Tag: SF

The Dirk Gently Graphic Novels (IDW, 2016-2017)

After hearing the Douglas Adams audiobook earlier in the year, I was again interested in the ancillary Dirk Gently stories published by IDW starting in 2016.  These were tie-ins and publicity to the BBC America series that ran for two seasons.  I had collected most of the stories as individual issues but not all of them, so I was delighted to receive the three volumes collecting three separate story arcs: “A Spoon Too Short,” “The Interconnectedness of All Kings,” and “The Salmon of Doubt.”

If you’ve never read Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency or The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul, the original novels by Douglas Adams, start with those. The comics play in that world but are not adaptations.

I am more of a Hitchhiker’s Guide fan, but as an adult I have come to appreciate the absurd, and Adams did well with Dirk Gently. Arvind Ethan David has acquitted himself honorably with the characters and tone of the original.  In particular, the Salmon of Doubt intertwines the TV version of Dirk Gently somewhat and I find myself wanting to go revist the 18 episodes of the show.  (In researching I found a 2010 version done on the BBC that was just four episodes that is on BritBox. More to watch!)

Back to the comics: these collections are good, filled with the variant covers of individual issues and a couple of actors introducing the volumes.  I’m not a huge fan of the artwork but it’s not bad.

 

Starship Troopers 25th Anniversary Edition [4K] (2022)

I’ve owned almost every edition of Starship Troopers that’s been released since 1997.  I just got the 25th Anniversary Steelbook case edition as I only recently bought a 4K television.

Apparently the scan to 4K was done from the original print in 2017 for the 20th Anniversary and this new anniversary edition has a latest kind of Dolby soundtrack.  All I know is: it looks absolutely gorgeous.  The sound was good enough that it unfortunately bothered the dog and I had to keep lowering it.

I admit I have not rewatched this film in many years.  It’s a ‘third-rail’ for fans of Robert A. Heinlein and it deviates from Heinlein’s plot and world-building in several significant ways.  I think that it’s a very good “B-movie” as long as you forget about Heinlein’s source material while watching.  The CGI/special effects are better than I remembered.

There’s always much talk about director Paul Verhoeven’s intent with the film, but there are really two views within the film.  The first is  the close telling of the characters. Watching this is the closest you get to Heinlein’s source, even though there are many deviations.  The second view is the one that I think many people misread.  The FedNet broadcasts/Menu choices are a filtered/propaganda view that reads like a fascist society trying to control its population.  Sadly, by not having the Powered Armor of the MI, Verhoeven doomed the movie to overwhelmingly be about a bunch of amazingly stupid military tactics that don’t make any sense and I think that weights the propaganda side more than it should.

It’s OK to enjoy this amazing-looking edition. Just go and read Heinlein’s book, too.

 

Unrivaled (2023)

I picked this up as a part of my BookBale Kickstarter from Caezik Press.  With these four stories I figured I couldn’t go wrong. Four novellas that all won awards?

I’d only read one of them before–Nancy Kress’ “Beggars in Spain”. This one’s an interesting topic–what if people could be genetically engineered to not sleep, with no ill effects?

Mike Resnick’s “The Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge” was an interesting structure. I never would have read this on its own, I think.

Lois McMaster Bujold’s “The Mountains of Mourning” was probably my favorite in the collection. Even though I have never read a Vorkosigan novel, I think this is a prequel or early-set work so that I wasn’t lost in the world. It has me thinking I should probably reach out for the first novel proper as I think I’d like them.

Lastly (but first in the collection) is Joe Haldeman’s “The Hemingway Hoax”. I know of Joe’s interest in Hemingway, but thankfully this wasn’t too ‘inside baseball’ and it ended up with quite a SFnal bent to it. I enjoyed it a lot.

The only other comment I have on this edition is that the epub version I read had something strange where if characters were italicized on the right border of the page, the right edge, sometimes serif of the characters were cut off!  It didn’t stop me from figuring out text, but it was distracting and occurred through the whole book.

If you’ve buying from BookBale or Caezik, look this collection up. Well worth it.