Star Trek Online Couch (science fiction)

REVIEWED BY: Marguerite Zelle

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES, with reservations

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Star Trek Online Couch, by Boby and Fred

WEB ADDRESS: http://bobyandfred.com/wordpress/?author=2

BLOG DESCRIPTION: A review, and short stories of Starfleet Officer's Nimue Aline, and Alexander James Matthews.

MY REVIEW: This is an interesting blog, the only problem with it is that it is only updated once or twice a month at most. If you're a Star Trek fan, though, check it out!

Sample post:

April Engineering Report 2011
Greetings!

We’re another month closer to the Season 4 update and the team is busily developing all the new systems and content that will be hitting the test servers in the upcoming months. In addition there’s been some great new developments since our last report. The biggest of which is the Foundry is now on Holodeck!

The Foundry has sparked imaginations worldwide and I can report that over 16,000 projects have been started since the Foundry went live at the end of April. While many of these projects are still in development, there is already a steady flow of over 500 interesting and fun missions to play on the community authored tab of the mission journal. Combined with the rating system, the Foundry is proving that Star Trek fans have a knack for creating compelling stories and fun gameplay. We’re happy to announce that we’ll be adding a new repeatable mission that will allow you to receive scaling rewards for playing a various number of Foundry missions. The future of the Foundry continues to look bright.

In the last report I talked about the schedule and Feature Episodes and there was concerns that there wouldn’t be any “new” content until after the Season 4 update. We have been discussing the feedback and working on a way to squeeze some more content in as soon as possible. At present we are looking at an update as early as May that would add in some new surprises prior to the release of Season 4. I’ll keep you posted as we finalize our plans.

As the team tackles many of the features of the Season 4 update, we often find ourselves discussing additional ways to improve the game and many of those discussions are reflected below in the discussion section. while not every feature we are working on is listed below, we are continuously making small tweaks to the game that will be reflected in Season 4. You’ll be able to get your hands on these changes in late May/early June when we open up our test shard to begin hammering on all these upcoming changes.

Over the last month we have also announced that there have been some management changes at the top of Cryptic Studios with Jack Emmert now as CEO and former STO Executive Producer Craig Zinkievich returning as the new COO of Cryptic. Both of these changes have had a very positive impact on STO and I can say that I’m very pleased with the direction these two are headed with both Star Trek Online and the studio in general. The launch and follow up of Champions and STO has had a profound impact on the company in general and I’d like to think that we’ve learned a lot from it and are working to both address the obvious issues and also improve on our successes. It’s definitely a different Cryptic than I remember just two years ago. This next year for STO is going to be even better than the last and we’ll continue to pour our hearts into the game and get to all the features and content that you’ve continuously suggested. Keep the feedback coming, it is having a great impact on the game.

p.s. The Fan Enterprise contest finalists are being notified and we should be able to announce and show everyone the winners (hopefully) next week!

Now on to the report!
[I don't include the report, it's twice as long ast he text above!]

RECENT POSTS:
--Ask Cryptic May 2011
--Ask Cryptic Questions for April 2011
--April Engineering Report 2011
--The Delta Flyer Daily Mission
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Reviews published every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
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Check out the following blogs:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report

Chase Me faster: The sequel to The Coldest Equations(arts and entertainment)

REVIEWED BY: Caroline Miniscule

MY RECOMMENDATION: Yes, absolutely!

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Chase Me Faster: Sequel to the Coldest Equations

WEB ADDRESS: http://thecoldestequations.blogspot.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: Chase Me Faster will be the sequel to the recently released science fiction novel, The Coldest Equations. In this blog, I share the process of writing this book, from expanding on my outline, to re-examining characters, to the writing and rewriting and so on.

If yo've ever wondered how a writer "does it" - this blog is for you. Not only will you be seeing a fly's eyes view of a writer's life, you'll also be reading a fantastic book: Chase Me Faster .

MY REVIEW: This is actually one of my blogs. I recently published my first science fiction novel, The Coldest Equations, and am now hard at work on the sequel - writing it in between my "real work" and my family commitments. The struggle of that, and the writing itself, makes for fun reading, I think.

RECENT POSTS:
--A beginning revised and continued...
--A beginning
--Just Not In The Mood...
--Porlock Prevention #1
--The Name Game #1
--The Coldest Equations
--Manifesto

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Reviews published every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
_______________________
Check out the following blogs:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report

Sci Fi Freak (science fiction, arts and entertainment)

REVIEWED BY: Marguerite Zelle

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES, with Reservations

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: The Sci Fi Freak Blog, by Darren Humphries

WEB ADDRESS: thescififreakblog.blogspot.com (Blog)
scififreaksite.com/ (Actual website)

BLOG DESCRIPTION: Random thoughts on the big and small screen universe of science fiction.

MY REVIEW: I love the Sci Fi Freak website. There are reviews of dozens of SF TV shows and movies - including British ones that we across the pond have never seen, and its fun to read about what we're missing, and there's also lots of review of movies. [The only area where they fall down is the BBC Radio SF dramas - like Simon Bovey's work - no mention of them anywhere that I could see.)

So you must visit the website.

The blog is a different story. As you see from the list below, there have been 20 posts total for the entire year of 2010. For a blog that costs $1.99, that doesn't quite cut it. However, it has only just been offered for the Kindle, so hopefully now they'll start updating it at least once a week, if not twice or more.

Website - highly recommended. Blog - recommended with reservations.

September (5)
High Def Damages Classic Sci Fi?
Sci Fi Franchise Hell
THE SCI FI FREAK'S GUIDE TO THE TELEVISUAL GALAXY
The Three Ages Of The Lord Of The Rings
Kevin McCarthy Dies
► August (5)
F - New British horror gets premier at Frightfest
Sci Fi Totty - A Genre's Shame
Style Over Substance?
Shyamalan-bashing to become Olympic Sport?
AVATAR back for more of your money
► March (2)
TRANSFORMERS storm the Razzies
And the Winner Isn't....Avatar
► February (5)
MOON wins BAFTA
BAFTA gets it right over AVATAR
What's in a name?
2010 Razzies for Sci Fi - now that's more like it
Oscar Nominations for Sci Fi Movies - what's up wi...
▼ January (3)

Sample post

DOCTOR WHO hates my dad

Much has been made of the homosexual agenda that some people have suggested runs under the reinvention of the universe's favourite Time Lord under Russell T Davies, but there is a more insidious plot going on here - to undermine fathers. Call Fathers for Justice and have red powder thrown at the show's creators.

The evidence?

Rose's dad is a loser and a coward and, though he saves her in the end it's only after he's been shown time and again to let her down (see Father's Day)

'Are you my mummy?' asks the Empty Child, but he isn't asking for his daddy and why? Because the blighter's gone and done a runner.

The Idiot's Lantern features an abusive father, who is so bad he has to be sent packing in the end.

And I don't know why we have to 'Fear Her' in the episode of that name because it's the (again absent) father who turns out to be a monster to be feared.

Where is Donna's father? We see her mum and her Grandad, but her father? Nope, not a sign. Clearly another absentee pater.

Then there's 'The Doctor's Daughter' in which the Doctor gets a surrogate child and immediately disowns her and won't have anything to do with her. Good parenting image that one.

'The Next Doctor', well he just manages to forget that he has a son that needs rescuing. That's the kind of thing that slips the minds of all dads at one time of crisis or another.

But it's not just restricted to the main series either. In THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES, Sarah is bringing up Luke without a dad (admittedly through a technicality) and Clyde's father is shown to be a right selfish git who is also absent. Maria and Rani both have non-absent fathers, but they are shown to be a bit rubbish and pompous.

And Captain Jack Harkness, what kind of a Dad is he, going around killing his own grandson in CHILDREN OF EARTH.

So, the next time that you want to go on about supposed gay subtexts in DOCTOR WHO spare a thought to the real victims of this show - fathers.

RECENT POSTS:
--High Def Damages Classic Sci Fi?
--Sci Fi Franchise Hell
--The Sci Fi Freak's Guide to the Televisual Galaxy
--The Three Ages of the Lord of the Rings
--

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Check out the following blogs:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report

TARDIS Newsroom (science fiction, Dr. Who)

REVIEWED BY: Marguerite Zelle

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES, with reservations

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: TARDIS Newsroom, by Doctor_No1

WEB ADDRESS: http://tardisnewsroom.blogspot.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: The place for all 'Who' related news

MY REVIEW: I'm a Doctor Who fan (well, Doctors 1 through 7, excluding 5) and it's fun to keep up with what's happening with the Doctor. In that sense, this blog is a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, it's also link heavy, which makes it inconvenient. However, it is useful in the sense that you can read all the entries at the blog, and if one of them strikes your interest, then you can go to the web and read it there.

So, definitely check out this blog.

RECENT POSTS:
--Hire a TARDIS
--Todays Doctor Who on BBC iPlayer (UK Only)
--BBC Doctor Who: What's in Your TARDIS?
--'Who' at the Proms broadcast details, TV Movie gets North American DVD release, plus more news and a pick of the blogs
--Hoo On Who Exclusive Announcement!!
--James Moran: Doctor Who: The Adventure Games - "TARDIS"

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Check out the following blogs:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report

M-Brane SF (science fiction)

REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: M-Brane SF, by Christopher Fletcher

WEB ADDRESS: http://www.mbranesf.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: Science fiction blog, writing hang-out, reading room, and the homeworld of M-BRANE SF, the astounding monthly magazine of science fiction!

MY REVIEW: I really enjoyed this blog, and anyone who is an SF writer wanting to break into the [paying] business, or even SF fans, will find this blog of interest. It give sthe inner workings of publishing an SF magazine, as well as a lot of other stuff, whatever's in the fertile mind of the author.

Highly recommended!

Sample post:
The author is a man after my own heart. I too have books I've owned for 30 years and never read. I keep them and move them with me, just because some day, I might be in the mood to do so.

The Ruins of Earth

I haven't been reporting on personal reading or making book recommendations a lot in recent months. My reading time has been so scattered among so many different things, including reading lots of unpublished stuff for projects that I am editing, that it's been hard to keep track of it all. I have, however, been taking in a good deal of short fiction that I have had sitting on the home library shelves for a long, long time but never made it to previously. I recently noticed this gem, sitting long-ignored on a lower shelf, The Ruins of Earth, "an anthology of stories of the immediate future" edited by Thomas Disch back in 1970.

Considering that within a month or two, M-Brane Press will probably be announcing the publication date and table of contents for Rick Novy's 2020 Visions (also an anthology of stories of the immediate future), I thought it would be interesting to see what another editor had pulled together forty years ago around a similar concept. But while our forthcoming book is intended to present an array of possibilities about a very specific year, Disch's book is themed very much around ecological catastrophe and the assumption that such is coming in one form or another (a concern familiar to people now, and which perhaps feels more imminent). He organized the book into four sections titled, "The Way it Is," ""Why the Way it Is," "How it Could Get Worse," and finally, most pessimistically, "Unfortunate Solutions."

I have not read all of the stories in the book yet, so I won't comment on them, but what makes me consider this book something of a gem is its remarkable table of contents. Lesser-known works such as Kurt Vonnegut's "Deer in the Works" and Fritz Leiber's "America the Beautiful" and Gene Wolfe's "Three Million Square Miles" are combined with well-known items like Daphne du Maurier's "The Birds" (the basis for the eponymous film by Hitchcock) and Harry Harrison's "Roommates" (the seed for his novel Make Room! Make Room! which was the basis for the film Soylent Green) and Philip K. Dick's "Autofac." I chose as the first item to read (last night, as I fell inevitably asleep on the couch), J.G. Ballard's "The Cage of Sand." Though I haven't finished it yet (sleep, you know), as I started reading it I felt myself settle comfortably into one of Ballard's uncomfortable worlds. This one starts with someone in a hotel building which is evidently getting overtaken floor-by-floor by drifting sand, and it has the flavor of one of his 1960s catastrophe stories, The Drowned World or The Wind From Nowhere, both of which I like a lot.

A book like this is the answer that I wish I could give to the various people over the years (looking at you, Jeff!) who sigh and wonder why it is that I ever need to buy another book and why we must move from home to home cases and cases of books that I may never read again and which I may never have read in the first place. I bought The Ruins of Earth as one of a thick stack of books that I lucked into at a thrift shop about 12 years ago. It still has a fifty-cent Goodwill price tag on its cover. Did I need it right then? Probably not. And it did sit for over a decade, and moved to several new homes, untouched except to pack it into a box and then unpack it to put it back on its shelf. Until last night, when I was looking for just the right thing to read before sleep time, and I saw it on the shelf and said, "Hmm. What's this one about anyway?" And that's why I bought it all those years ago.

RECENT POSTS:
--M-BRANE #19 ToC announced; change planned for print schedule
--Writers guidelines updated
--FANTASTIQUE UNFETTERED opens to submissions
--The Ruins of Earth

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Ms. Cairo writes several blogs including:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Topical Murder and Dated Death

ApocEpoch (science fiction humor)

REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: ApochEpoch

WEB ADDRESS: http://apocepoch.blogspot.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: The end of the world is in vogue. The Apocalypse Epoch has commenced. Prepare to survive. Zombies, nuclear war, socio-economic collapse, disease, extreme global climate change (see: nuclear war) and much more. Welcome to ApocEpoch (a-pock-ee-pock).

MY REVIEW: This is a fiction blog in the vein of Shaun of the Dead and other films of that nature - combining horror with humor. Five authors contribute to the blog, some writing an ongoing story, others doing book reviews (apparently Zombies are a "big thing" right now, there are books out like Idaho Falls, products like Whistle Creek Survival Kit in a Sardine Can, and so on.

Sample post

The Aisle
"Pardon me sir" said I, scooting past the young store clerk who was placing items on the sparsely stocked shelves. The store clerk made a noise but I couldn't make out any words. As I made my way towards the rice, an old lady turned her cart down the narrow aisle toward me. I reached the rice and grabbed a small bag of the white. The old woman drew closer. I looked back at the young store clerk who was still stocking the shelves. I was trapped. Who designed this store? I thought to myself. I could return the way I came but would that require another "Pardon me sir." I again looked at the store clerk. Oh shit! That's no sir at all! Now I'm going to have to try and squeeze past this old woman. I couldn't possibly face another encounter with that young lady stocking the shelves. As she made her slow approach, the old woman eyed the rice that I was carrying then looked into my eyes. I hesitated, then made my move to get around her. "Excuse me Ma'am." She smiled and again eyed the rice as I side stepped between the shelves and the cart. I was clear from the awkward moment. I then declared to myself that I should have climbed over the row of shelves into the next aisle. I reached the check out. I lifted the back flap of my gray sport coat to grab my wallet. Tucked into my trousers at the small of my back, was a Model 1911 .45 Auto pistol. Had she made a move for the rice, I would have dropped that old bag. I paid for the rice and left without incident...this time.

RECENT POSTS:
--Prognosticators (of the economic kind)
--Economy Collapsing
--The Aisle
--Mexican Zombie Heads for the Rockies
--I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire

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Ms. Cairo writes several blogs including:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Topical Murder and Dated Death

Daily Space (science fiction in all media)

REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Daily Space, by The Thunder Child

WEB ADDRESS: http://dailyspace.blogspot.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: The blog of The Thunder Child science fiction and fantsy webzine, which features science fiction in all media

MY REVIEW: Daily Space is the blog for The Thunder Child science fiction and fantasy webzine (http://thethunderchild.com). The author talks about mostly science fiction, from radio to TV to movies, with only a smattering of fantasy. She occasionally shares what's on BBC7 - a digital radio station out of England that airs radio drama, much of a science fiction nature.

The blog is a lot of fun, so check it out.

RECENT POSTS:
--SciFi Air Show
--Watch Darth Vader's Younger Brother Chad in Action...
--X Men Blah
--Psycho celebrated its 50th anniversary release dat...
--Drunk, speeding and texting
--Mr. Limpet on at 10 pm?
--Pipped at the post...again! The Big Bang Theory T-...
--Big Bang Theory Ringtones

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Ms. Cairo writes several blogs including:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Topical Murder and Dated Death

Fantasy Literature (Arts & Entertainment)

REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: No, unsuitable for Kindle

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Fantasy Literature, by Fantasy Literature

WEB ADDRESS: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: We love excellent fantasy fiction and want to help you decide what to read next. We list novel synopses, cover art, and our reviews of hundreds of authors who write in all sub-genres of fantasy literature (epic, high, low, urban, noir, dark, sword & sorcery, paranormal, romantic, historical, humorous). We are constantly adding new authors and fantasy book reviews. Life's too short to read bad books!

MY REVIEW: I'd love to give this blog a thumbs up, but it's one of those where you have to "read more." There are indeed hotlinks which bring you to the actual website to read more, except the way this blog is set up, it's like a picture, rather than text, so it takes three times as long as normal for the page to load.

So, by all means check out this blog. Just do it on the web.

RECENT POSTS:
--25 Heroes in 2010: Cipher (fiction, complete chapter)
--Dragon Haven: A character-driven quiet story
--Hyddenworld – Spring: Read Duncton Wood instead
--The Blue Sword: How YA fantasy is done
--A Fistful of Charms: Least favourite so far in a great series

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Ms. Cairo writes three blogs of her own:
Topical Murder and Dated Death
Winged Victory: Women in Aviation
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters