There are few things that portend the end of summer for me more than Toronto’s Fan Expo, falling around the Labor Day Weekend it is one last big sendup and celebration of countless fandoms. And this year Expo made sure to pull out all the stops, there were celebrities and panels, parties and purchases that…
Tag: exploration
The Amber Spyglass (2000) – Philip Pullman
The final novel in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is on the book shelf this week, and I was curious to know if it would have the same effect on me as it did when I first read it eighteen years ago. I remembered nothing of the final half of the book after a…
Doctor Who (Peter Capaldi) – Kill the Moon, and Mummy on the Orient Express
The Doctor (Capaldi), Clara (Jenna Coleman) and one of her students, Courtney (Ellis George) find themselves in a strange adventure this week in Peter Harness’ Kill the Moon. This episode first aired on 4 October, 2014, and sees the trio and the TARDIS on the moon, and on Earth of the 21st century, as our…
At The Mountains of Madness (1931) – H.P. Lovecraft
Lovecraft’s unnerving novella, At the Mountains of Madness was my next read, and I can’t believe how much I enjoyed it. It’s dark, frightening, and immensely enjoyable. An Antarctic expedition finds something they don’t expect, and from there the tale descends into horror and madness. I feel that the story influenced the short story of…
Pokemon Movie Companion (2017) – Simcha Whitehill
You know, until Pokemon Go came out, I didn’t even know that Pokemon was a shortened version of Pocket Monsters. But then again, the phenomenon that swept the world started in 1995 – I was not their target market. A whole generation has already grown up with them, and there are more born every day….
Annihilation (2014) – Jeff VanderMeer
Full disclosure: I had never heard of this book until I saw the trailer for this movie from the writer and director of Ex Machina, the visuals looked amazing, and the ambiguity and mystery conveyed by the short teaser drove me out to find a copy of the Southern Reach trilogy right away. Annihilation is…
Star Trek: The Original Series (1968) – The Gamesters of Triskelion and A Piece of the Action
Captain’s log: stardate 3211.7 The Gamesters of Triskelion was a bit of a fun episode when I was a kid, Kirk (William Shatner) got to kick lots of butt after he, Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Chekov (Walter Koenig) are kidnapped across the lightyears to find themselves fighting in gladiatorial combat on the planet Triskelion. It…
Star Trek: Voyager – The Complete Series
Getting a re-release from Paramount Pictures today, in a fantastic new slipcase package, Star Trek: Voyager – The Complete Series comes home. Premiering in January of 1995, half way through the third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and half a year following the conclusion of The Next Generation, the series got away from…
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) -Hayao Miyazaki
The next stop in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book is a long overdue check-in with Miyazaki, the famed writer/director who has envisioned so many incredible tales. This time around, it’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. I didn’t have access to a subtitled version, so I went with the English dubbed (subtitle is ALWAYS the…
Star Trek: The Original Series (1966/1967) – Shore Leave and The Galileo Seven
Captain’s Log: Stardate 3025.3 Shore Leave, written by Theodore Strugeon aired on 29 December, 1966, and was the first episode that showed me that sometimes Trek could take itself less seriously, wait until I discovered The Trouble with Tribbles (!), while also exploring the characters. This is an episode, much like the Naked Time, which…
The Mind Reels 