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I watched the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery when it premiered and...it just didn't feel like Star Trek to me. The Klingons looked like orcs from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. The overall feel was too flashy while also being too cynical--and my favorite Star Trek series is Deep Space Nine, which is overall the darkest series in the franchise. Then the rest of the series was locked behind the paywall of the CBS All Access channel and I didn't want to pay to watch a series that turned me off with its first episode, so I gave up on it.
One of my personal reading goals I set when Covid-19 first started turning things upside down was to read more of the books on my own personal shelves, things I'd bought but not read yet. I wasn't counting on my reading mojo plummeting, and truthfully, as far as timing went, I might have chosen a bit more wisely than to read a book that begins with a cataclysmic event that will likely be a human extinction event in time.
Odd in a wonderful way, dark, and unique.
I am Fly. Maximillian Fly. I am a good creature. I am not bad, as some will tell you.
But I see you do not believe me. . . .
Shortly before the library closed due to the novel coronavirus, my co-worker, Adam, loaned me a set with all five of the original Planet of the Apes films - three of which are currently in the Johnson County Library collection, and two of which are available to stream from home on IndieFlix.
You’ve heard of Dungeons and Dragons. Right?
It’s been around for 45 year and been in everything from Simpsons to Stranger things.
What is it?
It’s a pen and paper Roleplaying game. A set of rules to tell a shared story with friends and family with a backdrop of classic sword and sorcery in the vein of The Lord of the Rings.
The term "bottle movie" is borrowed from the "ship in a bottle" metaphor. Much like a ship caught in a bottle, the characters in these films are seemingly locked in one place. And it's no secret that many of these films are based upon hit stage plays where changing settings even once is a difficult task to achieve.
This is top-notch science fiction--it takes today's scientific advancements and speculates how they might play out in the future, considering legal, ethical, and practical ramifications along the way. The book does this over the course of six lightly connected stories, each progressively further in the future. The topic is gene editing and body modification.
Recursion occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. --Wikipedia
I first heard about this book on NPR and was intrigued enough to immediately put it on my holds list. You can find out more about how to make your own holds list here. Let me just say that this book did not disappoint!
What if a machine could tell you how to be happy? What if your results could be manipulated? What if you had to do something illegal, immoral, or unethical to achieve happiness? These are a few of the questions posed in the speculative fiction novel Tell the Machine Goodnight, by Katie Williams. Set in 2035, our protagonist Pearl works for a Facebook or Google-like tech organization, Apricity, whose name means "the warmth of the sun during winter". Businesses include Apricty readings as a benefit.
