Heading For the End of Summer
So, it’s approaching the end of summer. Not close to being fall yet, but the lesson barn horses are about to go on their annual vacation and back to school...
Shattered Relationships
The Handmaid’s Tale 2.10 “The Last Ceremony” The handmaids get a new source of gossip when a Commander drops dead (presumably of a heart attack) while in the...
Unmoving Predators - the Peculiar Evolution of Carnivorous Plants
It’s a general rule. Plants don’t eat. They survive entirely off of photosynthesis. Except that’s not actually true. Plants also, as any gardener knows, draw...
Changing American Stories
Review: The Island of Dreams by Jaye Viner On the list of things I’m not particularly fond of – Neverland riffs. I always found the original vaguely creepy,...
Happy Summer!
So, first of all, I need to direct all of your attention to The Halfling & The Spaceman, who interviewed me for their video podcast. Unfortunately, the video...
Lies Will Out
The Handmaid’s Tale 2.9 “Smart Power” I think the writer’s room messed up…because there’s filler content at the end, stuff that wasn’t necessary to show....
You Sank my Battleship – Or Not – A History of Ships of the Line
The term battleship comes from line-of-battle-ship or ship-of-the-line. This basically means that a battleship is a large warship designed to fight other...
Lizard People and High Flying Kites
Review: Shadow of the Eternal Watcher by Josh Mendoza The tone of this book is noir. The plot, however, is pure pulp. Duster Raines (a noir name if there...
Wilmington!
I admit that I’d never thought of going to Wilmington, but we were looking for some place close to Greg’s parents. But we had a lot of fun! Highlights: The...
Cracks in the Dystopia
The Handmaid’s Tale 2.7 “After” The bombing kills a number of Commanders and Handmaidens. Fred Waterford is seriously injured and is replaced by another...
The Rise and Fall of the Shopping Mall
There’s a prediction that most malls will close in the near future due to online shopping. I’m personally not convinced, but certainly the shopping mall has...
The West Passage and The Pandora's Box
Review: The West Passage by Jared Pechaček I’m calling this fantasy even though there’s hints of a more technological past. The author is calling it epic...
Summer Calm
It’s always hard to queue multiple updates. When you get this, I’ll be in Wilmington, NC, getting some much needed R&R. Almost through Astounding at this...
Kaboom!
The Handmaid’s Tale 2.6 “First Blood” The first blood here is Serena Joy’s…we see a flashback of her being deplatformed and then shot in the time before. Or...
The Queen is the (Is)land - Female Power in Black Sails
Black Sails is a series about pirates. As I mentioned in another blog, there were very few women pirates in historical reality (many more, of course, in...
Drift Compatible...Dragons?
Review: So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole Apparently, mecha that bond with their pilots is…a fashion now? Although, unlike in Moonstorm, the mecha aren’t the...
Musings on the Hugo Awards
This is a queued post - and the picture is from Pittsburgh. I’m ALMOST done with my reading for the Hugos at the time of writing. I only have Astounding to...
Fire Bad
Black Sails 4.9 Fire on a sailing ship is bad. Shame. I liked that ship. I was highly amused by the Highlander-style interspersed training montage.Also,...
Dangerous Currents - Beaches, Tides, and Rips
Ever swum in the ocean? I have. It’s not the safest thing to do. But thousands of people jump in the ocean (or, almost as bad, a very large lake) every year,...
Is it Science Fiction or Fantasy?
Review: In Spite of the Inevitable by Morgan Biscup First of all, this is a competently written book, solidly executed. It belongs to that subset of science...