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I’ll be taking a bit of a break from reading space opera, since I may well have OD’d on the genre over the last few months. Here are notes on the most recent books of explodey-spaceshippy goodness that I’ve read. :: Thumbing through my increasingly-bulky space opera collection, I found a book called Legends of Santiago by Mike Resnick. I know just by looking at the book that it’s something I bought from the Science Fiction Book Club, during one of my various periods of membership, but I have no recollection of actually doing so, which leads me to believeDown the rabbit hole….

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Charting the Progress, originally uploaded by Jaquandor. It’s been a long time since I wrote about my progress (or lack thereof) on the fiction writing front, so here’s an update. This photo is a screengrab of the spreadsheet I use to track the word count of the Novel-in-Progress (code-named, Princesses In SPACE!). I’ve been trying to hit a personal quota of 500 words a day, which has produced close to 90,000 words as of this writing. I generally try to aim for chapters that aren’t too terribly long, but aren’t ridiculously short, either. I’ve read a few books that hadDown the rabbit hole….

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MD Jackson links this IO9 piece by Charlie Jane Anders about the fact that space opera has all but disappeared from filmed entertainment these days. It’s really a shame, I think, and I hate to think its partly reflective of a general slackening of interest in space, but I think there’s something to that. Two depressing facts became apparent the other day: 1) NASA is so desperate to get people excited about space travel, they were willing to consider collaborating on the horror mockumentary Apollo 18. 2) The fall 2011 season is the first time there’s been no TV show, on any network,Down the rabbit hole….

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I hadn’t watched Terminator 2: Judgment Day in quite a long time, so I picked it up from the library and gave it a whirl. I’ve only seen the first two Terminator flicks, but I’ve long counted them among my favorite sci-fi action thrillers, and watching T2 again does nothing to make me think otherwise. This is, simply, a very finely made film. I discovered a “Special Edition” on the DVD, which I assumed included extra footage. I’m always a sucker for those kinds of things, so that’s the version I watched. The additional footage is, altogether, under ten minutesDown the rabbit hole….

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I swear, I have no idea why Robocop is riding a unicorn. No idea at all. But anyway: Funny story about the first time I saw Robocop: I watched it on VHS with my parents because a coworker of my father’s told him how good it was. I found that highly amusing, because from what I knew of Robocop, I knew that my father was exceedingly unlikely to enjoy it much at all. I have never known my father to have the least inclination toward science fiction in any way, and he’s not terribly big on violence. And back then,Down the rabbit hole….

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Just a few pop-cultural items knockin’ round my head…. :: I love this poster, for the upcoming film Red Tails, which tells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen and is backed by executive producer George Lucas: Of course, I look at that poster and I see that Lucas is only the executive producer. He’s not the actual producer, nor did he write the screenplay or the story on which the film is based, nor did he direct the movie. But anyone want to lay odds on whose name gets mentioned exclusively if the film flops? :: I think that theDown the rabbit hole….

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NPR has come up with a list of The Top 100 F&SF Books, although it’s not a list of 100 books per se, as it includes a number of entire series. But as usual…I’ll bold the ones I’ve read and italicize the ones I’d like to read at some point. And I’ll add occasional comment. Here’s the list: (Oh wait, complaint the first: there is no GGK on this list. WTF!!!) (And yes, I voted.) 1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien (Probably my single favorite book of all time. I re-read it this past spring.) 2.Down the rabbit hole….

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I don’t know what it is, but for some reason, in the warmer months my reading tastes gravitate strongly toward science fiction (and the occasional horror book). I associate fantasy with the cooler months. Why this is, I’ve never really figured out; I’ve read many a fantasy novel set in warm locales, so it’s not as if the cooling weather puts me in mind of the snowy journeys through the Misty Mountains in The Lord of the Rings. This isn’t to say that I won’t read any fantasy at all during the warm periods, but…well, summer is when I wantDown the rabbit hole….

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I saw Green Lantern a while back, and I’ve been struggling since then to figure out how to write about it. I liked the movie, quite a bit. I grant some of its flaws, but for the life of me, I can’t justify the enormous piling-on of the critics who have ripped the film and given it an awful reputation. That, plus what I understand to be lackluster box office, seems to cast doubt on any hopes that Green Lantern might be the start of a franchise. Maybe DVD sales will help, but in this era of slackening DVD salesDown the rabbit hole….