Review of Quantum Leap S2E2 “Ben & Teller”

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From the Quantum Leap episode “Ben & Teller” Ben (Raymond Lee) and Rebecca (Janet Montgomery).

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I just finished watching the Quantum Leap season 2 second episode Ben & Teller, apparently a pun on the magicians Penn and Teller. This also references that in this leap, Ben’s (Raymond Lee) “host” is a seventy-year-old bank teller named Lorena Chavez.

First of all, commercials are back, which is fine.

After the intro, the show opens with Jenn (Nanrisa Lee) at a high stakes poker game, apparently cleaning up. Somehow Ian (Mason Alexander Park) knows where she is, peeks their head in the door, and whispers “Turtle Time.” This is a code phrase Jenn made up in case she became a leaper and needed to identify herself to Quantum Leap project personnel.

It’s sort of like in the 1971 film The Andromeda Strain when project personnel were called to duty with the phrase, “There’s a fire.”

Jenn responds to Ian with, “Tell me you’re not about to say what you’re about to say.”

They find Magic (Ernie Hudson) at a jewelry store asking the person at the counter if the earrings he’s looking at would be an appropriate first anniversary gift. So Magic is married or re-married?

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The Yellow Shed

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PHOTO PROMPT © Rowena Curtin

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It had been a long time since Jack had been to Sunset Beach. The ugly yellow paint the caretaker put on the shed two summers ago was already flaking off.

Jack pulled the key out of his pocket and inserted it in the lock. Anyone watching wouldn’t notice, but a series of biometric tests were run to make sure he was part of the Calderone family.

A telltale click told him he passed. Jack slipped inside and closed the door behind him.

So, they wanted a war. Fine. He had all the weapons here he would need to end it.

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Review of Quantum Leap S2E1 “This Took Too Long!”

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QUANTUM LEAP — “This Took Too Long!” Episode 201 — Pictured: (l-r) P.J. Byrn as Sgt. Enock Abrams, Aaron Abram as Sgt. Ronny Abrams, Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song, Melissa Roxburgh as Lt. Ellen Grier, Francois Arnaud as Sergeant Curtis Bailey — (Photo by:NBC)

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So, against my better judgment, I decided to watch the season 2 opener of the current Quantum Leap television show titled This Took Too Long!

For S1, I tended to “soft soap” my reviews, giving the show the benefit of the doubt, even though I knew it’s stated intent was to completely highlight representation as it’s top priority, even above entertaining the broadest possible audience.

All of those episodes piled on top of each other had pretty much convinced me to abandon the show at the end of season one’s run. It wouldn’t be the first time. I watched the first seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (and boy am I glad I missed season 2).

For “Quantum Leap” I think I was just curious about why Ben didn’t leap home when Ziggy’s programming said he really should. Of course the real reason is that the show won a second season so Ben (Raymond Lee) needs to keep leaping.

I was also curious after the nature and character of S1 plus the recent writer’s strike, if the tone and content of the show might try to be more egalitarian. That is, would the showrunners stop trying to alienate large numbers of old school television viewers, science fiction fans, and time travel buffs like me. Never mind that I’m too old, too male, and too white to come anywhere near their target demographic.

Okay, that’s probably too much to ask for, but I thought at least the season opener should be pretty safe. After all, you want to re-engage the audience and pull them in again before blasting them with controversial content. Right? Am I right?

Let’s find out.

Oh, it goes without saying that this is a Spoiler Alert so if you haven’t seen the episode and don’t want to know all about it beforehand, stop reading now.

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The Name

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PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

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Griffith hated “blipping” into random places, especially late at night, but that was how the quest worked. This yarn shop wasn’t an unanticipated destination. The next clue was here. In fact (he quickly counted the words he already had) this should be the last one. Then he could assemble The Name.

This had been centuries in coming. Once he puzzled out The Name and said it out loud, He would come and the world would be safe. But where was it hidden?

“Please don’t hurt me.” The woman crouching in the corner was a beautiful last word for The Name.

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Book Review of “Fire Time” (1974)

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Cover for Poul Anderson’s 1974 novel “Fire Time”

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I wish I could say I liked Poul Anderson’s 1974 novel Fire Time. It was being offered from Amazon at a pretty low price and wasn’t available at my local public library. I’d read and liked other books by Anderson. I figured what the heck?

The novel begins with several prisoners being transported to a judge’s private residence on Earth. They had been charged with what seemed to be war crimes, and the judge, who was elderly and infirm, was the only one willing to hear their side of the story. The book proceeds from this point as testimony which could either be really good or really bad.

I couldn’t get past the sort of “muddiness” of the narrative. I tried, but as much as I wanted, the story didn’t pull me in. I never lost myself in this world. It’s a world describing a difficult orbit around three different starts sometimes resulting in “Fire Time,” a catastrophic heating up of the planet’s northern hemisphere that collapses civilization.

You’d think that would be enough.

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“Shoot the Devil II: Dark Matter” Coming Soon!

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Some of my regular readers may remember that a short story of mine “Wolf in the Wind” was included in the 2022 Crucifixion Press anthology Shoot the Devil: Ten Tales of Humans Defeating the Demonic. It’s a collection of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories generally from a Christian perspective that depicts people combatting and defeating literal evil. My own story was less religious, but nonetheless, a battle in the supernatural realm involving a female occult detective in the 1880s west.

Apparently, it did pretty well, so well in fact that the publisher decided to print a sequel. It should go on pre-sale on October 15, 2023 and is called “Shoot the Devil 2: Dark Matter.”

Basically, it’s the same theme only in space.

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If I Could Turn Back Time

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PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

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“No! This is not what I meant!”

Eight-year-old Erin pounded her fists on the back of the chair and then recoiled when it hurt so much. She squealed in her too squeaky, little girl voice.

She wanted to go back and fix the past. The experiment held that promise. The forty-two-year-old physicist stepped into the acceleration chamber and vanished.

It was thirty-four years ago. Her old bedroom. She thought she’d arrive as herself; as an adult. Instead, she was projected into her younger body.

The door opened and she cringed.

“Daddy’s here, Erin.”

The horror was starting all over again.

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Book Review of “Hacking Galileo” by Fenton Wood

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© James Pyles

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I became aware of Fenton Wood (a pseudonym) when he reviewed my SciFi/Fantasy novelette Ice on twitter (but alas not on Amazon or goodreads).

Curious, I took a look at his twitter/X account, which led me to his e-book Hacking Galileo.

It had fabulous reviews, an interesting premise, and was reasonably priced, so I downloaded it onto my Kindle Fire.

The first words you read in the book after the usual preamble stuff is “This is a work of fiction.” Wood then goes on to explain the inspirations and influences for various parts of his story, the background of some of the technical details, when he “cheated,” making certain events happen at a slightly different point in history for the sake of the plot, and how security at Cray Research and Bell Telephone Company weren’t quite as lame as he depicted.

That’s really important because the rest of the book is written from the point of view of a man who, in the 1980s, was part of a teenage hacker group, really just a bunch of high school friends in Palmdale, California, who performed acts of hacking from the interesting to the fantastic.

The main character Roger O. Miller (ROM, see what he did there?) is writing and recounting events that happened thirty years ago where he and his three friends actually saved the world from destruction by an alien space probe. There’s a lot of build up to get to that point, but almost all of it is fascinating.

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The Exploding Candy Store

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PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

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“Annoying,” Phil complained.

One of the tiny cameras he had hidden throughout the candy shop showed him the place wasn’t empty. The clerk was out front having a smoke, but the customer with the backpack was still shopping inside.

“Come on,” he whispered in the basement darkness, fingers poised on the toggle while his eyes scanned the monitors.

Pesky finally selected an ancient pack of Cherry Humps and headed for the register. The clerk was taking his final drag when Backpack went to get him.

“Boom.” Phil threw the switch. One more hated icon of his childhood blown to bits.

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Book Review of “A Call to Duty”

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Cover for the Weber and Zahn novel “A Call to Duty”

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After I returned my previous book to the library, I was wandering the stacks trying to decide if anything looked interesting. I eventually came across A Call to Duty (2016) by David Weber and Timothy Zahn. It’s the first book in the four-part Manticore Ascendant series which, in turn, is part of the much larger Honorverse published by Baen Books.

I should say that I’m particularly fond of Baen, not just because of the quality of titles they publish, but because they are a truly egalitarian science fiction/fantasy publisher. They don’t hold your politics or social views against you if you happen to be a tad bit conservative (as opposed to many other publishing houses and official SciFi organizations).

That said, I haven’t specifically targeted a disproportionate number of novels from Baen for my reading list. I tend to read whatever gets my attention at the moment.

A few years back, I did read and review Weber’s flagship Honorverse novel On Basilisk Station. I had the same issues with Basilisk as with Call to Duty, they tend to drag.

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