A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixabay.com I was reading a good article the other day at Slate.com about the punk subgenres of science fiction. Much of what the article said about these subgenres was not good. But I still found it very informing and if you’re new to punk sci fi such as steampunk, diesel punk or atompunk, I suggest you take a look at it because it’s a good introduction to this category of science fiction subgenres. I did agree in part with what the article’s writer, Lee Konstantinou, was saying and so that the punk subgenres have been misused. He basically says that these subgenres work off of the template, or formula, that comes from cyberpunk, the first punk category in sci fi that started in the 1980s. The formula consists of the protagonist rebelling against the ruling system of power and its influence on society. Konstantinou says that such a formula constrains original storytelling. However, like the science fiction genre it branches from, a punk subgenre doesn’t necess...

Credit: Pixabay.com Ever since Ready Player One released in theatres last year, the film adaptation of Ernest Cline’s novel of the same name, there’s no doubt that virtual reality (VR) has become hotter than ever. This is especially so with VR games. And who wouldn’t want to own their own VR system where they can go on fantastic simulated adventures of their choosing, adventures such as battling dragons and hordes of demon warriors, battling an alien squadron in space or fighting off zombies in a graveyard? I know I would like the thrill of those. I would like the thrill of those to the point of never wanting to take off the VR headset. M obile device addiction in our society has been bad enough. Two-dimensional video game addiction has been bad enough. I know I’ve been addicted to it. And I’ve been addicted to VR experiences using the Google Cardboard which is the cheapest and so lowest form of a VR headset on the market! There’s nothing wrong with VR experiences. VR i ...

Credit: Pixabay.com Happy New Year, everybody! Sorry for missing last week but I was burning out from both writing and my day job so much that I needed that break. But here I am again. In the last post I said that I will have more Book-To-Movie reviews and previews in 2019. Well, 2019 offers some interesting, if not all particularly good, TV series and movies based on sci fi and fantasy books. So I made a couple of lists: one for TV adaptations and the other for movie adaptations. 2019 TV Series Adapted from Books I have not read any of the books that the TV series listed below are based on. With the exception of one of these, I don’t plan on reading any soon in time to watch the TV series mainly because many of them are in the horror genre and I’m not a big fan of horror TV series. I’ve noticed that many horror TV series--unlike most movies in the genre--that are based on novels, especially gothic horror, tend to go too much the way of the soap opera al...

Credit: Pixabay.com Well, we’re coming to the end of 2018. As with any year, we get both the good moments and not-so-good moments. Still, the not-so-good moments often have a valuable impact on our lives. So I decided to list the greatest moments of this year. “Greatest” is defined here not so much as good or joyful as it is significantly impacting. Sometimes the events we don’t wish to see help us see the good ones better. We love it when we make accomplishments, publish a story we wrote, read a story we really enjoyed, or see a movie that we really liked. We don’t love it so much when we lose something or someone important to us. Sadly, 2018 saw the passing away of my maternal grandfather, God rest his soul. But that sad moment also made me and my family remember some of the best times we had with him. In the community of science fiction and fantasy, 2018 saw the passing away of some of the best creators in the genre. Even though those are moments we don’t like...

Credit: Pixabay.com I got most of my Christmas shopping done. All I have to shop for is a white elephant gift for a cousin’s Christmas Eve party that I’m going to attend. So I’ve been looking for ideas for a “dumb” or weird (as I prefer to say) gift. And it’s just about as hard shopping for that kind of gift as it is a “decent” one. But as I was looking for ideas at Amazon, I came across some things that might be suitable for a white elephant gift exchange. In fact, these items probably make more-than-suitable gifts. They are so weird, so crazy and/or so hilarious that they’re almost frightening! Because of that, I call them f right elephant gift ideas. In case you still need to do that last minute shopping for that white elephant gift you were asked to bring to a holiday party, I put together for this post a Holiday Fright Elephant Gift Guide. Since this is a sci fi and fantasy blog, this guide emphasises gifts in the speculative genres. So even if the party you’re a...

Credit: Pixabay.com Most of us have our childhood memories of sitting in a warm, dark movie theater on a cold weekend afternoon during the holiday season, watching a movie that really impressed us. One of the memories that stand out most for me was when I saw Star Trek the Motion Picture when it released during the Christmas season of 1979. I hated it. But still, it impressed me with it’s cinematography and special effects likened to those of Star Wars, the movie that Motion Picture ’ s producers were competing with during that space opera craze. I would come to actually like this film several years later, especially when I got into my Star Trek fan phase in high school. In fact, and I don’t care if anyone attempts to stone me for it, it’s my favourite of the Star Trek movies for reasons that I’m not going to go into here. But perhaps, one very tiny reason is nostalgia. And for the past three holiday seasons we’ve had Star Wars films releasing which will probably b...

Credit: Pixabay.com Last post I talked about Nightflyers , the new science fiction-horror TV miniseries based on George R.R. Martin’s novella of the same name. As much as I said I was looking forward to its premiere episode, I didn’t watch it. That is, I didn’t watch it on its premiere night which was last Sunday. It was on in my area at 10 and I normally try going to bed before that time on Sunday nights. So I taped it on my old TV-VCR-in-one and finally watched the debut episode last night. (No, I don’t have a DVR.) The debut episode came across well as the science fiction-horror that the novella was made to be. It would be a 100 percent slasher-in-space if violent gore was at the centre of this series in which so far it isn’t. What is at the centre is a power that kills people and is hiding on the spaceship. Like all great science fiction-horror, the setting is fitting. The series takes place on a colony ship called the Nightflyer which is dark and gigantic yet cl...