science fiction

It is common knowledge amongst Star Trek fans (and most everyone else who has heard of him) that William Shatner has an ego the size of a Galaxy-class starship. From insulting trekkers and trekkies alike (“Get a life!”) to famously arguing with co-star Leonard Nimoy and the show’s creator Gene Roddenberry, Shatner’s legacy is one of both passionate intensity and an inflated sense of self. Perhaps it is appropriate that a film dedicated to uncovering the underlying motives (neuroses?) of those other actors chosen to sit in the captain’s chair of the various Star Trek iterations should be

Redshirts is a thoroughly engaging read, with interesting characters, snappy dialogue, and a plot that transports from comedic to thought-provoking at will. The story follows the adventures of a group of "Redshirts" as they fight for survival and try to unravel the mystery of a curse that plagues their ship. Will they figure it all out, or will they suffer the same grim fate so many "Redshirts" have before?  If you are a fan of Star Trek, or science-fiction in general, do yourself a favor and check this one out! The three codas at the end of the novel take a little bit to warm up to, but add

Originally airing in 1998-1999, Cowboy Bebop is widely regarded as an essential part of anime canon, with very good reason.  The story of a group of down-on-their-luck bounty hunters in a gritty version of the future is a mixture of hilarity and tragedy, and worth a watch from almost anyone.

The show begins with Spike Spiegel and his partner, both bounty hunters—dubbed cowboys—on their spaceship, the Bebop (hence the title of the show), in their perpetual search for a new bounty to collect to keep their ship running and food on the table.  Spike prophetically declares that he hates working

Confession: post-apocalyptic stories are not my favorite genre and can be really hit or miss with me. Despite the overall rave reviews, I've never read Cormac McCarthy's The Road because it sounds too grim and bleak for me. I watched the first season of The Walking Dead and gave up when I found it too depressing. (And I'm a fan of the Cure and Joy Division, so it's not like I only like things bright and cheerful.) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, however, is very definitely not a miss.

Beautiful, heartfelt writing and strong, complex, sympathetic characters keep this story from

In Star Wars Crucible, Marvid and Craitheus Qreph, lifelong enemies of Han Solo, stage a hostile takeover of Lando Calrissian’s asteroid refinery operation. Han steps in to help his good buddy Lando and prevent a galaxy-wide domination.

In order to save Han, who is outgunned and fighting for his life, Luke and Leia race to find an artifact capable of altering space and time, and with the force to rescue everyone.

Longtime fans of the Star Wars series will be excited that Crucible brings together the dynamic trio of Han, Luke, and Leia.  The action-packed story brims with light saber battles

The full title of this amazing book is Aviary Wonders Inc. (Spring Catalog and Instruction Manual) Renewing the World's Bird Supply Since 2031.  The narrator of this story first developed his passion for birds and bird watching while working at his family's logging business (the irony is intentional.)  He is no longer logging; he now runs a company that builds birds.  After searching out the best engineers, biologists and artists to work for him, he launched the company in 2031 and they have struggled to keep up with demand ever since. The company creates the finest of birds, better in many

Frank Herbert’s (mostly) beloved Dune series was turned into a train wreck spectacle in the 1984 version directed by David Lynch.  Personally, I love that train wreck, but it has many detractors.  So, imagine if Dune was instead made by eccentric Chilean/French director Alejandro Jodorowsky during the crazy 1970’s.  He lined up a cast and crew like no other: Orson Welles as the evil Baron.  Salvador Dali as the Emperor.  Mick Jagger in the role later occupied by Sting.  It was to be scored by Pink Floyd.  Throw in Dan O’Bannon and H.R. Giger (Alien, Aliens…), and you have the potential for an

The First Fifteen Lives is an excellent and satisfying journey through time travel. Harry August is a Kalachakras, a group of people born and reborn many times. After a message from a young girl is passed to Harry that the world is ending, Harry is left with the task of saving the world. From the beginning of the story "Let us begin at the beginning" I was hooked. The author lets us see just enough of Harry's previous lives to allow the reader an idea of how being reborn works. North had me questioning the people I cross paths with. Why do some people I've never met seem so familiar? I enjoyed

There are some books that I’ve read that could have benefited from being trimmed down. It seems that authors sometimes try to get dense and intense, especially in the sci-fi/fantasy genres. Dune springs to mind. And while I haven’t even finished the Game of Thrones, its emphasis on royalty and lineage and so forth intimidates me. I like to be challenged with what I read, but if it gets to be more-work-than-fun (particularly in a genealogical way) I usually give up. Call it a mixture of ADD/laziness…

And man…Lexicon was work! But I finished it. Not because of the compelling characters or

The year: 2044. Wade Watts is among the millions across the globe searching for an Easter egg hidden within a massive multiplayer online game known as the OASIS. The game's deceased creator has left 240 billion dollars to be awarded to the first person who can find it. Players must have an extensive knowledge of 80s pop culture to have a chance at winning. Wade competes against opponents willing to kill in order to obtain the lucrative prize.

I do not generally read science fiction novels, but I stepped outside of my genre comfort zone to read Ready Player One and am glad I did. The storyline

In the very near future, Trent McCauley is a 16-year-old in northern England who makes videos by cutting, pasting, and editing movies starring a dead actor he's obsessed with. This isn't just a hobby of Trent's, it's his passion (much like writing Simon Snow fanfic is a passion for Cath in Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl). But it violates copyright and pirating laws, which is why the state cuts off his family's internet access for a year. Trent's mother is now unable to apply for her disability benefits, his father loses his telephone support job, and his high-achieving younger sister can't do her

Much has been made of this show, more than a decade old and canceled before it even finished its first season.

With good reason.

Even suffering from executive meddling, where the episodes were aired out of order and the time slot randomly changed without notice, Firefly built a die-hard group of fans.  They even leveraged their passion into a movie to wrap up the loose ends.  Why are the Browncoats so fanatical?

To start with, the show is written by Joss Whedon—fresh off his Buffy the Vampire Slayer run—and features every bit of the sharp wit and clever mixture of humor and horror that he's

Darrow has the most dangerous job on Mars. He is the helldiver of Lycos, running the drill deep underground that mines Mars for valuable natural resources. Helldivers to not generally live long lives, like his father who died when he was a child. But Darrow has other plans, he is going to make something of himself, and his clan. But he can only rise so far, the caste system of society keeps his people down. They are Reds, deemed to be good at nothing but hard labor. They are ruled over by the Blues, Greys, and at the top...the Golds, the apex of human evolution. 

To celebrate a

The BBC America series Orphan Black is about...well, it's difficult to say what it's about without giving away spoilers. The first episode opens with a young, streetwise grifter named Sarah arriving at a train station, where she witnesses another woman folding her clothes carefully on the platform and taking off her shoes. The woman turns, looks at Sarah...and Sarah sees her own face looking back at her. Then the identical woman walks in front of an oncoming train to her death. Sarah steals the woman's purse and clothes, gets her name and address from her ID, and decides to sneak into this

This story starts with a bang! Wil Jamieson is grabbed by two guys in an airport bathroom. They stick a needle in his eye, ask him a bunch of questions and tell him if he wants to live he has to come with them. Wil gathers from their conversation that he in an important piece in a war they are fighting. Wars have casualties, and before they escape the airport one kidnapper and Wil's girlfriend are dead. Barely trusting Eliot, Wil takes off cross country as a fugitive, trying to discover what makes him so special.

Years earlier in San Francisco, Emily is a resourceful teen, living of her

Great Caesar's ghost! I missed this series when it aired on ABC Family in 2008. Heck, I'd never even heard of it until a couple of weeks ago when I randomly stumbled across it. And boy, am I glad I did!

The Middleman (his real name is never given in the series) is the agent of an organization so secret, even he doesn't know who he works for. He's charged with saving the world from all kinds of amazing threats: alien invasions, mad scientists, zombies, ghosts, vampires, and super-intelligent gorillas. When he destroys a giant, tentacled beast and saves completely unfazed receptionist (and post

If you liked the dystopian themes in Kiera Cass' The Selection, Ally Condie's Matched or Gennifer Albin's Crewel, then ​Landry Park is for you.

In a future where nuclear energy has replaced electricity, there is a sharp divide between those who live privileged lives fueled by this energy and those who live oppressed lives working with the energy.  In this world, a young woman has to make the choice between what’s known, safe, and comfortable and the uncertain, dangerous, can’t-be-forgotten truth. Will she be loyal to her family and ancestors, or will she stand up for what she knows is right?

The Icarus is the largest and most technologically advanced ship in the universe. Traveling across space in hyper-drive, the ship is transporting valuable cargo, Lilac LaRoux, daughter of the richest man in the universe...in fact her father built the ship. Tarver Merendsen is a young war hero, recently elevated to the rank of Major. An unlikely pair, the two are thrown together when the Icarus is violently pulled out of hyper-drive ripping the ship to pieces. The two barely have time to get to an escape pod before the ship is destroyed and Lilac and Tarver, the only survivors, crash land on an

The morning after Seth walks into the Pacific Ocean and is crushed on the rocks by the brutal waves, he wakes up. It is impossible, his shoulder was broken, his skull pulverized on the sharp reef near his Oregon home. He has been transported to the small English town where he grew up (and left when he was only 8 for a better life in America). Everything is exactly the same as he left it...exactly. Nothing has moved, no one has trespassed, no one has cleaned. The house is filled with dust, the lawn has grown unruly and the cabinets are full of moldy food. When he steps outside he discovers that

Victor Vale and Eli Cardale are brilliant calculating risk-takers and the smartest pre-med students at their prestigious university; they also happen to be best friends.  For a class project, Eli decides to research the so-called E.O.'s--extraordinary people who seem to demonstrate abnormal abilities not unlike superpowers.  What's more, during his research, Eli realizes that he might be able to synthesize an E.O., and he wants to try it on himself.  What happens next leave both him and Victor changed forever.  

Fast forward ten years.  Victor has just escaped prison with his intimidating

The aliens have unleashed 4 waves of death upon humanity. The first, an electronic pulse to render all machines useless. The second, tsunamis to destroy coastal cities. The third, an avian plague called The Red Death. The fourth, Silencers, a race of humans implanted with alien intelligences as fetuses, an enemy we didn’t see coming. The 5th is upon us. Cassie, a 16 year old surviving on her own is one of the few left alive on earth. Armed with an M-16 and a teddy bear, she searches for her little brother with the hunky and mysterious Evan. Zombie, was an up and coming athlete when he was

Altered picks up immediately where Crewel left off. Adelice, Jost and Erik are on Earth and searching for a way to get back to Arras to save the ones they left behind and overthrow the Guild. They find themselves in the middle of a rebellion they never knew existed nor truly wanted to join. All three characters have their own motivations and secrets that they are hiding from each other, and very quickly the reader realizes that this will not be a smooth or safe journey. Adelice grows immensely in this novel, and Albin really excels in giving this character a voice and personality that shifts

I've been a Doctor Who fan since I was a kid (which was kind of a while ago). I love the classic series and I love the current show. A patron pointed me towards a recent Doctor Who graphic novel, The Forgotten. It features the Tenth Doctor (my favorite of the new series) and his companion Martha Jones (who I also love), but with "guest" appearances from all of the preceding Doctors. The Doctor and Martha wake up inside a museum, with no memory of how they got there and no clue as to where the TARDIS is. Things get stranger when they realize the museum is dedicated to the life and adventures of

Some book clubs plan their reading list and meeting schedule a year in advance. Friends, that is not my book club. We’re what I’d like to call "charmingly" disorganized; we often don’t know when or where we’re going to meet until the day before.



So when we spontaneously decided to meet at the Taproom this Tuesday to talk about Michel Faber’s Under the Skin , I knew I had to get reading… fast. Because books about Scottish alien cannibal women do not lend themselves well to spoilers.



You guys, Under the Skin is the most fun I've had reading since Gone Girl in June. Part morality tale, part

Everyone has felt the pressure around standardized tests. The thought, real or imagined, that how you perform in this one moment will decide the rest of your life. While we may be lending a dramatic flair to our own examinations, that fear is real for Cia. She has been chosen along with 3 other classmates from the 5 Lakes Colony to participate in The Testing. Every year, the best and brightest high school graduates are brought to Tosu City to undergo a series of exams that will decide who goes on to University. Of the 108 students that enter the capital city with Cia, only 20 will be accepted

Did that title catch your eye? Elvie's dreams of becoming an engineer on a new Mars colony get complicated when she finds herself knocked up the night before her PSAT. Cole, the dreamy new transfer student from Wisconsin, and father of the child, disappears the day after she tells him. Left on her own with only her emergency-prepared father, and quirky best friend Ducky, Elvie enrolls at the Hanover School for Expecting Teen Mothers. Aboard a renovated cruise-liner, Elvie awaits the arrival of 'the goober', and continues to dream of Mars. Until the Hanover School is attacked by space aliens

One of my favorite books of all time is Unwind by Neal Shusterman. The epic story takes place after a second civil war, fought over the morality and legality of abortion leads to peace through the Unwind Accords. This agreement outlaws abortion...however, from the ages of 13 to 18 any child may be unwound by their parents. Perhaps your 16 year-old son gets caught cheating at school, your 17 year-old daughter totals the car, or it just costs too much to feed your voracious 13 year-old son...You can have your child unwound for any reason. Just fill out an easy form and the Juvenile Authority

Originally published in 1999, Battle Royale predates the Hunger Games by almost ten years! The story takes place in an alternate future, in The Greater Republic of East Asia (a totalitarian state formed after some ambiguous war with America).* Every year one 3rd year middle-school class (the equivalent of freshmen or sophomores here), is randomly selected to participate in "The Program." Can you guess what The Program is? Correct! A fight to the death!

Although the game itself is not televised**, winners are announced and interviews on national television. They serve as both hope for the

Beatrice has grown up in post-apocalyptic Chicago, where the community is divided into 5 factions, each focused on a different value. Candor values honest, Amity values happiness, Erudite values information, Dauntless values courage and Beatrice's faction, Abnegation values selflessness. But Beatrice isn't a very good member of Abnegation, selflessness doesn't seem to come naturally to her like it does for her brother Caleb or her mother. At 16, every member of the community undergoes the test to find out what faction they will choose to live in as an adult. Beatrice is nervous for the test

I approached Mockingjay with a bit of apprehension. You know when there is something you really love you worry that the author/creator might ruin it with one swift stroke of the pen? That is the anxiety I felt leading up to the release of Mockingjay. How could you possibly end a series as great as the Hunger Games? Would Katniss survive? What would happen to Panem!? Although I liked Mockingjay it was certainly not a satisfying book.

It starts out with Katniss waking up in District 13 where the resistance is building. She doesn't want to participate but with Peeta captured in the capitol she