3

Compare this to the villains in the later batman movies. The Penguin character couldn’t have been used afterwards, but you also never really got the comic book character and the same is largely true for Mr. Freeze, The Riddler and most of the others. But they aren’t the only ones to do it. Far better comic book movies have taken interesting villains and gutted them. The xmen movies are filled with interesting villains turned into sidekicks or extremely poor jokes. (Not that the toad is actually all that interesting, but the joke is certainly bad, and The Juggernaut could have been far better).

Beyond all of this all that really matters is whether a story is well told. People have gotten so interested in plot holes and comparing different types of storytelling that they seem to have forgotten that the real point of the story is to have fun. It really doesn’t matter how people are talking to each other during Avenger’s movie because it was fun to watch and while the nods to comics are fun I actually want stories I haven’t already read already.

In conclusion, if you hated the Mandarin in this story try to think of it this way. There really is a character out there called the Mandarin, but no one has seen him, so it was easy to hire an actor to pretend to be him. So this was really just a setup for having the real character in the next movie. Moreover try to relax a bit and remind yourself that the comic book character is still safe and sound in his books and you can read about him anytime you want. At least until the comic book writers decide to adapt that part of the movie into the comics.

TV Show Review: Revolution

2013-05-01T08:08:14Z

I wasn’t completely convinced when Revolution came on the air. I’m not a huge fan of the post apocalyptic vision of the future. But I want more science fiction on TV so I gave revolution a chance and it has grown on me over the season and after the last episode I felt the urge to write down why I enjoy it.

The first and most basic is that Revolution has done a good job with making the characters more interesting as you learn more about them. It does this in part by assuming that people have more than one part to their personality. Few of these characters have a single defining moment, though of course everyone on the world does have at least one defining moment in common.

That is the second part I have grown to like more. Like many people when I first heard the premise of the show I was a bit skeptical. All the electricity in the world just stops working sounds a bit more like magic than science fiction. And while I didn’t go to the, but our bodies run on electricity, that many did, understanding there are significant differences between the electrical impulses in my body and that of a computer, it still seemed implausible. But as they have revealed what actually happened it has become more reasonable. I have no idea how much of that was planned from the start, but it’s good to see some interesting ideas in my science fiction.

And that leads to the third part of what I have been enjoying about Revolution. In the last weeks it has began to expand the world building. You have learned more of what is going on which helps, but you also get to meet some of the other political players which very different governments. The Monroe Republic isn’t the most powerful or important people around. Georgia is, for example, considerably wealthier and more advanced since they were, it seems, more suited to the way things work now. A warmer climate with better farming makes you far wealthier in a world that has returned to the preindustrial age.

Overall I’m not ready to say that Revolution is a great show, but there is decent action, interesting characters and a plot that seems to actually be moving. I just hope that they don’t decide they need to keep the show in the exact same situation for 7 seasons. I’d find it far more interesting if they solved the electricity problem, because that would lead to plenty of interesting situations as people rebuilt society and dealt with the cause of the fifteen year long blackout.

Video Game: The Binding of Isaac

2013-04-29T12:50:01Z

Independent video games can be a bit hit or miss, but in large part this happens because they can take risks it theme and game play in a way that a game that takes years and costs millions to make cant. The Binding of Isaac mixes some of the things that I love about independent games with some of the things that I like less about them, but all in all it is an interesting game that is worth your time.

I typically start with what I like, but because the things I like are mostly unimportant I will start with that. The tone of this game is something that I had to get over. It is a mixture of gross out humor and ideas that feel as if they were designed to upset people in order to get attention. I mention this in part to say that it is worth getting past, because after a couple of games the way the enemies look and the general aesthetic of the game become less important. Still, if you can’t get past jokes about child abuse and enemies like cysts and guts then this game is probably not for you no matter how good anything else is.

And that’s get to heart of the game which is the game play and why I recommend the game. It uses a fighting mechanic and level design similar to the first Zelda game in which every room can have up to four doors and a dungeon is filled with secret rooms, enemies, bosses and items. But unlike Zelda the maps in this game are random so that every time you start a new game it is a different experience than the last.

It is also a difficult game, especially at the beginning. If you don’t know the secrets of this game you’re going to lose and, most of the time, lose badly. On the other hand with the right combination of items you can become almost invincible. The simplest of these are the items that you can use to heal yourself along with items that recharge items every time you take damage. Other items can change the way you attack, give you more health or create useful items such as bombs or keys.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the game are the enemies. They cover the range from very easy to very difficult, but often those that seem easy can become far more difficult in difficult rooms. For example enemies that shoot in a straight line are generally easy to kill in large open rooms, but get into a room with narrow paths and they can be almost impossible to kill without taking damage. And past the simple room enemies are bosses.

There is a boss enemy at the end of each floor. Most of these are random and include things like giant spiders, giant worms and the horsemen of the apocalypse. As you fight these enemies you learn how to fight them and each time get a bit further into the game until finally you confront your mother. And each time you play you can unlock more items and characters making this an almost infinitely repayable game.

If you like roguelike game or classic video games then there is a lot to like about The Binding of Isaac game play and I am sure a lot of people like the design and humor of the game. Either way, it is inexpensive and a different experience than you are going to get from any mainstream game making it worthwhile for anyone who wants to try out more independent video games.

Not convinced, Check out Northernlion's Lets play. There is a bit of cursing in this video, but not too much.

Middlemen: Born of Earth, By Elton Gahr, Get the Free Ebook

2013-04-05T10:13:03Z

While I do enjoy blogging and writing articles my first love in writing is fiction and I am always working on short stories and novels. I have been less diligent about actually making any of them available, until now. I am going to be putting up things on Amazon, and probably other websites eventually as I have them done to my satisfaction.

To that end I have put up the novel Middlemen: Born of Earth on Amazon. And between the 6th and the 10th of this month I will be putting out the free ebook in hopes that more people will see it and try it out. So please, if you have any interest download it, and if you do read it put up a review. It helps out independent writers a lot more than you might think.

As for the book itself, it is an epic fantasy story set in a world where mortal humans have just been created. Largely innocent of the world, they discover that they are at the center of a war between the Highmen and the Lowmen. The dependents of those who fought in the spirit wars.

With only 12 Middlemen aren't big enough to defend themselves so they attempt to find allies with both the bureaucratic and xenophobic Highmen and the violent and dangerous Lowmen. This leads them deep into the politics and philosophies of both races as they try to convince a hostile world that they have a place in it.

I am happy with this story and glad to give away the free ebook, so I hope that all of you will give it a try and enjoy reading the ebook as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Keep an eye out for more free ebooks in the future as I finish editing more of the stories.

Video Game: FTL (Faster than Light)

2013-02-22T02:34:22Z

I try a fair amount of video games and enjoy independent games, but with time far tighter than when I was a kid I don’t play them as long. One of the recent exceptions to that is FTL (Faster than Light )a game which I have played through a couple of times and still enjoy.

FTL is a rougelike game in a spaceship. That was the sales pitch that got my attention and it’s reasonably accurate. You have a few different spaceship layouts available to unlock as well as things you can add to the ships, crew, energy, scrap to collect and a rebellion to stop.

The story of FTL is basic, as any rougelike game has to be. You have news of a rebel fleet as well as knowledge of the weakness of their flagship which you have to get to your command. In order to do this you make jumps from one star to another. At each of these you will find some type of battle or mission to attempt. Completing these will allow you to get scrap, which acts as money, weapons, crew and equipment. You can then upgrade your ship and move on.

At first glance this game felt a bit too random. As if there was little or no chance of actually winning except through sheer luck, but after a couple of games I discovered it was more strategic than many roguelike games. You have an enemy fleet behind you, so time is important, but you also want to get to as many systems as possible (especially early on) to get scrap to build up your fleet. You also have to choose how best to upgrade. For example, do you want better shields or to save your money to buy something in the store you haven’t found yet.

Beyond random encounters which make every game unique the thing that makes this gave very replayable are the different ships. Each one has a completely different layout, crew and starting equipment. There are ships with cloaks, one with a ion cannon, missile launchers and one that has nothing more than a teleporter for a weapon. These are unlocked through missions and generally not easy to do, but once you have you have a game which is very different forcing you to use aspects of the game you may have ignored and become a better player.

The game even builds to a great climax. Once you have reached the end you deliver your message and are sent out to fight the rebel command ship. This ship pushes you to the limit and doesn’t allow for some of the more basic tactics to work well. All that and you have to fight it three times each time facing a different set of tactics. This makes beating the game really feel like an accomplishment especially when your ship is falling apart and most of your crew is dead when you finally get the last missile past their shields.

The final point in favor of this game is that as an independent game you won’t be paying all that much. The full price is 9.99 on steam and it is often on sale for at least half off so if you watch you can probably get it for 5 dollars. If you play through this even a couple of time’s you’ll get your five dollars worth and with 18 ships to unlock and almost unlimited combinations of weapons and equipment for those ships you’ll likely play through more than a couple of times.

There are a few weaknesses to this game. Unlocking the ships does require random events which can make unlocking them a bit frustrating. In addition the variety of enemies and missions could be improved, and finally it would be really good if they built in a mod tool, because there are a lot of fan made ships, but getting them to work with the game is more effort than it should be.

In the end if you’re a fan of the spaceship genre of science fiction and like video games at all you’re probably going to enjoy Faster than Light because it understands both the spaceship genre and the rougelike games well enough to make for a good experience on both aspects.

This is one of the best valued games I have played in years and if you’re looking for something inexpensive that can run on almost any computer and will give you your science fiction fix then you really can’t go wrong with FTL.

Fringe, Series Finale: An Enemy of Fate

2013-01-20T09:32:36Z

When Fringe began I didn’t love it. I certainly didn’t dislike it, but it felt like it was going to be the X-files, or something similar. And for a little while there was a monster of the week aspect to the show. As the show ends though it has become one of my favorites, and certainly risen well above what I expected for the show. This is because it has done one of the things that so few shows (even very good shows) fail to do. It has taken risks.

The biggest risks this show has taken was effectively reinventing itself in the last few seasons, first by introducing an alternate dimension and eventually moving the show forward in time twenty years. These weren’t the only risks the show took though. They often did things that were surprising. Killing off characters, introducing odd technologies and holding out secrets longer than most shows would. They even allowed the romance and personal lives of the characters to advance, something that so many shows refuse to do it has become absurd.

To discuss the specifics of the series finale would be a bit absurd. If you haven’t been watching the show you won’t follow and if you have you’ll want to see it yourself. But there are good moments between every character on the show. Walter had the most of these but everyone had plenty to do. They also made a lot of great connections to previous episodes and even seasons of the show.

It’s hard to sum up all the feelings about a five year show like Fringe in a few words, or to really end a show like this in a single episode, and especially hard in a show that really does have good story, good action and good character development.

In the end this episode, along with much of Fringe is Walter’s story. He is the one who caused many if not most of the problems that they face and is the one who usually comes up with the solution. Yet more often than not it has been Olivia and Peter who have actually stepped into danger to fix it and often them who have paid the price. In this season especially having lost their daughter. So it seems fitting that the series ended with Walter being the one who fixed things. The one who sacrificed everything to change destiny and hopefully finally feel forgiven for the problems he has caused.

That is what made the white tulip such an interesting ending to the series. This was the message that Walter had been waiting for to say that he was forgiven, and while he had received it being able to send it to Peter told his son that he was OK as well as saying that perhaps he had finally forgiven himself. This gives everyone in the show their happy ending, with Peter and Olivia’s family together again and Walter getting to explore an entire world of new ideas. Not the perfect ending, but then endings are almost never perfect.

Dr. Who's New Companion, Clara Oswin Oswald

2013-01-13T11:30:05Z

I finally got the chance to watch the Dr. Who Christmas special and see a bit more with his new companion soufflé girl. She has a tough act to follow with two excellent characters leaving the show, but while I was sad to see the Ponds leave the show I think it was time for a change and it seems like Clara Oswin Oswald has potential to be different and I like Jenna-Louise Coleman in the part.

My thoughts on this companion can’t really be explored without some spoilers. But I’ll start with the more basic stuff. So far I like the actress who plays her and the character seems different, though I feel like she might be trying a bit too hard to be different. The simple example of this is the “It’s smaller on the outside.” line. This was cute enough if it isn’t a sign that she is going to constantly be doing that, but I have some fear that she will be constantly trying to do the unexpected whether it makes sense or not.

She also seems to fit the typical companion mold. Willing to help people, not afraid to get into danger, smart and independent enough to not do everything that the doctor tells her. This is fine, but I would prefer if the broke the mold just a little more. Mostly I’m not interested in another romantic relationship for the doctor. First, he is a married man, but beyond that it just isn’t what I’m looking for in Dr. Who. He is after all a thousand year old alien which makes a relationship with a twenty something a bit odd at best. Moreover it’s been done. We already had Rose, Martha and even Amy with some amount of romance with him. In the latter I think the show become far more interesting after she got married and that subplot was completely gone.

What was most interesting about the character is that she died. If my recollection is correct then she has died in both episodes she was in, and reappeared as a different character. The doctor seemed intrigued by this and so am I. Is this some type of reincarnation or something even stranger.

For me the verdict is still out. I have enjoyed the character so far, but in many ways I enjoyed the other ‘companions’ in this episode more. The lizard woman is interesting, though not someone I would want to see all the time, but Strax could be fun for a while, especially if he’s not the main person on the show. A bit too much comic relief but when there actually is a reason to fight he can become far more competent.

The Snowmen episode itself was weak for a Christmas episode in my opinion. The Snowmen as a villain weren’t all that interesting and it felt as if it were trying to do a bit too much by introducing a new companion, having the Sherlock Holmes jokes, the two alien characters, the children and a bunch of setups for the remainder of the season. Beyond that the idea that the ice was melted because an entire family was crying on Christmas Eve just seemed absurd because beyond everything else it seems as if there had to be plenty of families already crying. London is a big city and people die every day. Those are minor complains though, and in general I liked this episode and it makes me want to see more.

I was reminded of this song as I watched the show and so decided to add it as a bonus.

Christopher Nolan and Interstellar

2013-01-12T10:10:59Z

Christopher Nolan is one of my favorite directors and so anytime that I hear of a new project I am interested. I’m interested because he is one of the few mainstream directors who takes real chances. In a sea of remakes, zombie movies, movies described as the next xxx and even formulaic science fiction, fantasy and superhero movies it’s important to have a few people out there who do something different and whether you like what he has done or not it’s hard to say that he doesn’t take risks.

The most recent rumors are that Christopher Nolan is going to be directing a movie called Interstellar. I don’t know a lot about this yet, but it is reported to have time travel and alternate dimensions. These are two of my favorite story types and the second makes the first a lot easier to write by taking out most of the paradoxes and questions.

While I don’t know much more about the plot than that I know Christopher Nolan’s work reasonably well. So I feel comfortable in saying that if he does direct this movie he’s not simply going to take the easy path, because even when he did what could have easily been a typical superhero movie he took the risk of changing the tone.

This makes me hopeful that if he does direct Interstellar it’s not simply going to be an action movie, but something that makes people think. He might also be willing to take one of the major risks which time travel movies often fail to take which is showing that the ideas in it are actually complicated and that the answers aren’t simple. That time travel is interesting for more than simply visiting your parents or messing with history.

The parallel realities is one of the things that helps make this truly interesting for me though. I have always found that idea interesting anyway, but beyond that it means that the characters could go into the past, change things and return without actually having changed their own world, since the world they were in wasn’t theirs or at the very least still exists along with the other. It could also go into the concept of the infinite because Kip Thorne suggests that time travel could lead to infinite realities and once you begin to get into that concept you can go forever. Simply imagine anything that is possible but extremely unlikely, getting struck by lightning, winning the lottery, dating a supermodel. If there are infinite worlds then not only are all of those things possible but they have happened and far stranger things in one of those worlds. All this gives plenty of room for interesting stories.

Overall I don’t know all that much about this, but I always enjoy stories which let my imagination go and imagining the gritty style that Nolan often uses along with his willingness to take risks and ability to make ideas that seem odd work (such as playing the scenes in the movie in reverse) along with a movie that has wormholes, time travel, alternate dimensions and who knows what else. So here’s hoping that the great ideas we imagine are just the beginning of what has already been written.

The West Wing by Aaron Sorkin

2013-01-11T11:13:54Z

I don’t normally write about anything except science fiction and fantasy on this site, but once in a while there is something that interests me enough to break that rule. The West Wing is one of those shows. I’m not sure why it does, because on paper I should probably hate it, but having went through the show for the second time recently I have to say that in many ways I enjoy it more than a lot of shows that I should like better.

For anyone who doesn’t know, The West Wing is a show by Aaron Sorkin about the people who work in the White House. By nature of that it is naturally a show about politics. I stopped watching shows about politic a while back because they tend to make me angry. But while I often disagree with the people on this show I am rarely angered by it. (There are a few exceptions).

This is also one of the reasons that I like the show. I have heard the show described as showing the people that we wish were in the office. There are two reasons I see for that. The first is that it is able to rise above politics. More often than not the problems that are central to the show are not really political, or the actual politics don’t matter for the drama. One excellent example is the shows in which they are nominating a Supreme Court judge. The politics of the judges are discussed and as it is a democratic administration they want judges that agree with them, but the show doesn’t devolve to that. Instead it discusses the difficulty in getting anyone who isn’t a moderate on the court, an issue which is true no matter which side of the issues you fall.

The second reason is that it is optimistic. Not in the absurd way that people seem to assume optimism has to be, but in a realistic way. It assumes that people who work in politics are, mostly, trying to do good. It doesn’t do this by making them perfect, having the right answers or even always agreeing, but it assumes they are decent people doing their best. With cynicism seeming to be everywhere it is nice to see a show that really does seem to believe that people are at least trying.

Beyond those points is a third which helps the show a lot. That is that it doesn’t have to manufacture drama. This is a major problem for me on a lot of shows that I like. Take a show like Grey’s Anatomy. It’s about surgeons trying to save lives while living their own. And yet it is constantly stretching my credulity by having people shot, in plane clashes, hit by a bus and many other things. I can live with this, but the West Wing rarely had to stretch because things that aren’t important, and therefore with drama, rarely make it to the President’s desk.

I would also like to point out that the show is, if you don’t mind stretching, science fiction and not just because it has a story in which the Republican’s nominate a pro choice candidate for president. This is a parallel reality. From the top of my head the most recent president mentioned on the show was Kennedy. I never heard a word of Nixon, Ford, Carter or Regan, though they did talk about Vietnam a lot.

You could assume this was because they didn’t want to talk about living presidents, but I prefer the more interesting answers. My best theory is that at some point in the near future time travel was invented. Seeing the damage caused by Watergate they traveled back and changed history after Kennedy’s assassination. Nixon was not elected, which changed who was elected to office but not changing the issues or the parties.

My main point in writing this was twofold, to point out that The West Wing is now available on Netflix Instant watch, and to say that if you’ve avoided the show because of the politics you might want to try it because if you can get past that it’s a good show with interesting ideas that should be discussed and thought about from as many sides as possible.