SciFi: April 2008 Archive Page

Guardian:

First Battlestar Galactica was reinvented as a must-watch TV show and clever allegory for US foreign policy post-9/11. Then the Doctor returned from Gallifrey to make sci-fi cool and revive mainstream family viewing. Now Sky One is hoping to continue the successful reinvention of the genre with a multimillion-pound remake of the 1970s British favourite Blake's 7.

My wife introduced me to Blake's 7 while we were dating. The last few seasons were weaker than the first, but there were quite a number of stand-out episodes that have stayed with me over the years.

I watch very little TV. My local library has DVDs of the original Star Trek, but each time I pick one up to look at it, I think to myself, will I really have time to watch it? Then I put it back.

Oh, well. Still, it's good to see how much science-fiction there is out there -- very different from the way things were in the 70s when I became a fan.  If there had been this much good SF on TV back then, I probably wouldn't have started reading Lester Del Rey and Larry Niven books as a tween.

Yesterday was my daughter's sixth birthday. My wife told me that there was a horrific meltdown at the store when the ice cream cake they picked up did not match the picture in the catalog.  Screams, tears, and a half hour of sobbing.

Last night, I told my daughter the story of The Birthday Party of Smart Carolyn from the Moon (Smart Carolyn is the character my daughter identifies with in the Captain Rod Gearhart steampunk stories I tell her at bedtime).  Smart Carolyn was disappointed that her Moon birthday cake wasn't what she expected, and had a temper tantrum in the Moon supply depot.  I told her about the Moon supply clerk who had traveled to five different supply posts searching for the right color frosting, and who felt very, very sad that Smart Carolyn from the Moon didn't even say thank you. 

My daughter sniffled a little in the dark, and then she continued the story for me: "And then Smart Carolyn from the Moon got over it, and realized that the store clerk had tried her best, and that's what was really important. And the cake was delicious."

So this morning I was in a pensive mood when I came across this blog, "Lies I've told my 3 year old recently."

Everyone knows at least one secret language.

When nobody is looking, I can fly.

We are all held together by invisible threads.

Books get lonely too.

Sadness can be eaten.

The very last one on the list is the reason I blogged it. But I didn't include it here... go read it over on Heading East.