Reilly Grant

ABC’s drama department is a strange place to be finding this season’s new Sci-Fi show,  but since the Sci-Fi channel’s decided to rename itself “SyFy” anything’s possible.  I haven’t quite gotten through the first episode, but it seems alright so far, like an updated Apollo 13.  Perhaps it may even get the public thinking about space exploration again. (continue reading…)

Science fiction is wonderful.  It gives the author the power to create a world exactly as they’d like it and it gives the reader all the worlds in the universe to dream about.  At the same time, science fiction is about us, in our world.  Every story is a possibility, a glimpse into the future, or a new perspective on our past.  Where did we come from, where are we going.  Ender in Exile, the latest manuscript by award winning author Orson Scott Card fills the gap between the first instalment of the now famous Ender series, Ender’s Game and the sequel Speaker for the Dead.  As a midquel, Ender in Exile has a lot of ground to cover.  Before reading it I expected to hear about Ender’s transformation from the boy who won the Formic War to the Speaker for the Dead.  In the beginning of Speaker for the Dead we are quickly introduced to a lot of the changes that have occurred during the intervening centuries.  With this book I hoped Card would go back and fill in some of the juicy details.  I was not disappointed. (continue reading…)

I was never a huge fan of the original Star Trek series or the movies; except for Leonerd Nimoy.  TNG and Voyager were my favorites.  When this movie came out I was afraid of two things which have plagued science fiction and Star Trek movies in the past.  First, that it would be just another action movie.  The trailers definitely played up the movie’s fast paced action sequences.  This is a problem that a lot of science fiction movies have.  Science fiction is not about action, it is about people and the future.  Second, that it would turn out like Insurrection and Nemesis; with a weak plot and irrelevant story line.  The only good TNG movie was First Contact because they actually had some good source material to build a plot out of.  The others didn’t have enough relation with the series to fit in at all.

Edit: Orson Scott Card (author of the Ender’s Game series and other wonderful sci-fi books) has posted a review of this movie as well as the new X-Men film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine on Uncle Orson Reviews Everything. I generally agree with everything he says and, being a professional writer, he says it better than I do.  Thanks to Rafi for pointing out his column to me. (continue reading…)

I just finished Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan and I’ve got to say I’m pretty impressed. It is set in some point far in humanity’s future, on Earth (as opposed to some other shows, which happen elsewhere).  The first episode starts off with a teaser for later in the series, firmly solidifying the show in the giant robot genre. From the beginning the show is random and unpredictable. This was hard to get used to in the beginning.  The series jumps from adventure to adventure very quickly, there’s no filler to speak of, not even an onsen or beach episode.  More to follow after the break.  I’m splitting this to avoid spoilers.  If you don’t want to read more, all you have to know is, this is an awesome show, both funny and profound, with a heaping portion of mecha. (continue reading…)