Review of “Doom Patrol” Season One

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Promotional image for season 1 of “Doom Patrol”

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Okay, so I just finished watching Season 1 of the Doom Patrol television show. I noticed that seasons 1 and 2 of the show were available as DVDs at my local public library and I thought, “what the heck?”

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My Greatest Adventure issue 80.

Actually, as a kid, I really enjoyed the old Doom Patrol comic book. First featured in “My Greatest Adventure” comic title issue 80 (June 1963), it chronicled the saga of three misfits forged into a superhero team by scientist/genius Niles Caulder, also called “The Chief.” The original team was made up of Robotman (Cliff Steele), a race car driver who was in an accident so horrific that only his brain survived. The Chief put that brain in a robot body. Elasti-Girl was originally actress Rita Farr who, filming on location, was exposed to a volcanic gas enabling her to grow to giant size or to shrink into a tiny form. Negative Man was test pilot Larry Trainor who flew his rocket plane into a radiation belt. The plane crashed, and Larry discovered that not only was he permanently radioactive, but for sixty seconds, he could project a negative image of himself that could travel at the speed of light and had amazing abilities. The only trick is that N-Man has to get back inside Larry’s body before the minute is up or Larry dies and N-Man disintegrates.

In looking up the full history of the comic book (see above link), I saw that it had gotten a whole lot stranger than it first started out.

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Return of the Space Princess

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Promotional image for the “Dejah Thoris” comic book series by Amy Chu (Author) – Based on a character from the Edgar Rice Burroughs “Barsoom” series.

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Screenshot from the comments section of the Mallard Fillmore comic strip.

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Just so you don’t miss the important quote in the above conversation:

The Superversive Literary Movement is in opposition to wokism, saying that any politics in a work of storytelling should serve the story, rather than the woke commandment to ensure that the story serves woke politics. The Space Princess Movement is a subset thereof.

That exchange occurred in the comments section of the conservative comic strip Mallard Fillmore written and penned these days by Loren Fishman but occasionally featuring the work of its creator Bruce Tinsley.

You can find the comic strip at ComicsKingdom.com though I warn you that the topics are indeed supportive of a conservative viewpoint and the comments are from pro-conservatives with pushback delivered by counterprotesting trolls “under-the-bridge-dwellers.”

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Book Review of “Caliban’s War,” the Second of the “Expanse” Series

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Promotional artwork for the novel “Caliban’s War”

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Not long ago, I reviewed the first book in the “Expanse” series Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (pen name for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck). Almost always when I read and review the first book in some series, I tend to wander off in a different direction afterward. I did that for N.K. Jemisin’s Hugo award winning The Fifth Season, for David Weber’s On Basilisk Station, for Martha Wells’ All Systems Red, and in fact, for just about every book I’ve reviewed, regardless of how well I did (or didn’t) like them.

However, “Leviathan” really hooked me, so much so, that I immediately checked book two out of the public library. I just finished reading Caliban’s War and absolutely loved it. The quality was just as high as for “Leviathan.” I was reintroduced to familiar characters such as Holden, Naomi, Alex, and Amos as well as new characters such as Prax, Bobbie, and Avasarala.

It begins on the Jovian moon Ganymede, the “bread basket of the belt,” which is the best location to grow the food needed for the colonized asteroids. It’s the best place for pregnant women to gestate to term. It’s also, apparently, the best place to spawn protomolecule monsters.

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Interviewed by Blackbird Publishing for my story: “No Place Like Home”

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Promotional image for Blackbird Publishing’s “Wild Magic Story Bundle”

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As part of the Wild Magic Bundle promotion from Blackbird Publishing, I was interviewed by Jamie Ferguson. You can find the interview on their website, twitter account and Facebook page.

The interview starts out:

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How a Tweet on Trying to Prevent “Zoombombing” Got Me Suspended on Twitter

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Screenshot from my email.

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Yesterday, I put up a tweet on twitter questioning the security of the app Zoom and a link to a source I found on LinkedIn showing how “zoombombing” was used for anti-Semitic purposes. Today, I found I was suspended from twitter because of that tweet, but twitter won’t tell me why.

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“The Wild Magic Bundle” is Coming Your Way!

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StoryBundle

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As some of you may know from reading my blog, my short story “No Place Like Home,” which is loosely based on the ending of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, is featured in Blackbird Publishing’s fantasy anthology Magicks & Enchantments edited by Jamie Ferguson.

That anthology is now part of The Wild Magic Bundle. According to the blurb:

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Hugo Admin Team Members Resign, But Why?

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Found at io9.gizmodo.com – No image credit available

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Over the past several years, I’ve watched WorldCon repeatedly implode.

Well, not exactly. It imploded in 2018 in a very spectacular way. WorldCon 2019 didn’t exactly implode, but then again, Jeanette Ng’s “acceptance” speech of the John W. Campbell award (now renamed “Astounding”) was her long awaited stab at a long-dead science fiction icon which spawned more of her displeasure at the “stale, pale, male crowd,” as well as a long list of other award renamings. The irony is that Ng also won a “Best Related Work” Hugo for 2020 because she complained about Campbell the year before. A rant wins you a Hugo. Who’d have thought.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, famed writer George R.R. Martin was accused of racism at the totally tanked WorldCon 2020. On top of that, the World Fantasy Con in the same year wrought its own disasters. If you read those blog posts, you’ll see the collection of “usual suspects” who complain about everything and anything that’s even a hair out of place compared to their high and mighty expectations.

Now we come to this, which I found online at Locus Magazine, a small article called Hugo Administration Team Resigns.

In the words of the prophet, WTF?

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How to Become “Famous” at your Day Job

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Promotional image from my day job

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With more people getting vaccinated and COVID restrictions easing off, I’m back at the brick and mortar office part time. I could be back there full time, but it’s more convenient for me to have a hybrid schedule that I can control, and my employer is very gracious.

Anyway, I do tell anyone at work who has an interest that I’m a published textbook writer as well as an author of over thirty science fiction, fantasy, and horror short stories. A few people are actually impressed.

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Review of “Wonder Woman 1984”

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Promotional image for the film Wonder Woman 1984

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I finally found the movie Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) as a DVD at my local public library and saw my opportunity to view and review it.

I’d read quite a few reviews already so I had a pretty good idea what to expect. There were a lot of people disappointed at the “woke” aspects of the film, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

First of all, as always, Gal Gadot totally owns the role of Wonder Woman/Diana Prince. She deserves the highest praise for her portrayal of the character and for bringing a truly iconic hero to life.

I felt a little sorry for Kristen Wiig as Barbara Minerva, especially at the film’s beginning when she was so beneath everyone’s notice. No, not just men’s but even Diana didn’t warm up to her at first. It was cringeworthy watching the stereotypically shy, socially inept, yet highly intelligent person trying to make her way through life.

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Book Review of “Leviathan Wakes,” the First of the “Expanse” Series

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Cover image for the novel “Leviathan Wakes”

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I just finished reading the 2011 science fiction blockbuster Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (really Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck). It’s the first in the nine-book Expanse series and is the basis for the television series The Expanse.

In the future, humanity has spread out from Earth and colonized Mars and the Asteroid Belt (or just “the Belt”). However, political, social, and financial enmity exists between the three populations and tensions could be ignited into war at any moment.

Chapters in this tome alternate between the perspectives of Joe Miller, a burned out, alcoholic detective working for an Earth-funded police force on the asteroid Ceres, and Jim Miller, the executive officer aboard a “water freighter” Canterbury.

On Ceres, the mysteries mount. Why did all of the gangs on Ceres suddenly vanish along with the police’s riot gear? Why has the IPO, the Belter activist group on Ceres, become so reasonable and cooperative? And who is Julie Mao, an heiress-cum-revolutionary, the girl he was supposed to kidnap and ship off to her wealthy parents as a “side job?” Trying to solve Julie’s mystery along with his drinking and general ineptitude get Miller fired, but that’s when his adventure really begins.

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