Check out this new booklist on BookGuide at the following link:
This collection, released in 2001, was overseen by author/editor Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game), and in addition to an introductory essay to open the book, Card contributes a biographical essay about each of the included authors before their stories. My Lincoln science fiction club recently read and discussed it for our 200th monthly book discussion.
There are 27 stories included in
this moderately hefty volume (the trade paperback was 432 pages). Authors
included are: Isaac Asimov • Arthur C. Clarke • Robert A. Heinlein • Ursula K.
Le Guin • Ray Bradbury • Frederik Pohl • Harlan Ellison • George Alec Effinger
• Brian W. Aldiss • William Gibson & Michael Swanwick • Theodore Sturgeon •
Larry Niven • Robert Silverberg • Harry Turtledove • James Blish • George R. R.
Martin • James Patrick Kelly • Karen Joy Fowler • Lloyd Biggle, Jr. • Terry
Bisson • Poul Anderson • John Kessel • R.A. Lafferty • C.J. Cherryh • Lisa
Goldstein • Edmond Hamilton. I had read several of the included stories
previously, as I’ve been a life-long fan of science fiction, however quite a
few in this collection were new to me. There were a few “clunkers”, which
haven’t really held up well in the decades since they were originally published
— either with regards to scientific developments or lack of good representation
of female, or non-caucasian characters.
The collection is divided into
thirds, roughly, with the first third featuring “classic” or “Golden Age”
stories, the second third is New Wave (late 1960s to late 1970s) and the final
third focusing on the “modern era” (the 1980s and 1990s). Some of the stories
are incredible stand-outs! Oddly enough, the collection has a melancholy tone
to it — a majority of the stories have sad or depressing endings.
None-the-less, enough of these
stories are excellent, and highly representative of the times they were written
in, and I have no problem giving this book a recommendation as a good
introduction to short science fiction of the 20th century.
(If you enjoy this, you may also
wish to try the multi-volume Science Fiction Hall of Fame series, where the selections
were made from a survey of writers, editors, publishers and fans — unlike the Masterpieces collection, where Orson Scott Card
was the sole selector.)
( Wikipedia entry for Masterpieces anthology )
Recommended
by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you read or listened to
this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page
of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch
them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the
entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this
reviewer’s recommendations!
If you ask most people nowadays if they’ve heard of The Man Who Fell to Earth, they’d probably mention having seen David Bowie (in his first major acting role) in the 1976 film by director Nicholas Roeg of that title. But is was actually a classic scifi novel before that film adapted the story (with some changes) for the big screen.
Thomas Jerome Newton may look
human, but he’s not. He’s a visitor from a distant planet — an emissary from
his own dying people, sent to Earth to manipulate both events and technological
developments in order to surreptitiously build a spacecraft that can be used to
return to his dying planet and ferry the rest of his people to our world. But
he’s supposed to do it without attracting dangerous attention to himself. He is
only partially successful.
In addition to the famed 1976 film,
this story was adapted into the unsold pilot for a 1986 TV series (available on
YouTube in its entirety), and a 2022 10-part Showtime series, starring Chiwetel
Ejiofor, was an official “sequel” to the David Bowie movie, with Bill Nighy
taking over the Bowie role as Newton.
The 1963 novel is definitely a
thing of its time, with certain glimpses of futuristic technology now looking
absurdly quaint. But it is still well-written and I believe it justifies its
place in the series of “SF Masterworks” of the 20th century. If you like it —
check out Walter Tevis’ other novels, including Mockingbird, The Queen’s Gambit (turned into a 7-episode limited series
on Netflix in 2020), The Hustler and The Color of Money (both adapted into classic feature films
starring Paul Newman), among others.
If you enjoy this, you may also
wish to try The Man Who Fell to Earth (graphic novel adaptation of the
1974 film by Nicolas Roeg starring David Bowie) by Dan Watters and Dev Pramanik.
The film (and thus this graphic novel adaptation of the film) differs in
several key facets from the original novel, notably in the presence of sex
scenes and slightly different end fates for some of the characters. Having just
read the novel, I was amused at the changes that are clearly evident in the
graphic novel, but even then, it still gets across its messages about
isolation, loneliness, addiction and corrupt power. And the artist does a good
job of capturing the appearances of cast members David Bowie, Rip Torn, Bucky
Henry, Candy Clark and Bernie Casey. I give both versions a 7 on our 1-10
rating scale.
( Wikipedia page for Walter Tevis, with links to info about all versions of The Man Who Fell to Earth
)
Recommended
by Scott
C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you read or listened to
this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page
of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch
them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the
entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this
reviewer’s recommendations!
One of my daughter’s favorite books is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, a book about what happens when the swine flu Pandemic kills off most of the population. Mind you, this book was published in 2014, years before COVID. Because of the focus on trying to keep culture alive, specifically theater, music and literature, I decided to give the new mini-series a try. The mini-series, Station Eleven, is based on the internationally acclaimed novel but with many changes in characters and plot. Even so, the series holds the same basic idea: survivors of the Pandemic must attempt to rebuild their world while keeping hold of the best of their culture: Shakespeare plays, music performance, and literature. A group of survivors bands together, calling themselves the Traveling Symphony, performing plays on their established route around Lake Michigan. Small groups of survivors who have formed new communities such as the one at the Severn Airport in Michigan invite the players to come perform for them. This happens 20 years after the Pandemic, bringing together all of the storylines and resolving them in one climactic performance. Much of the series revolves around a graphic novel that was created by one of the characters. Referred to as “the prophecy,” all of the main characters have some tie to this novel — only a few copies exist, but the impact of the story affects many people over the course of these twenty years.
I have to say that I really enjoyed
the post-Pandemic story and how connected all of these characters were to the
mission to save the best of humanity. However, the DVD set had no rating. I would
view this with caution due to Language; Graphic Violence; Adult Situations; and
Themes.
(If you enjoy this, you may also
wish to try The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and the film adaptation of
that, The Road starring Viggo Mortensen.)
(Also available in traditional print format.)
( Internet Movie
Database entry for this 10-episode mini-series )
Recommended
by Kim J.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you watched (or read) this one?
What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff
Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that
page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog
individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the
reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
The Creator was a spectacular original science fiction concept — refreshing to see when so many SF/F films are franchise entries. Director Gareth Edwards (he also co-wrote this with Chris Weitz) gives us a world in which Artificial Intelligences have struck back at humans in the United States, detonating a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. When the action picks up years later, U.S. special forces are actively seeking out and destroying AIs around the world — but in New Asia, AIs are still valued and American intervention is opposed. Deep cover special U.S. special forces agent Joshua is married to an Asian woman and expecting a child, while still working on his mission to find the chief scientist creating new AIs. A strike force blows his cover, kills his wife and badly injures him…but when a mission to infiltrate and destroy a super weapon (that will take out the orbiting defense platform that is the primary U.S. weapon against AIs), Joshua is forced back into active service.
Joshua’s team is inserted into New
Asia to try to find Nirmata, the creator of the ultimate weapon, and destroy
both the weapon and Nirmata themself. The missions goes awry, and Joshua finds
himself on the run with “the weapon”…which has been designed as a six-year-old
little girl (who’s learning how to manipulate the technology around herself).
Joshua believes his wife, Maya, may still be alive and he’s determined to use
“the weapon” to find his wife and reclaim part of the life that was stolen from
him. But he starts to bond with the little girl…and there’s still people out to
destroy her.
John David Washington does a
terrific job as the tortured Joshua, and there are some excellent supporting
performances by Allison Janney, Ken Watanabe, Gemma Chan and several other
adult actors. But the film is literally stolen by Madeleine Yuna Voyles, in her
film debut, as the young weapon, “Alphie”. The Creator is complex and fast moving, and a lot
of it is set in darkness. It is far from perfect, but it is still an excellent
movie, and I highly recommend it. Particularly for the Hans Zimmer score.
(If you enjoy this, you may also
wish to try Gareth Edwards’ other films, including Rogue One – A Star Wars Movie, Godzilla (2014) or Monsters.)
( Internet Movie
Database entry for this 2023 film )
See
Kristen A.’s review of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (directed by Gareth
Edwards) in the September 2017 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!
Recommended
by Scott
C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you watched this one?
What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff
Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that
page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog
individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the
reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
This is a new science fiction title by author Colin Holmes, author of the book Thunder Road, his debut novel. I was intrigued by the cover of this book when it arrived at the library, so I decided to give it a chance. The story is set in the future and mainly takes place on the moon where our main character works and lives. Farmer Millenium (Mil) Harrison produces oxygen which is used by anyone living on the moon or just visiting. Most of his life’s work has been to produce and store oxygen to prepare for Earth’s first mission to Mars. Early on in the story, Mil accidentally falls into an area that has restricted access and discovers a hidden facility that had been buried on the moon before Mil ever came there over 35 years ago. When Mil starts asking questions, attempts are made on his life as well as the lives of anyone he has shared this information with. This government conspiracy goes back to the days of the Reagan administration in the United States and it is possible that the Russians are involved too. So who can he trust? Certainly not the head of the Space Agency, who just happens to be his estranged daughter. This is an excellent book which I expect someone to make into a movie. Think of this book as a cross between The X-Files and The Martian with a little bit of Star Wars thrown in for good measure. I highly recommend this book.
(If you enjoy this, you may also
wish to try The Martian by Andy Weir, the film adapation The Martian starring Matt Damon or the TV series The X-Files by Chris Carter.)
( official Colin Holmes web
site )
Recommended
by Kim
J.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you read or listened to
this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page
of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch
them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the
entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this
reviewer’s recommendations!
Prey is an original TV-movie made for the Hulu streaming service in 2022 and later released to DVD in 2023, which serves as a prequel to the long-running series of “Predator” films that began with the eponymous Arnold Schwarzenegger film “Predator” in 1987. In all of the Predator films, single representatives of a technologically-superior hunter/warrior alien species are dropped off to hunt and kill one or more humans in an exotic location. In the original Predator, it was a Central American jungle, in Predator 2 it was the mean streets of Los Angeles.
The Predator is always armed with
high-tech equipment, both for hunting tasks but also for repairing its own
injuries if needed. And if they’re successful in their kills, they take heads
and spines as trophies.
In Prey, the setting is the Great Plains and mountain
region of the United States, but all the way back in the 1800s. And the prey
being hunted is a combination of Comanche warriors and French trappers. the
central character in Prey is Naru (played by Amber Midthunder), a young woman
who has trained for the warrior arts but who isn’t allowed to join the men in
hunts. Her self-taught skills are put to the test when the alien Predator
pretty much wipes out most of the men in her tribe’s hunting party.
This film is extremely atmospheric
and the quality of the production easily rivals the earlier feature films in
the series. The focus on the Native American culture in the film is a
refreshing change of pace — the film features a large Native American cast, and
using your DVD player’s special menus, you can choose to view the movie with
either a spoken English or spoken Comanche soundtrack. Longtime fans of the
Predator franchise will find several nice “Easter eggs” connecting Prey to
films set later in the continuity.
Prey is an excellent addition to the Predator
series. I highly recommend this one! One note: Many of the action sequences in
this film, especially in the final 20 minutes, are very dark — you may have to
adjust your screen’s settings to make out all the details.
(If you enjoy this, you may also
wish to try all of the other Predator films, especially the 1987 original,
which set the benchmark by which all the others are measured. Personally, my
favorite is Predator 2 with Danny Glover.)
( Internet Movie
Database entry for this film ) | ( official Prey
web site )
Recommended
by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you watched this one?
What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff
Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that
page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog
individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the
reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
The Humans is a 2013 book from the British author more recently known for The Midnight Library, though he’s been producing works in fiction and non-fiction for adults and children since 2002. I would describe it as a mostly-humorous work of general fiction, with strong science fiction overtones.
The central character is Professor
Andrew Martin, a mathematics professor at Cambridge University. Except, it’s
not really. Actually, our central character is an alien from a far distant
planet, who has taken the physical form of Professor Andrew Martin and is on a
deadly-serious mission to planet Earth. Professor Martin has just solved one of
the Holy Grails of mathematics — the Riemann Hypothesis, a complex calculation
regarding prime numbers, the solution of which could lead to mind-blowing
advances in technology and our understanding of the universe. Only, the distant
aliens don’t believe Humans are sufficiently developed to be able to handle
these advances. So…they’ve sent the fake Andrew Martin to destroy all evidence
of the Riemann solution, as well as anyone that the real Andrew Martin might
have shared his solution with.
The fake Andrew arrives in the middle
of a busy highway, completely naked, and without more than a cursory
understanding of the human species. After a risque romp, and after having
picked up enough of the English language to be able to converse, “Andrew
Martin” is arrested and presumed to have had a mental breakdown. His wife,
Isobel, bails him out and takes him home, where he discovers that he must
pretend to be Andrew, in a complicated relationship with Isobel and their
troubled son, Gulliver.
The longer the alien pretends to be
Andrew Martin, the more human he becomes, to the consternation of his superiors
back home, with whom he remains in contact. The Humans allows Haig to tell a true “fish out of
water” story, making interesting observations about humanity along the way.
There’s a lot of humor, as “Andrew Martin” has few filters, and frequently says
the wrong things. But the new “Andrew Martin”, despite his bizarre flaws, appears
to be a much better “human” than the real Andrew Martin who he replaced — I
particularly appreciated the relationship he develops with Gulliver Martin. I
felt a strong vibe of someone on the autism spectrum telling the story, so
learning that author Matt Haig does identify as being on the spectrum was no
surprise.
Despite the main character being an
alien, I still would not classify The Humans as science fiction — as an SF novel,
I’d only rate this 4 or 5, but as general fiction with an SF flavor, I’d give
it a 7 or 8 — I’ll settle on 7 overall. I enjoyed it a great deal, and yet
still wished it was more than it turned out to be.
(If you enjoy this, you may also
wish to try the three books in the The Rosie Trilogy by Graeme Simsion, The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark
Haddon.)
( official Matt Haig web site
)
Recommended
by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you read or listened to
this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page
of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch
them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the
entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this
reviewer’s recommendations!
One night Milton (Ben Kingsley) hears loud splintering sounds in his backyard. He goes out to check and finds a space alien has crash landed in his flower beds.
Milton (Ben Kingsley) is a retired
widower living alone in the family home. He’s having memory issues that are
probably developing into some kind of dementia and potentially a loss of his
independence. His daughter wants him to move out of the house as she recognizes
he needs assistance, but he is refusing to do so, and their relationship is
shaky at best. He also doesn’t get along all that well with his senior neighbors.
Jules is a sweet, quiet, personal film about three
lonely senior citizens who end up banding together to aid a space alien — who
is now named Jules. All three seniors are struggling in some way as they become
friends while they realize The Government is searching for Jules. They work
together to assist the alien in trying to escape from the Men in Black. Low-key
yet also poignant and humorous.
Academy Award winner Sir Ben
Kingsley stars as Milton, with Jane Curtin as Joyce, and Tony Award winner
Harriet Harris as Sandy. At only 87 min, this is still a film that will stay
with you. An alien film that doesn’t require battles and explosions – more “E.T.”
than “Alien.”
( Internet Movie
Database entry for this film )
Recommended
by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you watched this one?
What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff
Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that
page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog
individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the
reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
I’ll have to admit, I’m not really an Adam Driver fan, but that’s mainly because I couldn’t stand him in his Star Wars trilogy. But in pretty much anything else I’ve seen him in, my opinion has been dramatically changing. He certainly doesn’t disappoint in 65, a fascinating and exciting scifi time travel dinosaur film from 2023. Though there are some brief moments with additional actors, 65 is essentially a two-person film, with Driver playing Mills, a futuristic astronaut flying a cargo passengers in stasis, who’s awakened partway into his journey when a meteor storm damages his ship and forces him to crash on a primitive planet in its dinosaur age. Discovering that one of his passengers/cargo has also survived the crash, Mills has to learn to communicate with the young woman, Koa (played by Ariana Greenblatt), and then to travel several kilometers to where his ship’s “escape pod” has ended up. Their travel, by foot, through murky swamps and desolate rocky terrain, is endangered by multiple prehistoric life forms and by the environment itself. Can the two strangers come to rely on each other to reach possible salvation?
Both Driver and Greenblatt turn in
excellent performances in 65, and the atmosphere of the film is
well-created. If you like dinosaur action, you’ll definitely get it here.
Attempts by the film to explain that the planet they crashed on is actually
Earth in the distant past are muddled, and ultimately unnecessary, as this is a
film about the experience of survival. Well done!
( Internet Movie
Database entry for this film )
Recommended
by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you watched this one?
What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff
Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that
page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog
individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the
reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
Francie travels to Roswell, New Mexico to act as Maid of Honor for Serena, her former college roommate. Problem is, Russell (the groom), is a dyed-in-the-wool UFO zealot. Even the wedding has a UFO theme. Another problem? Serena has a tendency to pick the wrong kind of guy and Francie is actually planning to do everything she can to convince Serena to cancel the wedding.
The Best Man, Larry, author of “The
Survivor’s Guide to Alien Abduction” – because, yes, he claims to have been
abducted twice – was supposed to have picked her up from the airport but leaves
her stranded there because there was a UFO sighting so he and Russell are going
to check it out.
This is also the anniversary of the
Roswell crash, which is why the groom chose this date for the wedding. As a
result, Roswell is overflowing with Ufologists and other UFO fan(atic)s so
finding a rental car and getting to the wedding site were major logistical
issues but she finally makes it.
Francie can’t wait to disrupt the
wedding plans and get back home to rational people. Until she’s abducted by a
space alien.
This is an intelligent, witty,
hysterical story that plays out to a logical ending that includes many of the
UFO, Men in Black, and alien abduction stories. This is best if you are a fan
of vintage Westerns and have at least a superficial knowledge of UFO’s and
kidnapping stories. Even if you don’t, this is still an intricate, well-told
story.
( official Connie Willis web
site/blog )
Read
past Library Director Pat Leach’s review of Connie Willis’ novel Bellwether
in her fiction review blog in January 2010!
Recommended
by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you read or listened to
this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff
Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that
page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog
individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the
reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
I am a lifetime fan of Star Trek and have watched every spinoff over the years. Star Trek: The Next Generation was by far my favorite because of the exceptional cast, especially Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. I was thrilled when it was announced that Picard was coming out as a separate series and waited anxiously for the first season to debut. I was not prepared for the big changes in style for the new series and found many of the characters to be extremely unlikeable. Still, I stuck with the series for two seasons but did not continue to watch it because of how unhappy I was with the writing. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the final season of Picard involves most of the crew of the Enterprise from Next Generation in their final mission together. The writing in this series was superb and the acting even better, especially the villain, Vadic, played marvelously by Amanda Plummer, daughter of the late Christopher Plummer, who also played a wonderful villain (Chang) in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country. All of the extras in this multi-disc set are well worth watching, especially the documentaries. If you are a fan of Next Generation at all, you have got to watch this series.
(If you enjoy this, you may also
wish to try Classic Star Trek, Star Trek the Next Generation or Star Trek Discovery)
( Internet Movie
Database entry for this series ) | ( official Star Trek:
Picard web site )
Read
Scott C.’s review of the first season of Star Trek: Picard, in the December 2020 Staff
Recommendations here on BookGuide!
Recommended
by Kim
J.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you watched this one?
What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff
Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that
page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog
individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the
reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
by Mary Robinette Kowal (Kowal)
I’ve greatly enjoy the Lady Astronaut series of alternate history SF novels by Mary Robinette Kowal, looking at the early days of space exploration. I’ve also enjoyed her short stories in the various short SF fiction magazines, like Asimov’s Science Fiction.
So when I saw that a new stand-alone novel by Kowal, The Spare Man, had been released in the Fall of 2022, and that it was a loving SF take on the old “Thin Man” stories of Dashiell Hammett, I knew I couldn’t pass it up.
Tesla Crane is an inventor, and heir to a family fortune, who suffered a crippling accident that left her with a damaged spine (hardware, drugs and psychological tricks help her to cope) and PTSD. She has recently gotten married (on very short notice) and she, her new husband, and her service dog (the unbelievably cute Gimlet) are traveling aboard a luxury cruise spaceship, when a murder occurs and circumstantial evidence seems to show that Tesla’s new husband is the killer.
It is then up to Tesla, with Gimlet’s help, and the long-distance threats of her extremely foul-mouthed but loyal attorney, to investigate and try to save her husband. All while there are threats that more murders might occur.
For a murder mystery (set in space), this is a fairly light and frothy little treat. Like the Thin Man novels it emulates, our central characters come from a privileged background but don’t see themselves as “above” the rest of society. There’s LOTS of drinking, both in social settings and in private — in fact, each chapter opens with a cocktail recipe, mostly alcoholic. The relationships between Tesla and her retired detective husband Shal, and between Tesla and Gimlet, are absolutely charming. The circumstances of the sleuthing leave the reader in no doubt that Tesla will solve the mystery, but at the same time, there’s the mystery of how she’ll solve it to keep us intrigued. Though the central characters are heteronormative, there’s also a strong genderqueer flavor to many of the supporting characters, giving this one a thumbs up for fans of positive LGBTQ+ roles in fiction.
I got the sensation that this could be the first in a new series, but time will tell. In the meantime, this was a pleasant if somewhat predictable “mystery with a sci-fi setting”. If you like The Thin Man and don’t mind the outer space milieu, or even just like witty banter in your SF novels, give this one a try!
(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the other works by AUTHOR, or the classic The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett.)
( official Mary Robinette Kowal web site )
Read Susan S.’s review of The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowall, in the August 2019 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!
Recommended
by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff
Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that
page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog
individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the
reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
(DVD 791.457 StaYc)
The Center Seat is a documentary on nearly everything Star Trek. Behind-the-scenes stories of its creator, Gene Roddenberry, the producers, writers, cast, the props, and the scripts. Some stories we have heard before, other stories we’ve heard from “those in the know” from their Facebook posts or from chatting with them at conventions, and others are new. Some are in-depths tales of how this all came about. So many interviews with cast, crew, producers, writers, and directors. Narrated by Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and the Next Gen movies) this is a fully encompassing, fascinating story of the history of Star Trek as each series and movie is discussed in-depth.
If you decide to binge this (as I ended up doing), set aside almost nine hours. Otherwise, each episode is approximately 45 min in length.
The final disc consists of uncut interviews with Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, and Kirstie Alley. I began watching the bonus episodes, but I ended up quitting before the end of Nimoy’s interview as the info had already been covered on the previous discs. Your mileage may vary.
Definitely for Star Trek fans, especially those who’ve watched all the series and the movies.
Four discs, 11 episodes plus three
Bonus Interviews:
Disc One
1. Lucy Loves Trek
2. Saturday Morning Pinks
3. Trekking Through the ‘70’s – Phase II and The Motion Picture
4. Trek Goes to the Movies
Disc Two
5. Whales, Gods, and Pepto Bismol
6. Queue for Q
7. Dancing with Syndication in the Pale Moonlight
8. Voyage(r) to the Delta Quadrant
Disc Three
9. It’s Been a Long Time…
10. Starships A-Z
11. The Stars Above
Disc Four (Bonus Material)
Leonard Nimoy Interview (Uncut)
Nichelle Nichols Interview (Uncut)
Kirstie Alley Interview (Uncut)
( Internet Movie Database entry for this 2021-2022 series )
Recommended
by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff
Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that
page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog
individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the
reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
Posts
All Comments
