Finally, A Cool Spaceship

What We Were Promised

What We Got

SpaceX Starship

The SpaceX Starship may begin orbital flights as early as next year.
Fins, wings, and stainless freaking steel. Thank you, Mr. Musk.

Whose that girl?

She has got to be one of the hottest chicks on television these days although she is not talked about a lot because she is in a science fiction series. But she has some impressive assets and is quite the babe.

She should have a better Agent to get her more high profile gigs and shield her from anonymity.

Whose that girl?

I thought he had a raspberry beret?

Prince Thun : Ming is merciless and all-powerful. He can only be taken by surprise. 
Flash Gordon: He'll be surprised alright
Prince Thun: He seduced my consort Appolonia. I mean I was banging Shelia E at the time and I traded her in for the bald headed Irish skank but still. The dude is merciless.
Flash Gordon: I have only one question.
Prince Thun: What’s that Flash?
Flash Gordon: Where the hell did you get a purple space suit? Nice fucking hat by the way. I thought you wore a raspberry beret?
Prince Thun : This is all outdated nonsense. After all I am dead. Now a wear a crown of worms.
Flash Gordon: Cool.

Whose that author?

If my dream was true, then everything we know, everything we think we know is a lie. It means the world's about as solid and as reliable as a layer of scum on the top of a well of black water which goes down forever, and there are things in the depths that I don't even want to think about. It means that we're just dolls. We don't have a clue what's really going down, we just kid ourselves that we're in control of our lives while a paper's thickness away things that would drive us mad if we thought about them for too long play with us, and move us around from room to room, and put us away at night when they're tired, or bored.

Awake in the Night Land

I heard a rumor this collection of novellas by John C. Wright was going to be FREE tomorrow...

It looks like something my husband would probably like.  Me? Maybe not so much.

"AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND is an epic collection of four of John C. Wright's brilliant forays into the dark fantasy world of William Hope Hodgson's 1912 novel, The Night Land. Part novel, part anthology, the book consists of four related novellas, "Awake in the Night", "The Cry of the Night-Hound", "Silence of the Night", and "The Last of All Suns", which collectively tell the haunting tale of the Last Redoubt of Man and the end of the human race."


UPDATE:  That information is wrong... the FREE book is only the first novella in that collection.

The Man Who First Galvanized The World Was...

...Luigi Galvani!  In 1771, he discovered that frog's legs twitched when touched by static electricity. This in turn galvanized a young gal by the name of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. The rest is history.

Neuromancer

Neuromancer, released in 1984, is an early example of the cyberpunk genre. In fact, its author, William Gibson coined the term cyberspace. It contains the perfect opening line, "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." 

The story revolves around Case, a cyberhacker who has run afoul of his employers by keeping a little extra money from a job. In retaliation, he was not killed, but given a mycotoxin that damaged his nervous system, rendering him unable to directly access the Matrix via his brain. Desperately depressed, he becomes addicted to amphetamines, then suicidal, taking bigger and bigger risks in dystopic Chiba City.

What better thing for a suicidal cyberhacker than to be tapped for a dangerous mission? With the promise of having his nervous system restored to normal, he joins a motley crew in order to carry out the plans of the rogue corporate computer, Wintermute. From stealing the ROM construct of a dead hacker, to collecting the sociopathic final member of the group, to the job itself, the plot runs along briskly, with interesting, well-developed characters. It is beautifully written, evoking a complex future filled with the detritus of the past. 

I have listened to the audio version twice, and the narrator Robertson Dean, has an excellent range of voice characterizations. I highly recommend him.

According to Wiki, there have been a couple failed attempts to make Neuromancer into film, but "[i]n August, 2012, GFM Films announced that it had begun casting for the film (with offers made to Liam Neeson and Mark Wahlberg), but no cast members have been confirmed yet."

And this brings me to my question for those who have read the book. Who would you cast?

Wiki

Human Wave Garage Sale

Over at According to Hoyt.

Ladies, Gentlemen, Beings of Furritude, I come not to bury grey goo plotting but to yawn at it and to sigh “I don’t care what happens to all these characters” and — occasionally, when a novel rises a little bit above the common style –, to sigh and say “I want them all dead by chapter two.” (Ah, for a minion I could dispatch to story world. “Guido, see to it. I want them all dead by chapter two before they all start the belly button contemplating until it reels the mind. Make them dead. Hide the bodies.” Of course, in many cases this would improve the pacing and action of the plot. In others no one would notice.)

The antidote is called Human Wave fiction. The Garage Sale is a list of (mostly) Kindle special deals from authors who have promised not to serve up grey goo or contemplate belly buttons.

Scroll down, but don't skip reading Sarah's post because each and every word is put there with malice aforethought to engage and entertain (even if you refuse to be properly thoughtful.)

You know you need more to read, you know you do! So go.