Tim Pratt recently won the 2007 Hugo Award for best short story with Impossible Dreams. The story’s main character, Pete, is a huge movie buff that stumbles across a new video store in his neighborhood. He doesn’t seem to understand how he missed the store before, but ventures in and finds an odd selection of movies which he though had been canceled, or made by different directors with different actors. What follows is an interesting commentary on movies which either were never made, were lost, or simply done differently. This is a truly awesome story with an excellently planned ending. It was a pleasure to read from start to finish. From the writing it either the author is a huge movie buff or his writing is so good that you’d never even suggest he wasn’t passionate about movies. Visit the link above and read the full story at Asimov’s Science Fiction.
Impossible Dreams by Tim Pratt
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The Stars, Like Dust by Isaac AsimovThe Stars, Like Dust by Isaac Asimov
Timeline discussion:
Here are a couple quotes — “Atomic warfare had done its worst to Earth. Most of it was hopelessly radioactive and useless.” and “The radioactivity of the soil was a vast sea of iridescent blue, sparkling in strange festoons that spelled out the manner in which the nuclear bombs had once landed, a full generation before the force-field defense against nuclear explosions had been developed, so that no other world could commit suicide in just that fashion again.” — The Stars, Like Dust (more…)
Yes, I am still aliveYes, I am still alive
Where have I been lately? A number of factors have resulted in me not posting since December. One of which was that over the past few months I’ve been chipping away at The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. At just shy of 1,000 pages, it has been my lunch time reading for a while now. There are a couple short stories that I plan on reviewing, as soon as I can remember to bring the book home from work. I’ve also been filling most of my free time, 177 hours now, with playing Battlefield 3 (my stats).
I’ve watched a few movies, but I didn’t get around to reviewing those. One was Gamer, which I didn’t expect much from. The other was Battle: Los Angeles, a cookie cutter “aliens attack, let’s fight back” movie. I didn’t really “watch” these as much as listened to them as I cleaned out my office. After going through my recent posts, I noticed that I never reviewed 28 Weeks Later. This was actually one of the sequels I’ve seen that I liked more than the original. I might have to re-watch, then write up a review. I watched a decent movie last night though, The Adjustment Bureau, which I plan on reviewing in the next few days, if not tonight. My goal for myself is to have it done before the end of the month. Thank goodness for leap years!
OK, enough excuses. Thanks to all of you that still have me in your newsreader. I’ll try to be better about posting updates in the future.
Gold, The Final Science Fiction Collection – Isaac AsimovGold, The Final Science Fiction Collection – Isaac Asimov
In 1992, the year of his death, Isaac Asimov was awarded the Hugo Award for best novella for writing Gold. This story, along with many others was published in 1995. Along with 14 other short stories, there are collections of essays called “On Science Fiction,” and “Writing Science Fiction.” Interestingly enough, I found the essays much more interesting than the stories themselves. I think this is partly because I have read a TON of his fiction, but haven’t got around to reading his non-fiction. I’ll give a brief overview of the essays, saving the stories for later. (more…)