Back in October, when I started writing episode reviews of HBO’s Westworld, I warned readers that it was an experiment. Even then it was an experiment I intended to succeed rather than failed. Perhaps calling it a failure is saying too much, because I had fun writing the reviews and I learned a lot....
“This is the best time of your life,” an adult told me, when I was in high school. Perhaps high school was the best time of his life, but it was far from the best time of mine. Add teenage angst plus a speech impediment plus a bookish disposition plus a withdrawn personality plus...
Six astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) recover a probe returning from Mars, where it drilled into the soil looking for life. Following careful protocols, called firewalls—since any extraterrestrial life form, even a germ or a bacteria, could be harmful for life on Earth—they processed the samples and discovered a single-cell organism. Ecstatic,...
My home shares the same power grid as the county courthouse and jail, so when it goes out, it’s high priority to restore it. The power doesn’t go out often, but when it does, I find myself in a surrealistic confusion. What now? Since my computer’s down, I can’t write, so I decide to...
The trailer for Ghost in the Shell shows a scene where Major, the ghost in the title, jumped from a great height to launch an attack on the bad guys. That scene is about all I knew about Ghost in the Shell prior to seeing it. It’s not a lot to go on, I...
There’s trouble in Westeros. Following King Robert Baratheon’s death, his son Joffrey Baratheon takes the throne. But when a rumor surfaces that casts doubts of Joffrey’s legitimacy, his uncles, Renly and Stannis, each claim the throne and prepare for war. Meantime, Robb Stark fights a war of independence for the North, while his half...
