Film, Short Stories

Lunch and a Story, Dinner and a Movie

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The Minority Report ~Philip K. Dick

–published 1956 in Fantastic Universe
–31 pages, read online here , recommended on Best SF Stories.
–4.25/5 stars

The Minority Report ~Steven Spielberg (based on the short story by Philip K. Dick)

–theatrical release, 2002
–146 minutes, Dreamworks/20th Century Fox
–4.25/5 stars

After this past weekend’s experience with Cordwainer Smith, I have been practically binging on short stories. This trend is thanks in no small part to the rediscovery of Best SF Stories (dot) com. Rusty’s reviews include not only links to where stories can be read online but also a handy page count feature which makes it easy to determine if I can grab a quick literary bite while grabbing a literal bite during lunch hour. I had read a different Philip K. Dick short story on Monday (which you will read about on this weekend’s Short Story Sunday) and enjoyed it so much I thought I would try another one today. When I clicked on 1950’s in Rusty’s sidebar, up near the top I found The Minority Report. At 31 pages it was not just lunch, but also a late afternoon/early evening snack. A very, very good one too.

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Book Reviews, Science Fiction, Short Stories

Space Lords ~Cordwainer Smith

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Space Lords ~Cordwainer Smith

–first edition 1965, this edition 1968
–206 pages, Pyramid Books
–4.75/5 stars

“This is science fiction, yes. But it comes from your own time, from your own world, even from your own mind. All I can do is work the symbols. The magic and the beauty will come from our own past, your present, your hopes and your experience. This may look alien but it is really as close to you as your own fingers. Some people will like this very much. Many will not understand it, and push it aside.

That is their loss, reader, not yours, not mine.

We two, we have this story between us. Read a bit and see how it goes.”

(Cordwainer Smith, from the Prologue)

Some people will indeed like this very much. I know that I did.

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Book Reviews, Fantasy, Friday Favorites, Science Fiction

Friday Favorites: Spectrum 15

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(Island #1, Cover image by Michael Whelan)

(-all images taken from the artists’ respective websites for use in promoting this book and their individual websites and artwork. Call for Entries image taken from Spectrum website)

Though I read this for the first time in 2008, I could not think of a better way to inaugurate the Friday Favorites posts for 2009 than to do a brief review of the best art book to come out last year, Spectrum 15: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, edited by Cathy and Arnie Fenner.

Year after year the Fenners pull together a panel of artists and people in the industry and they converge upon Kansas City to pick the entries for the latest volume of Spectrum. For 15 years now the Fenners have been putting together the most amazing collection of fantastic art illustration and though it seems like it would be impossible to do, they manage to top themselves every year.

Spectrum 15 is no exception. This large, high quality art book is filled with hundreds of pages containing hundreds upon hundreds of examples of amazing art from many different categories. It is a thrill every year when the latest issue of Spectrum comes out. For the past 3 years my friend Jeff and I have cracked into our copies together, pouring through it page by page and commenting on the various pieces. It is a real treat and one of the highlights of every year. By way of review, and to whet your appetite for future Friday Favorites, I am including a random sampling of images from Spectrum 15. These are all images that I like, but they do not even come close to representing the variety of images contained in this volume.

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Greetings from 2009

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“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”
~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Hope.

That is what a day like today can bring. True, it is merely another Thursday. Just another day on the calendar. Magic did not settle upon our lives at the stroke of midnight. All our problems have not disappeared, all of our dreams have not suddenly come true. And the fact is that neither of those things will be happening any time soon. But they can and will happen.

Opportunity.

This ‘day like any other day’ is truly a chance for us to stop, to reflect, to record on paper, and in our hearts, the changes we would like to make, the things we would like to accomplish, the dreams that we would like to make come true.

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Eclectic Musings of a Renaissance Geek