Jack Chalker’s Well World Books
(Originally posted on November 15, 2017) The Well World books are . . . different. Jack Chalker was an oddball writer. Not a bad writer, but an odd one. All of his books had an overriding theme: bodily change. Well World is probably the ultimate example of this. The basic theme of Well World goes […]
Battle Beyond the Stars: A Forgotten Gem
(Originally posted on September 20, 2017) Battle Beyond the Stars came out in 1980, riding the coattails of Star Wars. Every studio was scrambling to find an equivalent franchise after SW hit the movie scene like a nuclear bomb. Roger Corman, the king of low-budget schlock, slapped together this movie in short order. The results […]
The Star Fox is Iron Man? A Poul Anderson Great
(Originally posted on September 13, 2017) The Star Fox (1964) is a favorite novel of mine from the late, great Poul Anderson. Like a lot of Poul’s novels, there is a political undertone to it. Poul wrote a lot of Libertarian themed fiction, like several of his contemporaries (such as Heinlein.) This novel is both […]
Dahak Series: A Grand Concept
(Originally posted on September 6, 2017) The first of David Weber’s Dahak Series, Mutineers Moon, came out in 1992, preceding his lucrative Honor Harrington books by a year. The series consists of a mere three books, but they’re not bad. Tightly written with a grandiose and outrageous idea. I enjoyed the hell out of them. […]
My First Science Fiction Series: Flinx and Pip
(Originally posted on August 23, 2017) The Flinx and Pip series by Alan Dean Foster appeared on my radar screen in the late seventies. I was ushered into this series via Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and Alien movie adaptation. Before that my experience with science fiction had been movies and comic books. Although […]
Star Command/In the Fold: 90s Cheese
(Originally posted on June 7, 2017) For many years I tried to find Star Command somewhere on the web. The difficulty lay in the fact that I couldn’t actually remember the name of the damn thing. Until recently, I had only seen it once–20 years ago. However, thanks to the wonder of YouTube, I tracked […]
Warstrider Series: An Unappreciated Gem
(Originally posted on May 24, 2017) The Warstrider series entered by consciousness way back in the early 90s. I only became aware of it because the author, a William H. Keith Jr., wrote several Battletech books. Those Battletech books, while game books, were so outstanding I instantly started following the Warstrider books. They didn’t disappoint. […]
Moments of Coolness #3: Wrath of Khan first skirmish
(Originally posted on May 21st, 2013) Okay, for you youngsters out there you might not realize how groundbreaking Wrath of Khan was. You just see the repeated jokes with Shatner screaming “KHAAAN!” and not think much more of it. See, thing about it is, back in 1982 when it was first released, it hit like a bomb. […]