Found Iron Chef Japan<\/i> on the Fine Living Network. Now I need only suffer through the occasional Martha Stewart commercial to get my fix. Sadly, NBC \/ Universal came down on them about the Backdraft<\/i> music, and the whole show’s been re-scored by someone who didn’t really get it; but it’s better than nothing.<\/p>\n
There’s a tire fire in North Carolina this week, and the smoke’s traveled all the way up here. The air in Portsmouth is nasty. I feel like someone in a cyberpunk book who should be walking the city streets with a small respirator. Sucks, because otherwise the heat’s much more tolerable today.<\/p>\n
Thank goodness for the Baen Free Library<\/a> and the Baen CDs<\/a>. Because of those resources, I didn’t pay any money for John Ringo’s The Hero<\/i>. Now, I enjoyed his first “Posleen” books well enough, though the ending of the war was unsatisfying; but this book pretends to be one story for 100 pages (!) and then, without warning, changes its mind, abandons nearly everything, and becomes a completely different story.<\/p>\n Imagine you’re watching the second Trek movie, getting into the story, and the first face-off between Kirk and Khan has just ended. Suddenly, a renegade cadet from the Enterprise<\/i> steals the Genesis Device plans, uses the prefix codes to cause warp core breaches and destroy both ships, and hides in the Mutara Nebula in a 72-hour survival spacesuit to wait for an arranged Romulan pickup. Unknown to him, one of Khan’s men got out in a similar spacesuit, and is hunting him down as the only chance for survival.<\/p>\n While the “hunting each other down” part of the movie might be gripping, I assume most people’s reaction would be, “WTF? What happened to the plot I was just watching? Who are these people? I don’t even like these people.” That was my reaction to this book. Ah, well, it’s not like I don’t have lots more to read, including In The Serpent’s Coils<\/i>, Grave Peril<\/i>, and Little Brother<\/i><\/a> (yes, it’s a free download).<\/p>\n Oh, and while I’m reviewing things, have I mentioned that I am now quite the Steven Moffat fan? The ending of “Forest of the Dead” had me saying to myself, “Bit of a downer, but everything lined up properly, lotsa neat stuff, some good lines. Good episode.” Then: the actual ending happened, and I was floored, damn near cheering out loud. That<\/i> is my Doctor. That<\/i> is the man who bends Time and Space to make things right and be a beacon of light in the darkness. I want to watch more of that guy. Well done indeed.<\/p>\n