Alien Worlds: Earthlight pt 1 and Earthlight pt 2

Earthlight pt 1

Earthlight pt 2

The story abandons Starlab and the usual characters in favour of a very
special story about a civilization trying to rehabilitate worlds tainted
by a virus of pure evil spread by rape-happy gargoyle-like entities. In
particular, a world known as "Terra-Lou". Or perhaps -Loo.

Yeah, so the word "evolution" gets tossed around in this two-parter in 
SFish sort of way: more evolved beings are those that do things that 
please the writer. ( Read more... )

Forty Years Ago Today

Apollo 17, the eleventh and final mission of the United States' Apollo program and the sixth and final Apollo mission to land humans on the Moon, took off from Cape Kennedy.

Snarp on Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey's collaboration

Who could have predicted Elf Opposite Day would go so wrong?

!

December 6, 2012 - PASADENA, Calif. -- In a preliminary analysis of images from NASA's Dawn mission, scientists have spotted intriguing gullies that sculpt the walls of geologically young craters on the giant asteroid Vesta. Led by Jennifer Scully, a Dawn team member at the University of California, Los Angeles, these scientists have found narrow channels of two types in images from Dawn's framing camera – some that look like straight chutes and others that carve more sinuous trails and end in lobe-shaped deposits. The mystery, however, is what is creating them?

I wonder if this has anything to do with the predatory pricing inflicted on Canadians?

Sales of print books in Canada slipped in the third quarter of 2012 from the same quarter last year, according to the latest figures from BookNet Canada. The market was down overall by 9.5% in unit sales and by 6.4%in dollar value for the July to September quarter.

Tansy Rayner Roberts' Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy. Let’s Unpack That.

There was a great, thoughtful article at The Mary Sue on one of my pet topics: the common justification of sexist fantasy fiction being that it’s historically authentic.

I am BUSY today, far too busy for a rant, but then I felt one coming on, and was worried I might end up with a migraine if I tried to stifle it. You know how it is. So let’s talk about sexism in history vs. sexism in fantasy.

Alien Worlds: The Madonnas of Zanzibar Alpha P1 and The Madonnas of Zanzibar Alpha P2

The Madonnas of Zanzibar Alpha P 1

The Madonnas of Zanzibar Alpha P 2

Buddy gets an unexpected visit from the Amazing Daphne, a tattooed lady from the circus based on Barnum Five. She turns out to be an old friend of Buddy's and in short order Buddy and all his friends (including Hot Librarian Ingrid, Buddy's girlfriend; their flirtatious banter will bring all the joy of a painful catheterization) get free tickets to the circus.

Daphne, who talks like Mae West for some reason*, has an undiagnosed medical condition that she is inclined to just ignore. It turns out to be an easily treated ear condition.

In episode two, Buddy and Ingrid have an audience with the circus psychic, during which mysterious references to the Madonnas of Zanzibar Alpha get made. On the way back to Earth, Buddy and Ingrid's ship gets lost, marooning them on a planet that turns out to be none other than Zanzibar Alpha! After a pleasant conversation with one of the Madonnas, Buddy and Ingrid come to their senses and learn that the whole thing was a shared hallucination inflicted on them by the circus, who think this sort of thing will really bring in the punters.

(I am guessing it might but most of the illusions people spin for themselves won't be as philosophical as Buddy and Ingrid's. And I guessing most of that was Ingrid. Buddy was the one who basically summoned up Shelob at one point)

What is it with SF and consent issues?

There's some gratuitous German at one point, which seems to exist to establish Ingrid is Dutch and not German and to fill some time. Speaking of filling time, once again I have no idea why this was a two-parter.


* This is as good a place as any to mention there's a Steve Martin "Excuse Me" reference in this.

Alien Worlds: The Himalayan Parallel

The Himalayan Parallel

Maura, Jon, Buddy and some idiot with a ray gun are sent to exotic Tibet to investigate an alien space craft spotted landing there. Their route takes them through India (which we don't see much of, although Buddy gives the impression of being one of those tourists who thinks he is hilarious) and into Tibet.

Accompanied by an enlightened local (borrowed from the "High Lama", I think), they survive the dangers of the Himalayas by the unusual method of actually listening to their guide. The space craft turns out to be very small, not something that would have transported anything living.

A Yeti shows up to investigate the craft, which the Yeti has no trouble opening. The humans chase the Yeti off and snoop around in the craft; it is filled with tools and spare parts.

The next day they track down the Yeti and due to a minor error of judgment, the idiot with the gun celebrates his civil liberties by gunning the harmless alien down. Happily, the wound is not immediately lethal so the alien is able to explain how and his mate were marooned on Earth centuries ago and how they extended their lives with cold sleep so that one day their children, still on ice, could one day return to their own world.

The idiot with a gun feels just bad about killing a harmless alien but eh, these things happen and in his defense, the alien greeting howl was easy to misinterpret.

Although the ISA has super-ultra-zippy fast FTL and although Jon and Buddy seem to know where the alien homeworld is, Buddy and Jon make sure the ancient alien craft is probably capable of making the journey and then sent it and its infant cargo off back to the alien homeworld.

Maura turns to admire Buddhism in a vague late 1970s pop-sci way, which is at least better than Buddy's snickering at how different from him the Indians were.

I believe this is the final episode that aired.