Torchwood: Children of Earth

As one of my friends said to me at the beginning of this week: OMG, how good was that! If you want to see my reaction to all five episodes, recorded as it happened, and with no spoilers (I think, no I'm pretty sure) then you should head here.

I've passed the halfway point

After a dry spell in my scifi reading, I'm finally in the groove again.

#20: The Price of Silence by Deborah Ross, a short story published in FSF.

#21 Doctor Who and the Three Doctors a novelization by Terrance Dicks

#22 The Second Ship by Richard Phillips

#23 Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

Repo: The Genetic Opera

Repo: The Genetic Opera

Plot summary from IMDB.com -

In the year 2056 - the not so distant future - an epidemic of organ failures devastates the planet. Out of the tragedy, a savior emerges: GeneCo, a biotech company that offers organ transplants, for a price. Those who miss their payments are scheduled for repossession and hunted by villainous Repo Men. In a world where surgery addicts are hooked on painkilling drugs and murder is sanctioned by law, a sheltered young girl searches for the cure to her own rare disease as well as information about her family's mysterious history. After being sucked into the haunting world of GeneCo, she is unable to turn back, as all of her questions will be answered at the wildly anticipated spectacular event: The Genetic Opera.

My thoughts:

This was definitely one of the oddest movies I've ever seen. The acting was passable - the singing pretty bad, except the songs done by the fabulous Sarah Brightman. And yet, for some reason, I couldn't stop watching. I found myself strangely fascinated by Shilo and her search for the truth about her family. And, of course, Paris Hilton, who was just exactly what you'd expect. I think the filmmakers were hoping for a "Rocky Horror" -esque cult following, and I just don't think it was good enough for that. But, if you don't have anything better to do, it's not the worst movie you could spend two hours on.

To Hie from Far Cilenia by Karl Schroeder (from Metatropolis)

This is the last story in this audio collection, and it has a decidedly different tone that what came before. Instead of an actual city, this story takes place in a series of virtual cities - interactive, multiplayer game cities which future residents have chosen to abandon the real world to inhabit. There is a larger plot - Gennady, a contractor hired to find stolen plutonium, and Miranda, an anthropologist looking for her lost son, are trying to track down a shipment of plutonium believed to have been stolen by someone in one of these virtual cities. However, the exploration of the cities themselves were, to me, much more interesting than the larger story.

With the ever-growing fascination of massively multi-player online games, it is not a stretch to imagine a time when people literally abdicate their lives in the "real" world in favor of one of these online societies. The complex politics and economics of Shroeder's virtual worlds were fascinating, and I was fully engaged throughout the story.

I definitely enjoyed this anthology - in fact, it's soon to be available in print form, and I'm seriously considering making that purchase.

#19 Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold is about Leo Graf, an engineer sent to teach at a distant space station. What he finds there ends up turning him into an activist.

His students are a genetically modified human subspecies called "quads" who have four arms instead of two arms and two legs. They are also genetically adapted to live better in the low gravity of off world living. While the have the same intelligence, personalities and hopes and desires as humanity, they are treated by the research company as property and nothing more.

Read the full post here

#18 Stratosphere by Henry Garfield

I'm an American. Baseball is in my blood. I don't watch the games all the time but it's probably my favorite sport and I'm a sucker for a good baseball story. "Stratosphere" by Henry Garfield takes baseball and creates a near future tale of one of those big game moments.

The hero of the story is one Joe "Stratosphere" Stromboni who is remembered by a fellow player from the Farside league. Although the details of the game aren't spelled out, Garfield gives a number of hints about how the low gravity game would be different from how it is on earth. "Stratosphere" gets his nickname from one fantastic home run that sends the ball into orbit.

Read the full post here.

#17 The Heroes of Googly Woogly by Dalton James

The space adventure that Dalton James imagines is surreal and humorous. The red and blue world of the Soodo and Soodont peoples reminds me of the off the wall space adventures from Danger Mouse.

Despite the goofiness of the planet Googley Woogley the conflict between the Soodos and Soodonts is a good starting point for discussing war, slavery and bulling with children. Like The Sneakiest Pirates the resolution isn't clean cut. With the pirates, their gold is still stolen property and now on Googley Woogley the oppressed become the oppressors, though in a less heavy handed way. In that regard, I am also reminded of The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss.

Read the full post here.