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Our topic here at the SFF Seven this week is: books vs
movies vs games vs comics.
In ordinary times and in these pandemic times, my first
escape when not writing my own books is to read books by other people.
Currently I do all my reading on my kindle and I’m very eclectic in my choices,
although science fiction, SF romance, paranormal romance and fantasy do
predominate. I always have a large To Be Read list, both on the kindle already
one-clicked and waiting for me to be in the right mood and also in a wish list
of books I might try at some point. If I discover a new-to-me author that I
love, I might end up reading their entire backlist in a big binge before moving
on to anything else.
I also re-read books like Shield of Winter by Nalini Singh, which is one of my all-time favorites.
Sometimes I go all the way back to my favorite Andre Norton books, or Anne
McCaffrey’s, although I do tend to skim a bit when reading a book I’ve
practically got memorized. I found myself re-reading Pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon earlier this year when the
apocalyptic nature of our current situation became clear to me. Randy Bragg’s trip to the grocery store on the
eve of nuclear war, although different than what we’re dealing with, resonated,
shall we say! I always remember the ladies watching him shop and commenting on his
fifteen cans of coffee…
I guess I still am but as the pandemic deepens, I find I’m
going more for scifi romance.
But having said that, my last two reads were This Is Chance! By Jon Mooallem, a
nonfiction book about a woman reporter on the front lines at the 1964 Alaska
quake, and other Anchorage citizens, and how they all coped. I actually knew
two people who survived that quake, one of whom was inside the JC Penney’s
store at the time. The other was standing outdoors and watched the ground
running in waves and going up or down, with crevasses opening up around her. The
book was an interesting read, definitely the 1960’s were another time,
especially as regards women working outside the home. It was a bit jarring to
be back in that era while reading the book, frankly. Then right before that I
read In Five Years: A Novel by
Rebecca Serle, which is a romance with one ‘time travel’ element. And before
that was Paladin, a Galactic
Gladiators novel by Anna Hackett, who is a must-buy author for me.
In the middle of all that reading, I also re-read the first
few books in my own Badari Warriors science fiction romance series. I’m about
to start on the next book, Ivokk, which
will feature characters who have been mentioned off and on, so I wanted to
refresh my memory.
The only thing I watch on live television any longer (which
gets us to my second form of escapism – movies or TV shows) is cable news. For
everything else, I go to the kindle and stream or binge watch. I enjoy the
“skills-based” reality shows – all manifestations/imitations/spinoffs of
Project Runway for example. I never get enough of those, maybe because I used
to sew a lot of my own clothes and my daughters’ Halloween costumes and doll
clothes, so I feel I can relate a little. Some of the shows are better than
others but I enjoy them all.
Also Top Chef is a favorite of mine, although right now I’m
struggling because the current season is in Los Angeles, filmed last year, and
it’s jarring to see the contestants bopping around SoCal, going in and out of a
Whole Foods grocery store with fully stocked shelves, eating at small niche
restaurants that probably went out of business in March 2020…yeah, a bit hard
to take. Oddly enough, I haven’t fallen
in love with any other cooking shows I’ve sampled. I did watch a few seasons of
the one with Food Trucks but that got depressing to me. I watched the Great British
Bakeoff with my daughter and her husband and am sad to say it didn’t grab me
either. There must be some ‘magic’ to Top Chef that keeps my attention.
I loved Face Off, the long running SyFy show where special
effects artists competed to create the most amazing things. I have a years’
long, mild crush on Tate, the Season One finalist and always wanted him to WIN,
not come in second. Which he finally did triumph in the spin off Face Off: Game
Face show and I was so happy for him. (Oh yeah, I’m a devotee of that program
all right.)
I have all the seasons of Making the Team – Dallas Cowboys
Cheerleaders (or DCC as they’re commonly known), although right now it’s hard
to fully immerse myself in the pro football world, since in my opinion the NFL
will have to postpone the coming season, hence no need for cheerleaders either.
During the season, I do watch NFL games, although it’s hard for
me to fully enjoy the game anymore, knowing what we know about concussions and
CTE brain. I think I’m drifting toward abandoning the NFL if they don’t do
better at safeguarding the players’ brains. But wow, when a play goes just
right and the pass is caught and the runner gets into the end zone, it can be a
thing of beauty…I especially love it when some burly defensive player catches an
interception and lumbers (they always lumber) into the end zone…I personally hate
all the reviews by the officials. It’s a game, let them play, you know?
Most of the time I forget who won the contest in any
specific episode of an old season of a reality program like those, so I do
re-watch seasons sometimes. I never remember jokes, who did it in mystery
novels or the winners in these shows! So it’s all mostly new to me when I do
re-watch.
I used to be a Dancing With the Stars devotee but gave it up
about a year ago when the choices of who got eliminated became pretty obviously
messed up in MY mind anyway, with good dancers who deserved to be there passed
over in favor of some people who could barely put one foot in front of the
other but who made ‘good TV’ I guess. Yeah, I was done caring. Although I did
always love their Disney Theme nights. My all time favorite clip from DWTS is Riker Lynch's paso doble to "He's a Pirate."
I have Lego Masters queueing also but have yet to sample it.
I’m watching ‘War of the Worlds’ on Apple+ TV…grim but
engrossing limited series. I SO want the French military commander and the
astronomer to have a romance. I’ve convinced myself there’s definite attraction
going on, but it’s not clear to me they’ll ever act on it in the midst of their
End Of The World As We Know It situation. The series keeps me on edge
inagoodway because they don’t hesitate to kill off people you thought would
live and also to insert some pretty shocking plot twists. I also appreciate the European setting.
I’m not watching any other series right now although I have
‘Manifest’ episodes accumulating. Season one of that was intriguing.
I was a huge fan of ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ partly because I
was a Caltech employee for years and the
series did nail what some Brainiac scientists can be like…they’d also refer to
JPL sometimes, which is where I actually worked. (Caltech runs JPL for NASA.)
It was absurd, it was amusing, it was frustrating…sometimes it was just so spot
on…
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I find right now I’m watching a lot of reality series on the
kindle that center around zoos and what goes on behind the scenes. There are a
TON of those, some with multiple seasons. The variations between the zoos are
fascinating to me. New York versus Tampa versus Columbus… I think the zoo shows
are feelgood TV to me right now. Usually the animals get through whatever the
crisis is or give birth to the darling babies, although every once in a while a
much loved creature does pass away, which is always sad. The keepers are so
attached to their charges, which is heartwarming. There are some dizzying time
jumps – the babies are finally born, (blink) oh here we are six weeks later when they’re
bigger, (blink) now it’s a year later….wow, the miracles of editing.
When it comes to movies, I have a lot of favorites that I
re-watch, like “Aliens” and the 1950’s version of “The Thing From Another
World.” I still have a cabinet full of hundreds of dvd’s but tend to buy the
movie on the kindle if it’s available now so I can sit and watch it up close. I
like musicals, action/adventure and obviously science fiction! I’m not much on
the newer movies, although I’m going to watch the sequel to the Rock’s
“Jumanji” this weekend. I loved the first one and of course I adored the Robin
Williams version. Each film has its own charms. The last movie I actually went
to the theater for was “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”, with my teenage
grandson.
I browse Netflix for movies and offbeat series to try…
I think with movies and scripted TV shows my basic problem
is that as a writer myself, I want the plot points to stay settled. Don’t spend
season two undoing every single thing I loved that happened in season one!
Don’t have your sequel start as if the first movie never happened. Don’t give me
movies with no romance…so I kind of gave up on scripted, open ended series and
sequels. Also, while SyFy's ‘Killjoys’ managed to have its full five years of shows to
tell the entire story, ‘Dark Matter’ and other shows I was addicted to got
cancelled and I hate to feel cheated as far as “what happened to the
characters???”
I’m not a gamer at all, although I find computer games
fascinating to read about and to see discussed on social media. I’m not good at
them either, which probably has something to do with my lack of interest! I’d
rather read. Or write.
I read comics voraciously as a kid but I stopped when DC
Comics started writing too many alternate universes and “Hero X actually dies
in this issue!” plots. See my comments above about scripted TV shows undoing what
had been done LOL. Just not for me! I have vintage Brothers of the Spear and Magnus,
Robot Hunter in the Dark Horse compilations and I do browse through them on
occasion and sigh for the old days a little…
I’ll add that many authors I know are doing jigsaw puzzles
these days to pass the time. I thought it sounded like a great idea so I got a
couple to try. In the old days when I didn’t have an empty nest we used to keep
one going nearly all the time on the dining room table and people would work on
it as they passed by. What I discovered to my surprise now is that (a) it’s not
as much fun when no one else is working on it too and (b) OMG am I compulsive
about wanting to finish the darn thing! Which is ridiculous but I just felt
compelled to slog away at it – the one I was doing had beautiful tea cups in
many pretty patterns and I found I wasn’t enjoying myself at all. It had become
a chore, almost enough to fit on the weekly To Do List – “finish the darn
puzzle!”. So I gave that up. Not for me apparently.
So there you have it as far as my chosen forms of escapism.
Speaking of which, I just put my boxed set of the first 3 books in the Badari Warriors on sale for $.99 so if you've been wanting to try the series for your escapism reading, here's your chance! Featuring genetically engineered soldiers of the far future,
the Badari were created by alien enemies to fight humans. But then the scientists
kidnapped an entire human colony from the Sectors to use as subjects in twisted
experiments…the Badari and the humans made common cause, rebelled and escaped
the labs. Now they live side by side in a sanctuary valley protected by a
powerful Artificial Intelligence, and wage unceasing war on the aliens.
Buy Links: Amazon: Apple Books: B&NNook Kobo
