You Should Probably Be Watching Continuum

The loss of Fringe left a large science fiction-shaped hole in my television viewing. Revolution ended up being not very good, Robot Combat League is something we can pretend isn't really happening, and so on. Continuum, a science fiction series from Canada that's being broadcast in the United States, is filling that hole quite nicely. It's like if Fringe and short-lived but well-loved The 4400 went off and had a baby, and the result was a fun, not-too-serious sci-fi achievement.

Book Review: Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris

I have been reading a ridiculous amount of young adult fiction for work over the last month, and some of it has been great, some of it not so great. I had hit a bit of an overall rut in my stack in the last few days, and I finally got to Unraveling, a bit of a tome by Elizabeth Norris. Judging by the cover, I was...well, not very high on this one. With sci-fi for teens being so polarizing, and with dystopia all the rage, I wasn't especially looking forward to the teen heroine in the unrecognizable world making good and saving whatever it is that needs to be saved.

Unraveling is not that book. It's not dystopia, it's not simple heroics. Instead, it's a thrilling adventure ride that's part The Event, part Fringe, and really all awesome.

172 Hours on the Moon is a Creepy YA Sci-Fi Adventure

One thing I've never been able to sign onto is the relationship between sci-fi and horror. I personally never saw the similarities, but there's a long history of sci-fi and horror that exists well before I existed on this planet, and I suppose it's too late to stop that train. 172 Hours on the Moon is a sci-fi horror novel that mostly gets it right, thankfully.

The premise is as absurd as it is simple - in 2019, a worldwide lottery is initiated to send 3 teenagers along with actual astronauts back to the Moon. There's no way this would ever fly in the real world, but just work with it. The teenagers are chosen, weird things begin happening, and, once they arrive on the Moon, things are happening that no one prepared them for, and we finally learn the real reason why we've never went back.

This book has won a number of awards already, and is finally translated into English, so it's clearly doing something right. There's a lot of the film Moon in it, it handles the horror in a less gory, more suspenseful way (which is not to say there's no gore, mind you), and the book goes out of its way to shoehorn in some actual science (the famous SETI "Wow!" Signal is key to the plot), so there's a lot to like. The characters aren't the most fleshed out things in the world, but the science and setting are ultimately more important.

I'm glad this one appears to be getting a wide audience. It's a solid sci-fi, non-dystopian young adult book, which is something I feel like I haven't seen come around in a while. Definitely worth your time if you're looking for something a little different.

Musings on NBC's Upcoming Show "Revolution"

Lost, Fringe, and the Star Trek reboot have essentially made me into an unrepentant JJ Abrams fanboy. It means that I'll suffer through some bad stuff (Undercovers), some mediocre stuff (Alcatraz), and dive into things loving it more than I thought I would (Super 8). The fall television season is, to be frank, looking rough early on. both for fans of quality television as well as fans of genre shows. The best show I'm seeing coming about for the fall so far, however, happens to be this JJ Abrams post-apocalyptic "(Nothing But) Flowers"-inspired (no, not really) drama Revolution.

John Love's "Faith" is a Solid, Worthwhile Space Opera

I've been reading so much fantasy as of late that I was starting to wonder if I lost my taste for good sci-fi. The last few I tried to pick up didn't sit well with me at all, and I had high hopes for this one based on some reviews I had read.

he book is not 100% perfect - it starts out slow, and, frankly, kind of ridiculous. There's good concepts about this mysterious ship that essentially made a civilization regress centuries with how soundly it defeated them, and the ship, known as Faith to those in the system, is back. We have some strange races around, and we have a class of ship that operate outside of the realm of the system government, all of which are named after serial killers. This story revolves mostly around the crew of the Charles Manson, who believe they have the capability to defeat and destroy Faith.

What follows, after nearly 100 pages of sometimes tiring setup comes a simply awesome, very exciting battle between two massive spaceships nearly the rest of the way through. It's tactical, it's psychological, nothing at all happens the way you'd expect, it becomes very philosophical, and it rarely lets up on the gas the entire time. I kept waiting to see the climax of the battle to come and to come, and the book just rewarded me with more action instead.

It's not a traditional sci-fi space opera, even though it hits all those chords perfectly. It was a great read because it scratched my specific sci-fi itch, but it was also a great read because it was so unexpected and unpredictable. I can't say for sure that it broke a lot of new ground, but it felt fresh and different, and that meant something for me.

This book definitely lived up to the hype for me. Glad I grabbed it when I did, and I'm glad I stuck with it. If this is your style, I definitely recommend it.

Divergent is Dystopia Done Right

Divergent surprised me. It's gotten a pretty decent amount of buzz as of late, and with the sequel imminent, I decided to finally pick it up - I didn't have high expectations, because I'm so, so tired of dystopia at this point, but what can you do, right? Thankfully, this book takes the best parts of the dystopian trend, leaves the rest out, and offers up a very strong first book.

The concept works - teens, when they come of age, choose to join one of a handful of "factions" based on personality traits. The problem? Tris doesn't fit well into any of the specific factions - she's Divergent, and that's frowned upon in this world. The story follows Tris as she decides to join the Dauntless faction and learns a bit about what the broader plan is.

The book doesn't bog itself down too too much in the politics and societal stuff that a lot of dystopian fiction does. The book cares a lot less about setting and more about tossing out a fast-paced story. It's very Hunger Games-esque in that regard - we know what we need to know about the broader society, and the details are, as it currently stands, left up to us. It means some questionable mystery setup at times, but it works in the context of this specific plot.

If the book has any flaws, it's that it does not read very much at the age level. It is a very quick read for a nearly-400 page young adult novel, and that's not a bad thing. It works because it has to, and it does work, but those looking for a more immersive experience might be left a little cold.

My assumption is that this will be a trilogy. I'm already anxiously awaiting book two, and I'm very interested to see if Veronica Roth is able to keep things going this well. So far, she's off to a good start.

Nerd History: Claude Degler

I feel like I'm cheating this week, but I've tripped up on the story of Claude Degler, arguably the historical epitome of what constitutes a "fan." His story is a little bit all over the place - institutionalized in the 1930s, presenting a talk at a convention in 1940s that he claimed was written by Martians, claiming sci-fi fans would usher in a new age of evolution, and then briskly disappearing.

If you're ready for your brain to hurt a little bit, feel free to dive down this rabbit hole a little bit. I'm struggling to really make heads or tails of most of it, but it's too interesting not to share. Available is a Fanclopedia entry on him, as well as his Cosmic Circle and an attempt to track him down. Who knows what parts are truly believable and what are more the memories of people who love a good story, but...