I don't do paid streaming services. And I'm not really all that keen on miniseries in general. I suppose there's a remote chance I might buy the DVD set at some point, assuming one comes out, but (like the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies) it's something I'd most likely buy used, on Alibris.
Ex Machina is done (took way longer than normal due to this thing called work happening again on site post lockdown!) This book was amazing - it flowed form TMP like it was a natural sequel and I am looking forward to re-watching the movie with the details in this book in mind. I also found my self identifying with many of the characters personal struggles as I often find it hard to find that 'balance' between work and life. @Christopher delivers again! Right The More Things Change is next before I reach the first point where arrows lead back to previous novels so I will have to think about where I go from there. Comics FF Vol 1 #5 Incredible Hulk Vol 1 #1-#3
I really struggled to get through the first half of the first book several times, but once the stories finally converged, I was hooked. I finally see what the hype is about now.
You’ve got Spider-Island coming up. That’s a good one. You can’t go wrong with ASM. Only comic series worth buying these days. Unlike the others that reset every year, they actually use the 50 year lore it’s built and build more meaningful stories from it. Makes a more rewarding read.
Just finished reading Star Trek: Voyager: A Celebration (2020, from Eaglemoss/Hero Collector Books; writers credited as by Ben Robinson and Mark Wright, with additional material by William Potter and Matt McAllister). Released in conjunction with (and “celebrating”) the twenty-fifth anniversary of the premiere of the television series on January 16, 1995. One the best book ever released specifically about “Star Trek: Voyager”. (There have been at least two previously released books—from while the tv series was still in production and had just completed its run—that are also quite good: Star Trek: Voyager: A Vision of the Future by Stephen Edward Poe (1998), and the Star Trek: Voyager Companion by Paul Ruditis (2003)). Star Trek: Voyager: A Celebration includes newly conducted interviews with all of the primary cast of actors (with the exception of Jennifer Lien who played Kes the first three seasons; Lien no longer does interviews, although the book does include archival interview quotes from Lien and comments from her co-stars on their experiences working with her on the series.) The book also gives two-page spotlights on key episodes, and articles on the development of the series, its opening titles sequence, important behind the scenes personnel like series co-creators and producers Michael Pillar and Jeri Taylor, the various aliens featured on the series (the Kazon, the Vidiians, the Hirogen, the Borg, and Species 8472), the various departments—art department, VFX (visual effects), the writers and directors, make up department (including details on Neelix’s elaborate alien prosthetics that had to be applied and removed every day), costumes, and musical score composers)—designing the USS Voyager and Delta Flyer shuttle and a gallery of the various alien and other Starfleet vessels seen, and several familiar elements of the series like landing the ship (a first for a Starfleet starship on a Star Trek series) and Seven of Nine’s famous silver “catsuit”, and “Captain Proton” holodeck program. When I first say the announcement that this book was coming, I knew that I would want to read it but at the same time thought to myself, “How interesting could another book on Star Trek: Voyager really be?” It turns out, pretty interesting (if done well). The next “Celebration” book due out from Eaglemoss is Star Trek: A Celebration, about the original 1966-1969 “Star Trek” television series. Again, I’m a bit skeptical as there have been oodles of books written on the original series. Still, perhaps Eaglemoss might be able to surprise me again and give us a different take on an already very well covered subject. We’ll see. I gave Star Trek: Voyager: A Celebration” four out of five stars on GoodReads. Highly recommended. David Young
I've been making my way through Eye of the World, but I've been finding it a little slow, so I decided to start one more book. I debated for a little while before settling on Nueromancer by William Gibson, I've been hearing about this one for a long time, and decided to finally give it a try.
I'm a few chapters into Star Trek: Coda: Oblivion's Gate. I like what I'm seeing so far in terms of characters, explanations, and connections to some of the existing Trek material (keeping it vague for now before I can jump into the spoilers thread).
Model Railroading with John Allen, by Linn H. Westcott. When I finally, on my first real vacation in two years, visited the California State Railroad Museum's new NMRA gallery, "The Magic of Scale Model Railroading," I knew there would be relics of John Allen among the exhibits. But I never realized how many of those relics there would be. I had been reading Model Railroader for less than a year when John Allen died of a heart attack, so I certainly knew of him. But it took seeing relics of Allen, and of his layout, the Gorre & Daphetid (pronounced "gory and defeated"), to finally convince me to find a copy of Westcott's book (his last, published posthumously) on Alibris, and order it (placing the order from a guest computer carrel in my Sacramento hotel). It arrived yesterday, and I began reading it last night.
I read the first half of Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie. It's nothing spectacular yet. Literally nothing has happened but people talking in a room.
I finished reading Son of a Junkman: My Life from the West Bottoms of Kansas City to the Bright Lights of Hollywood (2020) by Ed Asner with Samuel Warren Joseph and Matthew Seymour. It has a Foreword by Paul Rudd, who appeared with Asner in 2012 in the Broadway play, Grace. Ed Asner, who just passed away at the age of 91 on August 29, 2021, will forever be remembered as the blustery television news producer, Lou Grant, from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (1970-1977) and the dramatic hour-long spin-off, “Lou Grant” (1977-1982, in which Lou Grant returns to his roots as a newspaper editor). Younger generations will probably recognize his voice as that of Carl Fredricksen on the Disney•Pixar animated movie Up (2009), and he also made a very memorable appearance as Santa Clause in the 2003 Will Ferrell Christmas movie, Elf. Asner did much more than those things in his very long career in live theatre, film, and television of course, much of which is at least touched upon in this book. I enjoyed reading of his early years in Kansas City and his relationship with his family (parents, siblings, uncles, grandfather, etc.). At details what it was like growing up in a Jewish family at that time and his regret that his father died long before he could see his son’s success as an actor. He discussed how he got into acting (live theater), then into movies and television. He has stories of working with legendary actors like John Wayne, Marlon Brando, and Sidney Poitier, and on two movies with Elvis Presley. He talks of his many guest appearances and recurring roles on television prior to getting the role of Lou Grant. He then has separate chapters on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Lou Grant”. These two chapters are way too brief though, in my opinion, and this is the arguably the most memorable role of his career, but they are only eight and five pages long. Then, again, this is a very short book in general, only 143 pages (only the first 94 pages of which are actually the autobiography; the rest of the book are additional interview transcripts between Asner and co-author Samuel Warren Joseph). Following the chapters on “MTM” and “Lou Grant”, Asner discusses his time as Screen Actors Guild president and his at that time controversial remarks that he made in regards to the civil war going on in El Salvador, remarks that labelled him in the eyes of many as being pro-Communism and that he believed to his dying day as having caused the cancellation of “Lou Grant” while it was still doing decently well in the ratings and a long period in which he was basically blacklisted and could get very little television or film work (the second half of the 1980s, 1990s, and at least early 2000s). He finally comes out of this fallow period (which was very hard on him emotionally as he loved his craft, acting) with those breakthrough parts in Elf and Up. He also started getting television guest roles again and also returned to live theater. As I mentioned, the first 94 pages are the autobiography and the remaining almost fifty pages are additional interview transcripts. As Samuel Warren Joseph accounts in his introduction to those transcripts, his first draft with Asner was formatted as “an oral autobiography” (more interview style, I gather), but that Asner decided he preferred a more standard autobiography format, which co-author Matthew Seymour “reshaped and rewrote” along with Asner, resulting in this version published as this book. It is a very interesting read, albeit a short one, one which left me wanting more. Perhaps Asner intended to do a follow up book going more into his biggest roles, I don’t know. I do know that he was a very engaging storyteller as demonstrated here in his autobiography and also on his many appearances on radio shows and podcasts over the past few years like Ed Robertson’s “TV Confidential” and Stu Shostak’s “Stu’s Show”. For fans of his work, like me, he is already sorely missed and I highly recommend Son of a Junkman. I gave this book four out of five stars on GoodReads. David Young
Very little work? Asner's IMDb filmography doesn't support that assertion, since it shows him getting fairly steady work in TV series and movies in the late '80s and '90s, though no series that broke out like his famous ones. After Lou Grant ended in 1982, he starred in a failed sitcom called Off the Rack in '84-5, then headlined the Emmy-winning The Bronx Zoo for one season in '87-8, then had a regular supporting role in season 2 of Sharon Gless's The Trials of Rosie O'Neill in '91-2, then had a recurring role in the John Ritter sitcom Hearts Afire's first season in '92-3, then starred in the '94-5 sitcom Thunder Alley, then co-starred with Tom Selleck in the short-lived The Closer in '98; plus he had plenty of TV movies and one-shot guest appearances within that span. That was also Asner's heyday as an animation voice actor, with numerous major roles like J. Jonah Jameson in the '90s Spider-Man, Hudson in Gargoyles, Cosgrove in Freakazoid!, and Granny Goodness in the DC Animated Universe (also Jabba the Hutt in the radio adaptation of Return of the Jedi). That's not the filmography of a blacklisted actor. It may not be on quite the same level as his earlier stardom, but most actors would sell their souls to work that steadily and get that many starring roles so close together.
At the moment, I'm probably going to start the third Coda Novel (by David Mack) next After that, the final Expanse novel (by James S Corey)