Sunday, April 30, 2006
14:48 ~
F&SF again. Just to give you an example of what I was talking about in the earlier post about it. In January's issue is a story by someone who had a story in the October/November issue and "This one is reprinted from his just-published story collection The Gist Hunter and Ohter Stories".
Not only are they reprinting stories and reusing authors at an astonishing rate, but that makes it sound like the magazine is nothing more than an advertisement for this guy's books.
Should I pay 4-5$ an issue for advertisements?
Saturday, April 29, 2006
15:02 ~
Tangent from Last Post: Why Sci-Fi Channel Sucks
1) It's called Sci-Fi Channel. Which I think turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sci-Fi conjures up images of space ships and lasers and bug-eyed aliens and action, action, action, special effects, more action. No thought. It should've been given a cool name, like Omni. Or Spike.
2) They used to have cool non-fiction shows. There was some sort of news show where they'd go to cons and things. And I remember Harlan Ellison ranting at things. That was cool. What happened to that?
3) No anime. What's up with that? There's plenty of science fiction (and fantasy) anime that's not being shown on any other channel yet. Uninhabited Planet Survive! (Erm.. Mujinwakusei Survive if I'm remembering correctly) comes to mind first, though there's plenty of others.
4) Hacked up syndicated shows. Come on, SciFi, get some nerve, show things uncut! Run it in a 3-hour block of 2 episodes and more commercials, if you want. Just show us that the dog's name in that QL ep is Wookiee!
5) Cancel all the good shows. Farscape was good and they cancelled it because 'they wanted to move away from space shows'. And the first thing they do.. move Stargate or some other boring show out into space. And what's their newest show? Battlestar Galactica.
6) Get some originality, people! BG going well? Let's make a prequel! It worked for Stargate! Not just originality, some variety would be nice.
7) Their rerun movies suck. How many monster movies and horror movies and 2-star movies can we see? Well, not all that many, because then they have to rerun them all again. Can't you get anything good? Several other channels like showing Harry Potter.. how about that? Or LoTR. Don't like fantasy? How about more Star Trek or Star Wars then? Or Spaceballs. Or.. or something.
8) Their original movies suck. One of the recently announced ones is called.. Supergator. Haven't we seen that already? Well, I haven't, cuz I don't watch that sort of stupid movie. And while I never read Earthsea, apparently they screwed that up.
9) Their focus is on guys. If you just take a look at what they show, you can see they're aiming at a male audience. A teenaged male audience at that. Though they're surprisingly lacking on the sex part. I'm not saying chicks don't watch SciFi channel or are great fans of some of the shows, but most shows that chicks really dig, don't end up on there. Quantum Leap is still shown, but Beauty and the Beast isn't. And I know older fans were all over Blake's Seven for its slashyness. And heck, Lifetime snatched up Medium out from under them. They could've had that! Then of course there's Buffy and Angel. (Not mentioning Charmed and Xena because of the obvious male drool factor.)
10) They don't pick up dropped shows and give them a chance. Well, not enough of them anyway. I think they rescued Andromeda. But K and I were talking the other day about that cool future law show that lasted like 2 episodes. They should've grabbed that. And Firefly.
11) Not enough (or any!) kids shows. There was that Peter David one.. Space Cadets, was it? And that Canadian or Australian one with the kids .. Tomorrow Kids? Something like that.. And anime, of course, and cartoons (Trek, Ewoks, XMen). Demon Headmaster. Not enough sf/f kids shows in general. They could make their own!
I could expand on number 9, probably, but this post is long enough. I wish we got the Hallmark/Henson channel. They have some really cool miniseries and original movies with fantasy and science fictional bents.
Sci-Fi Channel does 11 things wrong, apparently, and only one thing right at a time. At the moment, the one right thing they're doing is showing last year's Doctor Who.
But are they going to show other good British shows that recently aired? Like Life on Mars and the comedic Hyperdrive? I doubt it.
If anyone at Sci-Fi Channel wants me to take over their programming division, let me know.
14:48 ~
I guess I had some pre-conceptions and mis-conceptions about science fiction and fantasy magazines. The literary kind, not the ones with Stargate plastered all over the cover. (Which, btw, I do not watch. Because, btw, Scifi Channel sucks.)
Certainly I've read them before. Though probably mostly back in high school. Well, perhaps also in college. I remember hanging out in the periodicals section at one point.
I had it in mind that the stories published in them were all new. I think I also thought they were mostly short stories. I also expected more articles and essays. I certainly never expected serialized stories.
K picked me up some Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF) issues from the library. I attacked them chronologically, which meant the first one I read was an October/November double issue. At least I got the longest one out of the way first. So, perhaps there was some slight difference for the fact it was a double issue.
* At least 3 of the things in there had been published before.
* Many of the stories were by big names.
* Most of the blurbs at the top seemed to indicate that the author was a frequent contributor.
* Three of the stories involved Greek mythology.
How does this show us the breadth of talent and ideas in the field? How is a new writer supposed to break in? What if I simply don't like the authors they (apparently) keep featuring? Or, for that issue anyway, Greek mythology! If it had been that heavily King Arthur stories, I would've put it down in disgust.
The next issue I'm reading now is January. And the second story in, it's a novella. Not just any novella, but a serialized one. I don't even know if I have part 2 in the small stack that's waiting. I don't like long stories. If I'm going to put that much effort in, it had better be a novel. Maybe even a trilogy. Or a series. I read short stories because they're short.
I like the idea that it's fantasy and science fiction stories rather than one or the other, but maybe I'll have to swing towards preferring Analog for the 'science fact' part of it. Plus that book of essays I read that were the editor's contribution to Analog was pretty cool.
I think I'll get a couple of subscriptions as soon as I can afford it, but I'm not sure F&SF is going to be one of them.
02:36 ~
I'm 14 books shy of last year at the end of April! How many books can I read in.. how many days in April? 30 days has September, April.. ookay.. 14 books in less than 2 days. Anyone have any Dr. Seuss?
Friday, April 28, 2006
22:25 ~
Slow Blogger.
April 28th may be a bit early to be discussing Christmas movies, but I'm going to anyway.
I like stories about Santa Claus and the North Pole and elves and reindeer. Few of them match up with my ideal, but some of them are good. One of the better movies is The Santa Clause. I like parts of the sequel, but I could've done without the fake Santa and the resultant battle.
In any event, The Santa Clause 3, while yet another sequel, and with Disney's fingerprints all over it, could still be decent. Even Martin Short as Jack Frost sounds more intriguing than annoying.
But the third movie will be lacking something crucial. Bernard. They could make a movie called Bernard the Arch-Elf and I would be so all over that. As long as they didn't recast Bernard. I'd even give an animated series about Bernard a shot. Bernard is the coolest thing about those movies!
I'm considering boycotting the movie for the lack of Bernard. But the trailer may suck so much that a boycott would be redundant.
14:36 ~
A rave on "Rules of Acquisition".
Immediately after the atrocious Melora, we get Rules of Acquisition.
Cross-dressing Ferengi female helps Quark wheel and deal for the Nagus.
Obviously the best thing about this episode is.. crossdressing! And that it's a chick crossdressing as a guy works best with the Ferengi with their naked females. So it's a very strong concept.
2) Ferengis! I like the Ferengi. Once they evolved from those early TNG eps.
3) The Grand Nagus. The Nagus is fun.. disgusting, but fun.
4) You know when you have the Nagus and the Ferengi, the episode is going to be amusing. And Trek is at its best when it's amusing.
5) Why does the crossdressing chick always fall in love with the guy? Especially when she has so much at stake.. it's stupid. Buuuut.. it also leads to amusing situations, so I'll forgive it. Especially as Dax and Quark, separately, find out Pel's in love with him before finding out she's a chick.
6) Just one more number for Dax. Cuz Dax is awesome in this episode.
7) The Ferengis are one of the few races that are pretty well developed. We know quite a bit about their culture, their food, their games, their turns of phrase, and various random things like ear hair brushes. I feel I know them better than I know the Bajorans.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
15:57 ~
A rant about DS9 ep "Melora".
This episode ticked me off the first time I saw it, which would be the first time it aired. I get ticked off when the writers and others working on the show have clearly not thought.
So Melora is this Starfleet ensign from some planet with low gravity. She's got these braces or something helping her walk in the high gravity, and a really low-tech chair.
My main issue, that stuck with me since I first watched it, is what kind of freaking training is going on at Starfleet Academy if Bashir can get all the way through it without once hanging out in null-G? Heck, there's even mention of a null-G medical ward on TNG on the Enterprise.. I think during that ep where they run into the Enterprise C and there's a timeline screwup and whatever. Null-G makes a lot of sense for some medical conditions, so you'd think they'd train their doctors in it if no one else! Gravity's always failing whenever Paramount has the budget to handle it. Remember those floating pink blobs of Klingon blood?
Anyway.. that's only one of the problems.
2) What kind of planet or moon can possibly have no gravity? Because when Melora and Bashir are floating around in her quarters, it certainly didn't look like any sort of low gravity. It looked non-existant.
3) Why a freaking wheelchair with freaking hand controls? It's late 20th century technology. Why not mental controls? Why not a hover chair? There are antigrav sleds for moving cargo around. She's not good enough for them? Rygel's got it better!
4) Bashir digs up some old research on helping people adapt to the high grav environment or some such thing. And it turns out it's a piece of cake to use that research to put it into practical use. And nobody's ever done it in the 20 years or whatever it was. Why? There's at least one planet of people who could use it! And I can't imagine there aren't hundreds or thousands more. Not all planets have the same gravity. You can't say there's not a market for it. Profit motive aside (since the Federation doesn't deal in money.. or something), you'd think it would be of great benefit to Federation relations between planets. And junk.
5) Bashir starts this treatment on Melora without informing her ahead of time that she can't hang out in her low-G (read null-G) environment when she wants to. What about informed consent, Doctor? Bad enough you're treating someone you're dating.
6) Melora's all 'I like to work alone', blah blah blah. And Bashir has to teach her how to rely on other people and work in a team. Again, what kind of training is the Academy doing? It should be all about teamwork!
7) Dax and Melora have a nice little chat, where Dax brings up The Little Mermaid. You'd think she'd have 200 years of Trill folklore to draw on without dragging humans into it.
8) Klingons apparently serve gummi worms in their restaurants. They didn't even do a good job of disguising it.
It's a shame, because I think the story and the character had potential. They just didn't think it through.
Monday, April 24, 2006
20:28 ~
Milkshake Kit Kat sounds better than it tastes.
Friday, April 21, 2006
22:02 ~
If you're interested in the financial and business aspects of publishing, you might find this lj entry interesting. She's a romance editor.
19:12 ~
Never did finish my Disney entries, but I did get a fair way. Didn't finish commenting the pictures either.
I just finished Spellsinger by Alan Dean Foster. I picked this book up, from a used bookstore looks like, because he wrote Quozl which I quite liked. And a few other things, but I'm not sure if I've read any of them except movie or tv adaptations.
I thought it'd be comic fantasy. And it only sort of was. There's a dragon that's a Marxist, if that gives you some clue.
A wizard foresees the world(s) in peril and summons a wizard from another world to help him. Only it turns out to be a grad student who's pretty useless. But now he's stuck there, on this world where humans and anthropomorphic animals live side by side. And he's going to help save the world after all, because he soon discovers an unknown talent for wizardry, using a musical instrument.
You have nooo idea how much I hate fantasy stories with musicians in them. ESPECIALLY if those musicians are A) Bards or B) Wizards. There are exceptions to the rule, and I'll put up with it if it's worth it (Tanya Huff has some that fall into this, and that one really cool gay trilogy of Mercedes Lackey is okay.)
Furries will probably like this. The very human grad student witnesses a strip tease show and likes it rather a lot.
The MOST annoying thing about this book is that it's the first book of a trilogy and does not stand on its own two feet (or four feet) well at all. It doesn't end. It just sort of stops, so you can go buy the next book.
NOT.