Camera Obscura: Heroes
Intergalactic Medicine Show just published the latest installment of Camera Obscura, in which I review the new NBC superhero drama Heroes.
[Excerpt:] The dream sequence opener was the first clue that Heroes wasn’t exactly going to be full of original thought. The pilot is your standard comic book superhero origin story, given the Unbreakable treatment–which is to say, treated in a more realistic light: no spandex, just people with freaky powers. But its most grievous sin is the characters’ rather uncanny resemblance to the X-Men. Not only because they appear to be mutants, or the next step in human evolution, but also because some of the characters have direct X-Men analogues. For instance, Hiro has the same abilities as Nightcrawler; Claire, Wolverine; Peter, Storm (or any of the other flying X-Men). Stan Lee should consider suing somebody.
Go read the whole review and tell me what you think!
Camera Obscura: Jericho
Intergalactic Medicine Show just published the latest installment of “Camera Obscura,” in which I review the new CBS post-apocalyptic drama Jericho.
[Excerpt:] CBS is positioning the show as a family drama, not as science fiction. Or as a publicist pointed out to me, it is post-apocalyptic, but “based on events that could actually happen,” so not really science fiction. While that phraseology is mildly insulting to the science fiction fan, I think I know what CBS is trying to say. Jericho is attempting to be Alas, Babylon, not A Canticle for Leibowitz. What it might also be trying to say is: there’s nothing original here that hasn’t already been done in SF, but it might seem new and fresh to a mainstream audience.
Go read the whole review and tell me what you think!
STRONG MEDICINE book reviews: September 2006
The latest installment of my book review column, STRONG MEDICINE: Books That Cures What Ails You, has just been published in Intergalactic Medicine Show.
In this column, I review Paragaea by Chris Roberson; James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips; and Map of Dreams by M. Rickert.
[Excerpt:] Will our intrepid heroes find the portal home, or will they be stuck on Paragaea forever?
If that last line doesn’t clue you in to the very essence of what Paragaea is all about, then the novel’s subtitle, “A Planetary Romance” (a term harkening back to the days before science fiction was called science fiction), surely will. It’s neo-pulp; that is, it’s written in the tradition of the pulp masters of the past–Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. Rider Haggard, et al.–but is written in a modern style more accessible to contemporary readers. Roberson knows his pulp well and has fun exploring and reinventing the tropes of that era, and he does so in a fresh, original, and–most importantly–fun way. And like Burroughs’s Barsoom stories, Roberson’s Paragaea is otherworldly swashbuckling action-adventure at its finest.
Go read the review and then come back and tell me how awesome it is.
STRONG MEDICINE: August 2006
The latest installment of my book review column, STRONG MEDICINE: Books That Cures What Ails You, has just been published at Intergalactic Medicine Show.
In this column, I review three first novels: Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora; Nick DiChario’s A Small and Remarkable Life; and David Louis Edelman’s Infoquake.
[Excerpt:] Imagine you could do to your body what you can do to a browser like Firefox–you can install plug-ins to make it do a variety of tasks that you (but not everyone) would find useful, and if there’s something about the standard operating procedures that irritates you, you can just go in and tweak the code to make the offending annoyance stop. Tired? Don’t down caffeine; just run a program to wake you up. Need to tell something private to your friend while in a room full of people? Don’t leave the room; just use the ConfidentialWhisper program, which is essentially technological telepathy.
Go read the review and then come back and tell me how awesome it is.
Camera Obscura: Screw-On not screwed-up
Intergalactic Medicine Show just published the latest installment of my column, Camera Obscura, in which I review the pilot episode The Amazing Screw-On Head, which premieres on July 27 on SCI FI, and is currently available as a free streaming video on SCI FI Pulse.
[Excerpt:]
The pilot of The Amazing Screw-On Head opens in 1862, at the Museum of Dangerous Books and Paper, where an ancient document known as The Kalakistan Fragment is stolen, and the Museum’s foremost expert on ancient evil texts, Professor Fruen, kidnapped.
The Kalakistan Fragment, supposedly untranslatable, is thought to detail the life of Gung the Magnificent who nearly conquered the world in 1932 B.C. using “supernatural powers derived from a fabulous melon-size jewel.”
The Fragment and the Professor were abducted by two old women and a chimpanzee, who happens to wears a crown and displays an affinity for firing heavy artillery. And one of the old women was not a frail old grandmotherly-type; rather, she appears to be, but is in fact a werewolf. The other woman is just an old lady so far as we can tell, but you can be sure she’s evil (and also has an affinity for artillery).
Read the review!
STRONG MEDICINE: July 2006
The latest installment of my book review column, STRONG MEDICINE: Books That Cures What Ails You, has just been published at Intergalactic Medicine Show.
In this column, I review Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series: His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade, and Black Powder War; for comparison and contrasting purposes, I review Mike Resnick’s Dragon America; and on a wholly separate note, I review Jim Kelly’s & John Kessel’s new slipstream anthology, Feeling Very Strange.
[Excerpt:] Talking dragons, or talking animals or beasts of any kind really, is no easy trick to pull off, but Novik manages it nicely. Given that there is no magic in Novik’s world–the only fantasy element present is dragons, and their existence is treated scientifically–there are some issues with the talking that require some suspension of disbelief (as do some other issues with the dragons). Even if you set aside their miraculous language skills (Temeraire learned to speak fluent English through the shell in about a week’s time, for instance), there is the issue of speech: just how exactly do those giant beasts make human sounds with those huge dragon jaws? There are other examples of nitpickery one could dwell on, but ultimately all of those things are irrelevant; if you can’t get past them, you probably won’t enjoy the books, but if you simply accept the fact that there are certain allowances that need to be made in order to have the world Novik created function, you’ll likely get completely sucked into the story as I did.
Go read the review and then come back and tell me how awesome it is.
Camera Obscura: TNT “know[s] drama,” but do they know horror?
Intergalactic Medicine Show just published the latest installment of my column, Camera Obscura, in which I review the first two episodes of the new TNT miniseries, Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, which premieres tonight on TNT (if you missed it already, never fear, there are encore airings, and each episode stands alone).
[Excerpt:] Stephen King has said “I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries,” which is to say that he’s kind of an everyman writer: nothing too fancy, just something good and satisfying. Although he may think that, I don’t think it’s true, and if you examine the failed films that have been adapted from his stories, I think you can see why. The reason is that King’s ideas often aren’t revolutionary in of themselves; instead, he uses his craft to spin those ideas into something truly special. And so when you strip away his prose, and adapt the work into film, you are left with nothing but the idea–an idea that’s been filtered through the creative process of an entire cast and crew. This filtering sometimes results in a product that seems watered down and devoid of spirit, and that’s the case with “Crouch End.”
Read the review!
Camera Obscura: Eureka! I think they’ve got it!
Intergalactic Medicine Show just published the latest installment of my column, Camera Obscura, in which I review the pilot episode of Eureka, which premieres on The SCI FI Channel on July 18.
[Excerpt:] Eureka’s two-hour pilot never drags or feels too long; it works extraordinarily well as a piece of entertainment on its own, even as it sets up the rest of the series, so it succeeds on both levels. The pilot also has a nice surprise that I didn’t see coming, one that changes the town dynamic a bit and bodes well for some intrigue in the future. And there are enough other glimpses of malevolence hiding beneath the surface that generating tension (and future plotlines) should not be a problem.
Go read the review!
Camera Obscura: Does it slay, or does it suck?
Intergalactic Medicine Show just published the latest installment of my column, Camera Obscura, in which I review the pilot episode of Blade: The Series, which debuts on Spike TV on June 28.
[Excerpt:] Blade: The Series debuts with an entertaining, action-packed episode, one that will likely please fans of the movies and of ass-kicking vampires in general. All in all, it was fun if middling entertainment, but despite its flaws it did succeed in making me want to watch the next few episodes, which is the ultimate goal of any pilot. And it’s far-and-away better than Blade II, though, of course, that’s not saying much.
Go read the review!
STRONG MEDICINE: June 2006
The latest installment of my book review column, STRONG MEDICINE: Books That Cures What Ails You, has just been published at Intergalactic Medicine Show.
In this column, I review Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies, Pretties, and Specials, and Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies, and Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan (on audio).
[Excerpt:] Before listening to Altered Carbon on audio, I’d never been much impressed with Tantor’s audio efforts. I’d listened to a few of their other titles and was consistently disappointed. When I initially heard that Tantor had acquired the audio rights to Morgan’s books, I inwardly groaned, but I looked forward to re-reading them, so I anticipated to the audio release nonetheless, albeit with a sizeable dollop of trepidation. So when I first listened to Altered Carbon, I was surprised and delighted, and thought that I could now expect a higher level of quality out of Tantor’s future titles. But if the first three Richard K. Morgan audiobooks were five steps forward for Tantor, Woken Furies seems like six steps back.
Go read the review and then come back and tell me how awesome it is.
