Half a Century of Thoughts -- part one

The shadows cast by the great trees are long. The trees seem to lean over me as the branches reach down waving their long fingers in the air. It's not menacing, not exactly. At least, I'm not afraid. But the gloom is oppressing, making the house foreboding. The house is big and white, all columns and windows, and I seem to be drifting toward it. Floating. The movement is not of my own volition.

And that's where it ends. Or that's all there is.
When I was a kid, I thought this was some kind of recurring dream that never went anywhere and wondered why I would dream it. I mean, why would I have this brief vision of this yard and house?

When I was much older, probably in my early 20s, my mom and I were going somewhere and travelling through north Shreveport -- actually, an area north of Shreveport -- and she suddenly told me to turn off onto some street and led me through several neighborhoods to some house. She pointed at it and said, "That's where we first lived when we moved to Shreveport." I knew, vaguely, that we had lived in some other house when we first moved from Texas, but we had moved into the house I grew up in well before I was one, before I was nine months old, in fact, because I learned to walk when I was nine months old. Before I could crawl. I learned to walk in the house I grew up in.

The house she pointed at -- a large, white, probably-old-plantation house -- was the house from my "dream." I recognized it instantly. The front lawn was extensive, the house far back from the road, and full of what were probably cypress trees. I don't know. I'm not really a tree guy. It would make sense for the area, though. All I know is that there were long, overhanging branches, probably full of Spanish moss, though I don't actually remember.

It was a surreal experience.
Not just because you're not supposed to remember things from when you're that young.
Also because I have no other associated memories from that place. Just "floating" through the yard toward the house, because I'm sure I was being carried.

It's not the only thought I have that goes back to before we're supposed to have cohesive memories, but the rest are mostly traumatic.

I remember the swollen spot on the floor in front of the refrigerator at the house I grew up in, because I remember standing on it crying as my mom left for work one day. But my grandparents had that fixed very early on, which means I was no more than two.

I remember my cousin pushing me off of my red tractor in the backyard and hitting my head on the steps going up to the back porch and the huge goose egg on my forehead.

I remember getting stung by a wasp on my finger and my arm swelling up and my aunt putting something on the sting that burned as much as the sting did.

I remember my puppy, the one I got when I turned two.
I remember him licking my face excitedly and laughing and laughing and trying to push him away but not wanting him to stop at the same time.
And I remember him lying dead in front of his dog house when I was not more than 2 1/2 and my mom not letting me go see him but not telling my why she wouldn't let me go see him. I cried. A lot.

I also remember sitting in my grandfather's lap as he read to me. He was a mechanic and always smelled of sweat and oil and, on the rare occasion I run into that precise smell out in the world, it brings up memories of sitting in his lap while he read to me. Little Black, a Pony and some book about an old blue truck that loved a cow and wouldn't let its owner sell her. Evidently, he would read those books over and over and over again to me because no one else would. My mom freely admitted later in life that she didn't have the patience to read to me, especially not the same book multiple times in a row. But my grandfather did.

I also remember my grandmother taking me to daycare with her. She worked at some daycare place, and I would go there with her. Mostly, I remember the bus trips home and how she would let me stand up in the seat and pull the cord for the bus to stop and that she would sometimes take me to some buffet place on the way home where she would let me get a piece of custard. The memory of that custard has become my platonic ideal of what custard should be even though I'm sure it probably wasn't really all that good.

And one from when I was three.
I remember the Watergate hearings being on TV and being very mad about it. Mostly because I wanted to watch something else -- in the specific memory, I wanted to be watching Star Trek -- but the hearings were the only thing on. Ah, the days of only having three stations to choose from!
Maybe, today, if more people were forced to watch StupidGate then more people would care about the even more egregious criminal we have in the the White House. Or maybe not, since it was quite clear that his criminality didn't matter to the people who voted for him as long as he fed their racism.

"It's a dead game, Jim."

Not that I've mentioned it in a while, but I have this garage cleaning project going on. Possibly, "cleaning" isn't the correct word for it, since you can hardly tell anything has happened in it so far. I mean, I can tell, because I know what stuff I've sold, but I'm kind of making a bigger mess out of things as I go along. None of which has anything to do with what I'm about to get into other than reminding everyone that I'm in the process of selling off my old collectibles and, mostly, using eBay to do that.

Which tempts me to expound on all of the things that are wrong with eBay, but I'm not going to do that. After all, I'm making the choice to use them. Not that there are other feasible options, but, since there are other things that are like options (you know, in the way that people say carob is another option for chocolate or that tofu is an option for... anything), it's on me that I'm choosing eBay, so let's forget about the issue, for the moment, with eBay itself.

No, instead, let's talk about the users. Not all of them, of course, or, even, most of them. It has been, after all, quite a while since I've had... issues... with other eBay users. Then, of course, after going a year or so with no issues at all, I get three in the same month, the first of which we're going to skip due to it being typical opportunistic greed based on a late delivery by the USPS (which I've also had problems with just in the last month after having zero problems with them since I started using eBay again), which eBay, actually, took care of, amazingly enough, without me having to call them or anything. [Maybe there's some problem with June. The heat wave? Who knows.]

However, the other two are a different story and cut from the same cloth, so let's talk about them. I'm sure there's a metaphor in here somewhere. [Actually, I know that there is; I'm just not sure, yet, whether I'm going to point it out or not.]

A lot of my collectible stuff is pretty, I'll call it, mainstream. The greatest bulk, by volume, is comic books, and most of those are Marvel. By piece count, I have more Magic: The Gathering than anything else. Some of my stuff, though, is a little less... usual. Generally, because it's gone out of production so younger collectors, unless they fall into the niche, don't know about the stuff.

Some people, evidently, refer to these as "dead games." Well, the things that are games, anyway.
I also have stuff like this:

(Who would know he would "win" in 2016? Actually, I'd rather have Cthulhu than the current #fakepresident.))

Within the last week or so, I began listing some "dead games": L5R (Legend of the Five Rings) and Neopets, both ccgs (that's collectible card game for those of you haven't lived any in the last couple of decades), though Neopets calls itself a tcg (trading card game). It didn't take very long before I was contacted by buyers interested in the two games (one for each game) if only I would lower my price to next to nothing so that they could buy my stuff. You know, to garage sale prices.
You know about garage sale prices, right? Everything for a $0.25.

Let me be a little more clear about that. Both buyers wanted to "buy" all of what I currently have available on both games at prices that clearly didn't represent the value of the items. Now, I don't have a problem with people trying to get a good deal; heck, I like good deals! So I don't have an issue with people asking me if I would consider lowering my price on something. What made these two stand out is that when I turned down their offers as being too low, they both got mad at me and began arguing with me, both using the "dead game" argument and telling me how I would never find a buyer willing to pay more than they were offering.

And that can be a compelling argument. Sometimes, it's one we even tell ourselves:
"You'll never find someone else who will 'love' you."
"You'll never find another publisher/agent/whatever."
"I'll never..."
Fill it in yourself.

That is the reason my mom married my stepdad, just by the way. According to her, no one else would ever have taken us.

To make matters more interesting, the guy who wanted the L5R stuff kept going on about all of the places he knew of where he could get what I was selling at even lowere prices than what he was offering! And, so, why was he trying to talk me down rather than just buying the stuff for the EVEN CHEAPER PRICES?!? I guess he was doing me a special favor or something by offering me more than what he would have to spend elsewhere. Riiight...

And the guy who wanted the Neopets stuff? Well, somewhere in arguing with me over the price, he let slip that he was interested in re-selling it. Hmm... Re-selling the "dead game" for a profit, which I shouldn't expect because it's a dead game. Later in the conversation, he tried to recant that and tell me he was just offering an example of why someone might want to get something for no money. It made me want to LOL in his face. Which is difficult to do online.

At any rate, to make a long story short, before I even got the L5R auctions posted, a different buyer, one who had purchased some other L5R stuff from me many weeks ago, made me an offer he was worried I wouldn't take (he thought I would think it was too low (but it was what he could afford)) that was for only about half of what I was going to put on auction but at more than double the price the other guy wanted to offer me for all of what I had. The new offer was actually a bit lower than what I wanted, but it was a reasonable offer for a good chunk of stuff that I would no longer have to list on eBay. I took it.

And the Neopets stuff? I did post all of that and, within 12 hours of posting it, had already made more on just a tiny fraction of it (less than 10%) than the "dead game" guy was offering for all of it.

Do I have a lesson in here for you? You decide.
What I will say, though, is don't listen to anyone who is trying to get you to do something with the "dead game" argument.

Clone Wars -- "Prisoners" (Ep. 4.3)

-- Crowns are inherited, kingdoms are earned.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

One of the more notable things about this arc of stories is how un-notable the names of the episodes are, and "Prisoners" is no exception. They're like not being able to think of a better name for your dog than Dog. Titles aside, though, this was easily the best episode of the arc. Which, honestly, isn't saying a lot.

Spoiler alert!
Because, yeah, I don't think this arc can get anymore spoiled than it manages on its own. Even though this episode is stronger, it still only rises to the cliche, especially in the final showdown between Prince Lee-Char and Riff Tamson. Tamson announces to the prince, "I killed your father!" and, of course, Lee-Char follows that up by killing Tamson, somewhat inexplicably suddenly finding some fighting skills which were completely nonexistent in the previous two episodes.

Oh, and he blows Tamson up. Yeah, it was kind of gross. And fitting because Tamson blew up several Mon Cala just moments before. Which was also gross. Seriously, it's one thing when they're blowing up droids, but it's something else entirely when they start blowing up organic beings.

And, yeah, I get the whole "blowing up the shark" thing being a thing from Jaws, even to the head floating by. At least I think the head floating by was a thing from one of the movies? I could be wrong. I haven't seen all of the Jaws movies and probably haven't seen one in at least 25 years.

The most significant bit of the episode was the revelation that Gungan's have magic adhesive spit. I think they should have named the episode after it: "Gungan Magic Spit." It would have been more interesting than "Prisoners." But, yeah, evidently Gungans have some kind of gooey spit capable of stopping air leaks. Unless it was just Jar Jar alone who can do that. At any rate, it's a bit like growing up with the original Star Trek series then walking in on the first episode of Next Generation just in time to see the saucer separate from the rest of the Enterprise. The best I could come up with was, "Really?" and to leave the room. Yeah, I'm not a fan of tossing something like in then saying, "Oh, yeah, it could always do that."

I'm really hoping this is the low point of season four. This arc is certainly, so far, the low point of the whole series. I don't remember, from my previous viewing, anything worse but, then, I didn't really remember this arc. For good reason.

Clone Wars -- Season One

I've watched more than my share of sci-fi on television, not all of it very good. Some of it downright bad. Some of it, like the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, so horrible that there's no legitimate reason it should ever have been allowed to continue. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is not one of those shows. The Clone Wars, in fact, is good sci-fi, even in its first season. It "suffers" from only two things, at least in the minds of most people:
1. Its connection to the prequels.
2. It's animated.

Seriously, in this day and age, why do people still belittle "cartoons." It's not a cartoon, okay. Quit calling it that. And, really, when you say, "I don't watch cartoons," in reference to, say, a Pixar movie or a Studio Ghibli film, you just sound dumb and/or weirdly prejudice. The Clone Wars is in the same realm. Sure, it's "targeted" at kids, except that it's not. Really, it's just produced to be "kid accessible," but kids are not necessarily the target audience. The target audience is anyone who wants a more fleshed out view of the Star Wars universe.

As for its connection to the prequels, you just need to get over it. My gosh, they happened. Get your collective heads out of your asses and grow up.

So The Clone Wars does flesh out the Star Wars universe, and it did it on an ongoing basis for six years. For me, the best part of the series is seeing the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin develop. From just the movies, you don't get to see the bond between the two and just how strong it was, so, unless you can fill in the gaps yourself, you fail to grasp the trauma for Obi-Wan when Anakin turns to the Dark Side and he's forced to confront him. I think most people failed to grasp that simple concept. The Clone Wars allows you to see and experience the brotherhood of the two men.

The other thing The Clone Wars does really well is explore just what it means to be a clone. A product. Within that, what does it mean to be an individual? What is the importance, the value, of one clone? Or, more appropriately, one person?

What I'm saying is that The Clone Wars explores real questions and looks at real issues and puts those things in a context that pretty much anyone can understand. It's no mere cartoon. The first season is strong. It didn't need time to "find its legs," as so many other, especially sci-fi, shows do. This series should be a must watch for any Star Wars fan. Any real Star Wars fan, at any rate.

However, as good as it is, there are still some episodes I like, I'll say, less well. Only two, though, really. You can see the reviews for those two:
"Blue Shadow Virus"
"Mystery of a Thousand Moons"

Picking a favorite episode from the season is much more difficult. For instance, I love half of the episode, "The Gungan General." The parts where Anakin and Obi-Wan have to work with Dooku to escape the pirates are some of my favorite moments of the season, but, then, they are countered in this episode by it being the absolute worst usage of Jar Jar in the entire series (or, at least, season one, but I think it's true of the series as a whole).

But, fine, I'll pick one! I'm going to go with
"Storm Over Ryloth"
as my single favorite episode. As I said in the review, I highly recommend it.

Next week, we start season two! I hope to see you there, and, remember, you can decide to participate in this blog event at any time. Just go here to sign up!

Physics of the Future (a book review post)

For me, Physics of the Future was a bit of a research project. I have a couple of different sci-fi things in various stages, and I wanted to see how this stuff lined up with what I'm doing. As it turns out, pretty well. Although, I have to say, I do disagree with a few things, not that I'm the expert, though. Kaku is the physicist. However, I think the idea of a "space elevator" is a fantasy, and I don't really understand why people cling to it so hard.

Having said that, I do know that it's fantasies (ideas) that turn a lot of "science fiction" into plain old science. I did, after all, do a whole series on that during A-to-Z a few years ago.

But I digress...

So the premise of the book is that Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, would look into the actual science being developed today and, based on past progress in developments, make a projection (prediction) about the kinds of things we can see in the future. Assuming we, as a race, live long enough to see those things come to fruition. And, yes, he talks about that "if," too.

For me, Kaku spent too much time dwelling on the future of medicine. Not only does medicine get its own chapter (chapter three), but it's laced throughout the book. I get it. I do. People are concerned with medical advances that can allow them to live how they want to live with no negative consequences, and, actually, some of the research currently underway might make that possible. It is entirely possible that my generation will be the last generation to die and that the next generation (my kids) could have potentially unlimited lifespans. There's even an outside chance that some of those developments could happen before the end of my generation, but that would require a remarkable breakthrough and, still, probably only be available to the fabulously wealthy. Kaku is considerably older than me, so I can understand the focus. Still, he covered the same ground about early cancer identification at least half a dozen times.

The other thing he spent too much time on was magnetism. Kaku seems quite enamored of the idea of telepathically controlling the environment through the use of superconductors, and he refers to this a lot during the course of the book (much like the nanomachines which will detect cancer). The problem is that this relies on the accidental discovery of something which may not actually exist. Our current generation of superconductors weren't developed, they were happened upon, and he bases much of his magnetism predictions on serendipity.

He also seems to be overly optimistic about the future of mankind, at least from my perspective. He spends a considerable amount of time explaining why the "singularity" won't happen or, if it does, why we'll be able to control it. He makes a point about how, one day, the most sought after thing on the Internet will be wisdom, this after stating how humans are essentially the same as they've been since we became human. He expects ranting bloggers and funny cats to disappear as we all become enlightened, and I think he's been watching too much Star Trek. And that he doesn't really know humans very well if he thinks we (as a group) will give up funny cat videos. And blogger rants.

However, all of that said, the book is fascinating. The technology discussions are fascinating. And the chapter on the future of wealth is extremely fascinating. The unstated comparison of the US to the Ottoman Empire is especially compelling. Nutshell: At one point, the Ottoman Empire led the world in science... until it gave all of that up to embrace religious fundamentalism. Let me re-state that: At least 50% of America's leading scientists have come from other countries and more and more of them are, instead of staying here, returning to those countries after they've received their education. America, because of the deplorable state of public education, is not producing sufficiently educated people of science. It's not our focus anymore.

If you're at all interested in the book, now is the time to read it. Only four years away from publication, and parts of it are already becoming outdated. The section on self-driving cars is a good example. Current projections are that self-driving cars will be as common as smart phones within the next decade; Kaku doesn't really expect them to start even showing up until around 2030. He makes no mention of quantum communication and only mentions quantum computers as an unlikely option. IBM has just developed a computer chip that could completely change the computer industry. Warp fields have been created, too, another bit of science Kaku glosses over as being the least likely of options.

Still, it's fascinating. Even the stuff about the space elevator, but that's mostly because he spends time talking about carbon nanotubes during that part, and carbon nanotubes, if we can figure out how to make them long enough, are another technology that could completely change the world.

Of course, the drawback, even though Kaku has made it very accessible, is that it's very heavy on science. Well, it's all science, so I can see it being difficult for some people to get into. For whatever reason. But, you know, if you're writing any kind of science fiction, right now, this might be a book you want to have on your desk.

CassaStorm (a book review post)

If you would like to see my review of CassaStar, go here.
If you would like to see my review of CassaFire, go here.

The first and most obvious thing to be said about CassaStorm is that it's an obvious effort by the author, Alex Cavanaugh, to expand the universe he established in the previous two books. We find out that Tgren does, indeed, have more than one city on it and even get a peek at the other races only hinted at previously. And the end provides an explanation for some of the things that haven't made the most sense in the series overall, like the significantly low populations of the races.

There are ways the explanation creates more questions, but that's okay. Leaving questions unanswered is not something I necessarily have a problem with.

'Storm also rounds out the relationship progression of the other two books. 'Star deals with friendship, 'Fire deals with romance, and 'Storm deals with parenthood. As with the other two books, Byron has to figure out how it's supposed to work. The only issue with this idea in 'Storm is how it contrasts to the other two books. Both of the other books deal with Byron and initial meetings (first with Bassa, then with Athee) and 'Storm, in many ways, follows that pattern. The problem is that his son, Bassan, is already 10, and there are parts where it's like Byron has no idea of how to interact with his son in the same way as with someone you are just meeting.

This is both a strength and a weakness in the book, because in actuality Byron doesn't have any idea who his son is. It's clear that he's one of those who father's from a distance, and he is, in fact, learning who his son is. The problem is that there don't seem to be any clearly established patterns in their relationship as is usually the case. Neither the son nor the father ever seem like they know what to expect from the other.

There are a few interesting wrinkles in this book, like the introduction of the Rogue, which I didn't see coming. That's a big positive for me, because most books fall into established patterns making it difficult for me to find books that aren't fairly predictable. Possibly, the biggest issue I had with 'Fire is that I knew what was going to happen throughout the book; nothing was surprising. However, with 'Storm, every time I thought I had what was going to happen figured out, there would be some new wrinkle. It made the book a worthwhile read just to figure out where he was going with the story.

Basically, if you read the previous two books and liked them, you should definitely read this one. I can't see how it could be a disappointment. It's even possible that this book could be read as a stand alone, because any background information needed is provided. Sure, the other two provide a bigger picture, but I don't think they're necessary.

Look, this isn't deep or philosophical. It's pretty straightforward space opera in a Star Trek kind of vein. It deals as much with relationships as it does with space battles, but that serves to strengthen the book in overall sense, not weaken it. Hmm... Still, if you want space battles, CassaStar is probably the book for you if you haven't already read it. Not that there aren't space battles in 'Storm, but it's, ultimately, a different kind of story.

Do You Know the Code?

Briane Pagel has a new book out. He says it's the best book he's ever written and, seeing that I have quite liked his other books (except for that pineapple thing), at least the ones I've read, I'm really hoping for good things from this one. I've already picked it up but, with the end of the school year and everything going on with my kids, I haven't had a chance to start reading it. I'll let you know what I think as soon as I do, though.

Until then, here's Briane to talk about Codes!

Wherein I Hate Stuff For No Reason (a guest post by Briane Pagel)

I know this is the space Andrew has lately been reserving for his discussion of how to handle, or not handle, a bad (or, as it was, not-really-so-bad) review, and I think that’s important work. Someone has to stand up to bullies, and Andrew has a good platform from which to do so. That’s why I am extra-appreciative of his willingness to lend me his Wednesday slot in order to let me provide some thinly-veiled marketing in the guise of a LISTICLE!

P.S. WHY does everything on the internet have such a stupid name? Years into it, I still cannot bring myself to say that I tweeted something. I tell people “Oh yeah I posted a link to that on Twitter.” “Blog,” “Tweet,” “listicle,” etc. etc. It’s so degrading. I feel stupid whenever I talk about anything I do on the internet. People will say Are you going to try to publicize your book and I have to say Yes, I plan to… *sigh*… blog… about it.

Where was I? Oh, right: Listicle. People love lists! That was one of the things mentioned in an article I read entitled, “These 5 Amazing Things People Love About The Internet Will Change Your Life.” (Other things included cats and lists about cats.) So I’ve been making the rounds, promoting my new book, Codes, and it just made sense. What better way to discuss a near-future book about a corporation trying to perfect the process of human cloning by implanting computer-programmed personalities into them and marketing the result than to create a superficial list designed to generate fake controversy?

Did that sentence make any sense? It’s been a long day and I got lost in some of the clauses there.

Knowing that Andrew usually uses this space to discuss people’s reactions to bad reviews, I decided that the theme for my latest list would at least tangentially relate to that topic, and so I came up with the idea of reviewing shows and books I’ve never even seen, and, of course, panning them.

If you’re like me (and I pray you’re not. TAKE MY WORD FOR IT) then there are LOTS and LOTS of things you HATE, almost-sight-unseen. I am a champion at hating stuff before I know anything about it. I can dislike something practically before I know it exists. It’s a talent. Books, movies, TV shows, songs, certain shades of green… doesn’t matter what it is, I can hate it right up front. And, more than just hate quietly, I can -- based on that completely uninformed opinion review the bejeebers out of that thing I hate. YES! FREE SPEECH! ‘MERICA! Let’s get to it!

1. The Walking Dead: I have never seen this show, or even a preview for it. That has not stopped me from hating it so much that I have started disliking other shows if a commercial for TWD airs during them. Can we NOT have any more allegories about our society told through the zombie format? This thing is all over! I can’t go onto a web page without seeing some picture of a sweaty guy or girl holding a machete and looking fierce next to a headline about how TWD is really going to amazeballs you with the storyline this week. LET ME GUESS: They nearly get overrun by zombies but then hack their way out! Also, where is everyone getting these machetes in the first place? I am 46 years old and I have never seen a machete in real life. Do the zombies bring them? Do they sell them at the True Value ™ Hardware Store? In real life, a zombie apocalypse would feature 100% fewer machetes and 100% more “Dads holding a bed lamp they grabbed off the table.”

2. The New Star Trek Movies: This automatic-dislike probably began when they cast Chris Pine as Captain Kirk in the first “new” Star Trek movie. Looking at Chris Pine gives me the same feeling I get when I grind my teeth, only less pleasant. That was bad enough. But then I heard that in one of these movies they had Kirk driving around in a hot rod on Earth. You know what space operas don’t need? Drag races on planet Earth. But to top it off, they remade “The Wrath Of Khan.” YOU CANNOT REMAKE THE WRATH OF KHAN. That is like remaking a rainbow. Like remaking a glorious, rage-filled, fist-shaking, Enterprise-attacking, earwig-monster-injecting, desert-planet-inhabiting, Fantasy-Island-operating rainbow.

3. The Hunger Games. OH. MY. GOD. From the moment I first heard of this series of books I thought they sounded like the dumbest thing ever. Here is my understanding of the plot: some government starves all its citizens, so that they will send a bunch of kids to shoot each other with arrows in order to get a little bit of extra food. HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE? How would that system work? It could never! But then after all the kids shoot each other or whatever, the two (?) winners (?) get elected to the government or something, like Charlie winning the chocolate factory only Jennifer Lawrence didn’t even have to give back the gobstopper? NO DO NOT BOTHER EXPLAINING WHERE I GOT IT WRONG. The plot doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t have to, because it’s a book for teenagers, and teenagers love it when things don’t make sense. It lets them be convinced that adults don’t ‘understand’ them. That’s why I loved The Cure when I was seventeen, and why kids nowadays love The Hunger Games and its sequels, New Moon and whatever the third one was with Percy Jackson.

3a.Bonus hatred: I cannot stand Jennifer Lawrence. Not even a little bit. She is somehow the female version of that guy in 8^th grade who thought smelling farts was funny. Associating her with a movie makes me that much less likely to see it. If “J-Law” showed up on my doorstep with a giant pizza and a bootleg director’s cut of the next Star Wars movie, I wouldn’t even answer the door.

Let’s do one more. This is fun! How about:

4. Anything by Isaac Asimov. To be honest, I am not sure where this one comes from because I do not know really anything about Asimov other than I dislike him and everything I imagine he stands for. I know as a scifi-ish writer myself I am supposed to apparently love Isaac Asimov and everyone’s always talking about how he predicted the future and his laws of robotics and etc blah blah blah, but I can’t be bothered. I’m not even sure what Asimov is supposed to have written. Foundation, I think? I’d go look it up but I’d rather my browser not have a history of searching for Asimov stuff. Even I am cooler than that. I think Asimov wrote that story that got made into I, Robot, starring Will Smith, and can we as a society really take an author seriously anymore if Will Smith likes his stuff? I’m also pretty sure that in reality there’d be no way robots could be programmed not to harm humans, which I think was a ‘law’ of robotics Asimov pulled out of thin air and made people believe was a thing. It’s so dumb: suppose I was being held hostage by Chris Pine and Jennifer Lawrence and the only way I’m getting out alive is if C-3PO (do NOT get me started on R2-D2!) snipes them both with a laser rifle from across the road. OH WAIT there’s a LAW that he can’t kill them, only if he DOESN’T, then he’s harming a human by letting me die, right? That is NOT how laws work, Isaac Asimov. You don’t see gravity only holding people down if it’s nonparadoxical.

In closing, you’ll note that the only people I picked on in here are people who are dead, or who don’t matter, or who are Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pine and so deserve it. I don’t have to worry about anyone overreacting or calling me crazy or taking me to task for these entirely unfounded and ill-informed, and yet still 100% correct, opinions. Don’t forget to mention in the comments how much you agree with me!

Something I don’t hate: My book, Codes: Robbie had an ordinary life, until she walked into Gravity Sling. Now he’s seeing coded messages everywhere, being chased by shadowy big-corporation goons, and questioning literally everything about the world as he knows it. Some questions need answers. This Phillip K. Dick style debut science fiction novel raises questions about how people use technology and each other.

Links:

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianePagel

My blog: Thinking The Lions: http://www.thinkingthelions.com

Buy Codes on

Golden Fleece Press’ site: http://goldenfleecepress.com/catalog/fiction/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Codes-Briane-Pagel/dp/1942195109

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/codes-briane-pagel/1121816078?ean=9781942195115

Time Enough for Time (an IWM post)

The time for the first Indie Writers Monthly annual is almost upon us. This year's theme is, and this is probably my fault, time travel, which is all kinds of awkward for me, because I hate most time travel stories. Especially those Star Trek type time travel stories which fall apart faster than a Nilla Wafer in milk if you look at them too hard. But, still, that's the theme. And guess what! You get to participate!

Yes, we are actually taking submissions on this one and there is even PRIZE MONEY!
But you have to get through me to get to it.
Okay, I don't know if that's exactly true, but I'll be one of the people reading the stories and passing judgements on them, so, well, impress me.
I'm only sorta kidding there.
ANYWAY...

Hop over to Indie Writers Monthly for all of the details and get that story written.
Don't worry; I can't win the money. But it won't stop me from having my own time travel story in there.
What are you waiting for? Hop in your DeLorean... um, I mean: Hop in your time machine and click that link and get to writing!

Not So Despicable

2010 was a great year for animated movies: Toy Story 3 (which made me cry), Despicable Me (which made my wife cry (which is not to say that TS3 didn't make her cry, but it's much more impressive to make me cry at a movie than her)), and Megamind. So, although we really loved Despicable Me when we saw, it still got overshadowed by the other two. Meaning we own the other two, but I never bought Despicable Me despite the incredible voice work by Steve Carell. I feel bad about that, now.

Which may seem kind of silly, to feel bad about not buying a DVD, but, really, we all, the whole family, loved Despicable Me. When it came out. But, see, the news of Despicable Me 2 didn't really do that much for me. It was kind of a shrug and "oh, yeah, that's cool," but I wasn't dying to go see it or anything. I'm sure that's because we haven't watched it again since 2010, and I'd forgotten how good it was. My daughter, however, was dying to go see it. I'm pretty sure she wants minions of her own.

So we went to see Despicable Me 2, and I'm pretty sure it's the best movie I've seen all summer. Okay, second best. Star Trek beats it but not by much. At any rate, it was so much better than Monsters University, which is its actual competition. Not only was Despicable more funny than Monsters, but it had all of the heart and soul that Monsters was lacking. And it made my wife cry.

I don't actually have anything negative to say about the movie. The closest thing to a negative is that the plot is almost conventional, but, see, it's only almost conventional. The fact that there is an attempt to recruit Gru to the AVL (Anti-Villain League) at the beginning of the movie, because of his expertise as a former villain, puts things just off-kilter enough that you don't really know which direction the movie is going. And I won't tell you which, because that would just spoil it.

And, I have to say, that scene where Gru is on the phone with the people who failed to send the Fairy Godmother to his adopted daughter's birthday party... well, that was classic. As a father, I've made those calls, and they had that bit down perfectly. All the way to the hanging up and... well, that, also, would be telling. But there are so many of  those moments incorporated into the movie that it made it great for kids and adults.

The animation was terrific. The voice work from the actors was excellent. The minions were funnier than ever.

Wait, now that I think about it, there is one issue with the movie. The title. Because Gru isn't so despicable anymore. I can't wait for a third one, and I'm gonna have to make sure I pick up both of these movies, now. It's great stuff.

Into Whatness?

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a very busy weekend. On the tail end of everything that had been going on, Sunday night we went to see Star Trek Into Darkness. That was a drama in-and-of-itself. Initially, we'd planned to go see it on Friday night, but something came up on Friday night that I "needed" to do (there will be a post on that later), so we were going to do it Saturday. Of course, that was the plan before we pushed my daughter's sleepover party to this past weekend rather than the prior weekend, so Saturday got knocked off. That left Sunday, and my wife didn't want to do Sunday after the weekend we were having. She just didn't want to add that to the end of everything.

The suggestion, then, was that I take my oldest son to go see it and that would be that. My younger son has an ingrained opposition to Trek because of his love of Star Wars, so he had stated that he didn't want to go. My daughter wanted to go only because it was "going;" she had no real desire to see the movie. "Going" is always better than "staying" in her book. So the idea was that I would take the oldest to the afternoon matinee.

BUT there were complications. To start, he had gone off to spend the night with someone to avoid my daughter's sleepover, and he neglected to arrange for a ride home. There are two things to that: 1. We told him due to all of the stuff on during the weekend, we would not be available to transport him, so he had to arrange his own transportation. 2. My wife let him know very explicitly that she didn't want him gone all day because of his lack of planning. She wanted him home at a reasonably early hour on Sunday. Well, he failed to take care of that stuff. He called around 2:00 p.m. to let us know that he still had no ride home, a call I had been anticipating. At that point, I told him that we (he and I) were going to Star Trek... unless he didn't make it home, in which case, he would miss out. I figured that would put a fire under his butt. [It did. he dragged himself in the door somewhere around 3:30 (although, technically, he's missed the showtime I'd planned on).] The other complication was that I was just dead tired after all of the girls left and had needed a nap (which I barely got), so I hadn't been ready, yet, for the 3ish showtime, anyway.

Here's where it gets interesting:
So my oldest son walked in the door just as I was getting ready to leave to pick up my younger son from the work party he was at for the musical he's in at school (see why we weren't available to drive the oldest anywhere? Besides, if he wanted to, he could take some steps in getting his driver's license, but he's balking at that). My wife said to me as I was walking out that door, "You should see if he wants to go with y'all."
My response: "But he said he does not want to go."
"Just ask him anyway."
So I did. His response (once I picked him up (covered in paint (including a hand print on the leg of his pants from a girl (which would embarrass him to no end if he knew I was printing this))): "Sure, I have nothing better to do."

Okay, so, now, it was just us guys going to the movie. When it was just the older boy and me, my daughter had decided to stay home because she was have a water balloon fight in the park (this after all the water activities at the end-of-season league party); however, when she found out, upon coming in to refill the water pump, that both boys were going, she immediately changed her mind about the movie. Now, this was a problem. Not that she wanted to go but because now everyone was going but my wife who is the only one in our household that really identifies as a Trek fan. So I had to talk her into it, which wasn't as hard as all that after all; I just said, "Look, everyone else is going, but you're the one that really wants to see this, so you should just come, too." So she did. And she was glad of it.

As for the movie... well, let's start at the title.

What's the deal with meaningless titles? They annoy me. The title has no more to do with the movie than it could have to many movies. Like The Empire Strikes Back could have been called Into Darkness, and it would have held more meaning to the actual movie than this one. I get that it sounds cool, but, seriously, the title (of anything) ought to relate to the thing that's being titled in more than some vague way.

Past that, though, the movie was pretty awesome. Abrams  knows how to bring the action and keep you tense and on the edge of your seat. And, hey, there was no red matter, this time, so double plus good. Without giving anything away, I loved best the role reversal of Spock and Kirk. That was pretty awesome.

I have only two negatives (other than the title) at this point:
1. I do not want to see "old Spock" pop up in every movie as their tiny "god in a box." I get that the fans love seeing Nimoy (I do; I get it), but, from a story perspective, it's gonna get old if they always contact him when they're in trouble.
2. As much as I love Simon Pegg and love Simon Pegg as Scotty, he is the one character that doesn't quite feel right. he has moments where he feels like Scotty but, most of the time, the character seems off target. I don't blame this on Pegg, as he has no control over the writers having him do things that are not "Scottyish."

Speaking of the characters, I still love Karl Urban the most. Man, he could be DeForest Kelley. I swear, I can't tell the difference; he's just like watching the original Bones at work. And they gave him the line! Well, not the line but a the line: "I'm a doctor not a..." It was awesome.

Zachary Quinto comes in a close second to Urban on pulling off the channeling of the original character. Of course, he has had the privilege of actually working with Nimoy, so he wouldn't have an excuse to not be able to pull it off.

And, well, then there's Benedict Cumberbatch who was a perfect match to the rest of the cast. Mostly, it's the voice. But he seems to be able to play any kind of role he wants to play (see War Horse and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to understand what I mean by that).

And that's really about all I can say about the movie without giving stuff away, and I don't want to do that. As someone who is not really a Star Trek fan, I loved the movie. I do know that there are Trek fans out there that don't like what Abrams is doing, but, really, I'm not quite sure I get that, because he's really captured the heart of the original series with how closely they've managed to get the characters to their originals. It's actually enough that it makes me want to go back and watch those old episodes, and how much more successful can you be than that?

Tribble!

How To Be... Q

So you want to be Q?

Well, unfortunately, you need to be born in the Q Continuum. Sorry. It's just not gonna work out for you.

Oh, wait!
You meant this Q

Well, that requires that you join the British Secret Service. Maybe. And being able to make nifty spy gadgets.

Oh, no, wait! That's not right, either...

How To Be... a Quantum Mechanic

Okay, so there's really no such thing as a "quantum mechanic." Yet.
However, with quantum communication on the horizon (possibly closer than you think), and quantum computers in development (the first one has already been built), and the possibility of all of this leading to artificial intelligence and robots and warp drive (also in development and has been done on a small scale), I can't think of a better name for the guy that has to come around and fix your tech when it breaks down. I imagine, at first, at least, that this will take a lot more schooling than a trade school.

My advice? Take as much quantum physics as you can. The next generation of technology is coming. It can't hurt to be prepared.

Unexpected Applause: CassaFire

Instead of doing a cover reveal, today, for Alex Cavanaugh's new book, CassaStorm (due out this fall), I thought I'd review the second book in his trilogy seeing as how I just finished reading it. As it turns out that's going to be a bit harder than I thought it would be. Harder because I just didn't enjoy CassaFire

the way I did CassaStar (follow the link to the review).

The main reason is the time jump. I've decided that I just don't tend to like stories with huge leaps ahead in time. Like in The Dark Knight Rises. Of course, I realize that I was nearly alone in my lesser opinion of that movie, so maybe this is not a thing that bothers other people. However, it does bother me, and I had a difficult time reconciling myself to the fact that 'Fire was supposed to be nearly 20 years after 'Star. The character didn't seem any different. It was like he just stepped ahead 20 years into his future and was still wrestling with the same issues. At no point did I feel like I was reading about the cares and concerns of a 40-year-old man. He still felt like the same 20-year-old from the first book. If the story had been set, say, two years later, I don't think I would have had many of the issues that I did.

To make that issue worse, Byron seems to have not advanced in his career at all in the 20 year interim. We know that he planned to quit being a fighter pilot at the end of the first book, but, here, 20 years later, he's just flying a shuttle, and I had a hard time buying into that even if it was by choice. Again, I could see that after two years, but 20 years later was really stretching my suspension of disbelief.

There are some other issues with details about the world setting that niggled at me a lot, too, but I can't really go into most of those without the risk of giving things away, but I will say this one thing: Where are the rest of the Tgren people? They entire race seems to be totally existent within the one city of Ktren. A whole planet, but all of them live in this one city? Maybe, that's not how it is, but that is how it's presented, and it just... bothered me. In some respects, it reminded me of episodes of Star Trek or Stargate because of that, and that works in a 40 minute TV episode, but I kept waiting for some mention of the rest of the people and, other than the Bshen (who seem to be another race entirely), it never came.

In the end, I think I was looking for another 20,000 words or so to fill out the story some. I do realize that the focus of the story is Byron and his relationships, especially with the new woman in his life, and that was well done, but it felt too much as if it was being acted out upon a cardboard stage rather than a real 3-D environment.

That said, I may feel differently about this book once the next one comes out as it seems it is going to build on what was done in CassaFire. If, in retrospect, 'Fire serves as a good building block for what happens in 'Storm, I could end up with more positive feelings about it despite the sparseness of the background.

Oh, and I wouldn't be me if I didn't mention the editing. The editing in 'Fire wasn't quite as good as the editing in 'Star, and there were some repetitive errors that bugged me, which distracted me from the story. Some missing words here and there, repeated lines of text a couple of times, and misspellings. Mostly things that other people won't notice, since other people seem to have not noticed them, but there were enough this time around that it's worth noting. That said, in comparison to a lot of other things I've read, even novels published through big, traditional publishers (>cough< Snow Crash), it was pretty clean. [I mean, in Snow Crash, it was like he sneezed commas, and they just left them on the page wherever they landed.]

So, in the final analysis, I really like CassaStar. It's a good read, kind of a buddy space opera kind of book. It deals with the bonds of friendship and how important they can be. CassaFire is okay. If you really like 'Star, it's worth giving it a look, at least. It's a romance, and the romance is pretty well handled. There are themes of friendship, also, but, really, it's about the girl. Looking forward, CassaStorm has an intriguing plot and, just from the summary, a lot of world details that haven't been revealed before. I'm intrigued, so I will certainly go on to the next one. It's possible that 'Storm could make 'Fire completely worthwhile. I guess I'll find out this fall.

The A to Z of Fiction to Reality: Lasers

It's quite possible that I should have put this post under "E" for "energy weapons," but, see, I really love the idea of the exo-suit, so I couldn't leave that out, and it's lasers that most people associate with energy weapons, so I figured I may as well stick with it. This one is going to be a bit more convoluted than the others, though, so try to keep up. This way, please...

Let's first step back to 1898. Martians were invading the Earth. Well, at least, they were in H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. The Martian's tripods were equipped with heat rays that they used to destroy, well, everything. This is the most significant early example of the raygun. It may not have been the first (I don't actually know, but I couldn't find anything earlier), but anything that was earlier has been mostly forgotten.

Rayguns in fiction became increasingly popular through the early 20th century. In fact, they sort of became standard fare in pulp science fiction including Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and others. They also became pretty standard in comic books.

1930s edition Buck Rogers raygun

Then, Einstein happened...

Well, let's re-examine that. In 1917, Einstein put forth the Quantum Theory of Radiation which established the theoretic foundation for irradiating light waves. It's this theory that would later lead to lasers. But, in the meantime, rayguns flourished in fiction.

And, now, we're to the part where, maybe, this entry should have been placed under the letter R. Prior to World War II, there was research going on to develop rayguns (in the United States, at any rate, and, possibly, in Germany (actually, probably, everywhere, but I don't have that information)). That research coupled with some of Tesla's ideas (also from 1917) lead to the development of radar.

But we still didn't have any rayguns.

Finally, in the '50s, the first significant breakthroughs in laser technology began to happen, and, in 1959, Gordon Gould published the term L.A.S.E.R. (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). The first operating laser followed in 1960. Science fiction went crazy, dropping rayguns for laser guns. But only for a moment...

One interesting factoid about that:

The original Star Trek had two pilot episodes. I bet some of you even knew that. The first pilot episode, "The Cage," was produced in 1964 (and remained unreleased until 1988) and included lasers. The first pilot didn't convince the studio that the concept would work, but they were still intrigued by the idea, so they made the odd request for a second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before." The interesting bit? It had already become apparent by the time of the 1966 production of the new pilot that lasers were not going to be practical as guns or weapons, so they changed the name of the devices in Star Trek to "phasers."

But the military really wanted laser weapons, and science fiction continued to be full of laser type weapons even if they didn't call them lasers. Star Wars got blasters, Doctor Who had stasers and all sorts of other things, and Starblazers got a wave motion gun just to name a few. And the military... well, they made this big laser and mounted it on the top of an airplane and sent it up to shoot down drones or something. But it was a cloudy day, and the clouds totally dissipated the lasers, and the project was mostly dropped (and, no, I can't tell you where I got that information (yes, if I did, I would have to kill you)).

This, of course, did not stop Reagan from creating the Star Wars program in the '80s. That almost did work; they just couldn't get enough range out of the lasers for them to actually be effective. But it did lead to one of my favorite movies of all time

Real Genius!

So... here we are in 2012, and we still don't have laser guns or flying cars. Or laser guns on flying cars. I do expect the flying cars soon, but it looks like the closest we're going to have to laser guns for a while is laser sighting. Sure, you can put someone's eye out with it if they agree not to look away, and we can cut things with really big lasers, but they're not really portable at that level and need huge amounts of energy.

But let's go back to rayguns... actually, let's go back to that very first one: H.G. Wells' heat ray. The military rolled out the first example of the non-lethal Active Denial System in 2010.

What we have here is, basically, the realized form of Wells' heat ray. It works by directing microwave energy at the victim causing the skin to attain a burning sensation. Most test subjects reach their pain threshold within 3 seconds, and no one has gone beyond 5 seconds. At the moment, it's being used as a non-lethal weapon, but there's nothing to keep it from being used in more lethal ways if the government wanted the development to go in those directions. The one mounted on the humvee above is for crowd control, but they are working on portable devices.

There you have your fiction to reality, just not with lasers. But lasers still power the imagination, and militaries around the world are still working on laser-based weapons. There have been claims of ground-based lasers that are capable of taking down aircraft, but they require enormous power sources. Interestingly enough, other uses of lasers have stayed pretty confined to science, not science fiction; however, if we ever do make it out into space, I would expect the weaponized use of lasers to reach science fiction proportions almost immediately since there are no atmospheric conditions to deal with.

The A to Z of Fiction to Reality: Klingon

I bet you didn't know that, did you? We now have fully functioning Klingons. Really! Just head right down to any big sci-fi or comic book convention, and you'll see plenty of them wandering around. They even have their very own beauty pagent right here on Earth!

If you listen carefully, you might even hear some of them speaking in their own native language. And, really, that's what this is all about.

I'm not really a big Star Trek fan (yeah, yeah, I know... them's fightin' words to a lot of you out there. Especially you Klingons). It's not that I haven't watched it; I have. Well some of it (sorry, I've never seen a complete episode of Voyager or DS9). It's just that, well, to put it bluntly, it never could stand up against Star Wars, and that's all there is to it.

But there is one thing that has fascinated me about Star Trek and that's people's devotion to it and especially their devotion to the Klingons.

See, the Klingons were created  to be the whipping boys of the Star Trek universe. And I mean that in the original sense of the word. They were created to take all the punishment so that we, the viewers, could learn whatever lesson was being preached by Roddenberry that week. You wouldn't think that people would latch onto the dudes that weren't just the bad guys but the incompetent bad guys at that. From what was considered a failed television show.

But that's what happened.

Way before sci-fi conventions were cool or popular, back in the '70s, Star Trek was becoming a thing. More specifically, the Klingons were becoming a thing. When Paramount decided to go ahead with a feature film in the late '70s (released in 1979), they decided that the Klingon language should actually be represented, so James Doohan ("Scotty") came up with some words for the film. In effect, Doohan created the sound of the language.

Fans wanted more, but there wasn't more to go on.

Until 1984. Production was underway on The Search for Spock, and Leonard Nimoy (Spock) wanted something more than the "gibberish" that they'd been using as the Klingon language. It would be hard to say, at that point, that pressure from fans of the Klingons had nothing to do with this. At any rate, linguist Marc Okrand was hired to devise the basics for a full Klingon language. His first book on the subject, The Klingon Dictionary, was published in 1985. The language has only continued to expand from there.

There have been more than just a handful of books published in Klingon,

and, in 1992, the Klingon Language Institute (KLI) was founded in Pennsylvania. Klingon is the most widely spoken fictional language.

Wait! What? It's the most widely spoken fictional language? Yes. As the KLI's existence implies, you can take classes in Klingon, and there are some experts that are fluent in it. Well, as fluent as one can be in a language that's still missing words. The thing to note here is that people can speak fictional languages. And I'm not talking kids speaking Pig Latin, either. Adult people that devote their time to learning these things.

Somewhere in there, a line was crossed. The line from just being some bit of a story somewhere into something that's real. The only other good example we have of something like this is Tolkien, who devised not just one but two languages as support for his writing. But he did that. And Tolkien was a linguist. It was all a part of his world building. But Klingon has gone a step beyond. Klingon has come about, really, from pressure from fans. It was like they reached into this fictional world of Star Trek and pulled Klingon out of it into the real world.

Just, you know, if you do ever happen to be at any of those conventions and see Klingons walking around, be careful. You don't really know how real they may or may not be.

I want my two hours!

Today is the day of the

being run by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Should be an interesting topic. See, the thing is, everyone's favorite movies tend to all run in the same direction. Which is not to say that everyone has the same most favoritest movie, but, if you go looking around at people's favorites lists, the movies listed become rather repetitive. It's not all that often you'll come across something that really stands out. However!
People tend to have different lists for movies they hate, and that list can be much more  interesting than favorites. I mean, generally, when you hear that someone loves Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, you just smile and nod in agreement, "Yeah, that's a great movie." But, when you hear the list of movies people don't like, there is the opportunity for those, "What are you talking about?!" moments, "I love that movie!"

Contrary to popular belief, I quite like movies. Back when I was in high school and college, my friends believed, except for a few exceptions (like Star Wars), that I hated movies. Really, I just made them hate movies. We'd come out of seeing something, and I would point out the flaws and weaknesses, and they would go from "that movie was great" to "oh... that movie really wasn't very good." They interpreted that to mean that I had not liked the movie when that was usually not the case at all. Even though I could pick the movie apart, it didn't (necessarily) diminish my enjoyment. I just accepted that (most) movies would have issues and accepted them for what they were despite plot holes, bad acting, or predictable endings. Eventually, I learned to keep my mouth shut so that my friends could retain their own enjoyment.

None of that is to say that I don't have my own list of movies that you couldn't pay me to sit through again. Okay, well, you probably could pay me, but you'd really have to make it worth my while. I mean, really, really worth my while, and I consider my while to be worth quite a bit. Mostly, I'm going to focus on big, blockbuster movies that I think are completely overrated, although there will be a few where, if I could have, I would have demanded my two hours back. Keep the money, just give me back the time I wasted.

I'm not going to do a countdown here. Well, except for the top few. Mostly, I'm going to go sort of chronologically and deal with them at the time in my life when they happened, and why I think they don't deserve the attention they get.

10. Superman. There has not been a Superman movie made that is worth seeing. I grew up watching the old George Reeves Superman television series, which I thought was great (I haven't seen it since I was a kid, so I don't know how I would feel about it, today, but I loved it back then). The first movie was so much worse than the TV series. Not that Christopher Reeve wasn't good, but the movie itself was just boring. I've never understood why so many people hold it up as the epitome of the super hero movie. Yes, it was the first, but that doesn't make it the best. Besides the boring, it had one of the stupidest endings ever. You  have to understand that this is coming from the 8-year-old me, too. The idea that Superman could fly around the Earth really fast and make time go backwards is just... well, it's stupid. If an 8-year-old could recognize that, there's no excuse for all the adults that were all giddy over the film. And that was the high point of the Superman franchise. Don't get me started on Superman Returns. That's one of those where I want my 2 hours back. Brandon Routh did a great job with what he was given; unfortunately, what he was given was a steaming pile of crap, and there's just not a lot you can do with that.

9. Star Trek. Excluding the latest Abrams version, these movies should never have been made. Again, the first one was the best, and they just went down hill from there. Yes, I hear you all out there cursing me and protesting with mumblings about Wrath of Kahn, but, really, it just sucked. At least, the first one actually had an interesting plot. It might even have been okay if they hadn't been so busy patting themselves on  the back over their less than adequate special effects that they felt it necessary to devote over 30 minutes of screen time to absolutely nothing happening. "Ooh! Our model of the Enterprise looks really cool doesn't it?" "Yes, it does!" "Let's just pan around that sucker for, like, 15 minutes so the audience can really appreciate it!" "Oh, yes, absolutely!" And, then: "Ooh! Look at all the pretty technicolors we can make!" "That's awesome!" "Let's just have Spock fly into this stuff for the next 20 minutes so the audience can appreciate all the cool stuff we can do!" "Oh, yes, absolutely!" What a waste of time.
Now, to be fair, I'm a Star Wars kind of guy, and the action in Star Wars is "faster and more intense!" Action in the Star Trek movies is pretty yawn inducing. That's not tension; it's boredom.
In the end, though, the biggest issue with Star Trek as movies is that I never felt like I was watching a movie. They were just episodes of the TV show that were, for some reason, being shown at the theater. That's just not right. If they'd been on TV, they might have been okay.
The Abrams one, though, that was a movie, and doesn't belong in this list.

8. Batman. To be specific, the Batman franchise that was started by Tim Burton. I think I was the only person that came out of the theater in 1989 with the words "well, that sucked" on my lips. The thing is, if Burton had just been honest and called that first movie The Joker, I might have been okay with it. As it was, though, I hated it. And Keaton, whom everyone was worried couldn't do Batman was fine as Batman, but he sucked as Bruce Wayne. And the more of those movies they made, the worse they got. To the point of, "I want my two hours back!"
Years later, I found out why they were so bad. During a controversy with Kevin Smith, Burton proclaimed, "I would never read a comic book." Tell me how, exactly, you can attempt to make a movie about Batman without ever looking at the source material. That explains why he got everything wrong about those movies.

7. Catwoman. Is there even anything that needs to be said about this one? Well, maybe, source material. Use it. What a disaster of a movie.

6. Event Horizon. I honestly can't tell you why I hated this movie. It was so bad, I've wiped the memory of it from my mind. I just know that my wife and I barely sat through it. In retrospect, I'm not sure why we did. Stupid, stupid movie. One of those movies that forgets that people that really like sci-fi tend to be pretty smart people so failed to bring any amount of intelligence to the table.

5. The Matrix 2 & 3. These movies prove that sequels shouldn't be added after the fact. Although, now, the Wachowski brothers claim that The Matrix was always intended to be a series, that's just a way to justify making sequels for a movie that was never intended to have a sequel. They said as much before they started work on Matrix 2. But the money got into them, and they added a Terminator ending onto what had been a smart, thought-provoking movie. I want my 4 hours back!

4. Green Lantern. I already did a post about this one (you can see it here), so I'm not going to re-review it. Just give me back my 2 hours, okay? With the amount of money this one lost (like $100 million), I can't believe they're making a sequel.

3. Independence Day. The only stupid movie I'm glad I saw in the theater. It was worth seeing it that one time in the theater, because it really did have some cool scenes that would have been lost seeing on just a TV. However, that doesn't justify the utter stupidity that was the plot of this movie. Peter David (one of the greatest writers of comic books ever) did a great review of it back in the day which totally supported all the things that I had been telling my friends that sucked about it. It was one of those movies where the makers tried to distract the audience from the stupidity with cool, flashy things on the screen. Unfortunately, it worked. The only saving grace was Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum; they were great together. It wasn't enough to disguise the big platter of poo poo that was Independence Day, though. At least, not for me.

2. Highlander II: The Quickening. I loved the first Highlander movie. Yes, I realize it's pretty cheesy looking, today, but it was such a great concept. I watched everything that Lambert did for years after Highlander. And there was Sean Connery, too, who was already in my top 3 actors back then in 1986 (he's not anymore, although he probably still makes the top 10). How could they go wrong with a sequel? They forgot they're own source material, that's how. "Hey, I have an idea! Let's take this great fantasy movie we have and turn it into some weird sci-fi movie! That'll work, right?" Wrong. I got to see Highlander 2 for free at a special screening and walked out feeling like I'd been ripped off. That's pretty darn impressive, if you ask me.

1. The Dungeonmaster. Easily, the worst movie I've ever seen. Which I've mentioned before. I don't think 14-year-olds are supposed to walk out of movies feeling like they just wasted 2 hours of their lives. I mean, 14-year-olds are supposed to be wowed by anything that approaches special effects and be easy to please, right? Evidently, that was not the case with me. I walked out of that movie with the thought that it was the worst movie I'd ever seen, and that opinion hasn't changed in more than 25 years. Considering that Highlander 2 and Green Lantern are on this list, The Dungeonmaster is impressively bad. I want my 2 hours back!

There you have it. The worst movies I've ever seen. Well, many of them, anyway. There are a few more that could have made the list, like that monstrosity of a Godzilla movie that was made by the Independence Day people. And the animated Transformers movie. Probably even Cowboys vs Aliens, but I actually haven't seen that one, yet, and I'm not sure I'm brave enough to do it after what I've heard.
Okay, you can all scream at me, now.