Monday Morning Rambling...

Ah, it's another Monday morning. A beautiful time, when all is right with the world, everyone is at their happiest, and chipper is par for the course.

My handlers are now telling me that that's Friday, and directing me to get my first cup of coffee prior to writing from here on out.

So, I've gotten my cup of coffee, drained half of it, and am now in a much more reasonable state of mind to talk about speculative fiction, and this blog.

So, the first thing is the usual Ani-Monday. We get episodes of Noein and Tokko again tonight, so we're good to go on the televised anime front. Additionally, for everyone who missed the premier of Flash Gordan last Friday night, it will be on at 4:30 EST this afternoon on Sci-Fi.

Of course, that begs the particular question of why you would want to watch it. I caught the first hour of the premier when it aired the first time, and well... I stopped watching, and jumped on the computer, not even noticing when my wife changed it from the science fiction to her Law & Order. Usually, my head perks up when even the sound of science fiction being flicked onto the screen while she's channel surfing - so let that go to show how much I was impressed by the series.

Of course, the story could have gotten better after I stopped watching, so I can't honestly say if it was a good show or not, but I don't think I'll be going out of my way to watch it.

On the book front of things, I've read one of the novels I got out the other day (The Rosetta Codex) but I've not written the review for it. Yes, I was a bit lazy last week, or more accurately, I had other things popping up, demanding attention. Then I've started on the second of those four novels, Titan by Ben Bova. Additionally, the next Star Wars novel is scheduled to be released on the 28th of August (the day after my triumphant return from vacation), but quite often when they're scheduled for the last Tuesday of the month, they'll not show up until the first Tuesday of the next month.

Comic book wise there are still a few graphic novels at Books-A-Million that I want, unfortunately, I've spent my budget on things for this month (at least I will have once I've purchased Inferno). I'm not 100% certain when the next Legacy TPB will be released, but I should probably get on top of that.

Movie wise, I've still not gone to see the new Harry Potter movie nor Stardust. Multiple reasons for that, one being that whole budget thing, and the other is I have two kids, and we just recently went to see Transformers. I hate to say it, but those movies may have to wait until the dollar theater, and a time when I can take my eldest to them.

The upcoming fall TV season does look promising for fans of speculative fiction. In addition to the stuff which Sci-Fi is producing, we have the following on the schedule, and all have a serious scifi/fantasy tilt to them:

Returning shows:

• Heroes
• Bones
• Smallville
• Supernatural
• Ghost Whisperer

New Shows:

• Reaper
• Pushing Daisies
• Bionic Woman

Channel color code: NBC, ABC, CBS, CW, FOX

And those lists don't even include things I might not have heard about (a strong possibility with the small amount of TV I actually watch), the cable channels, or mid-season replacements. I love the amount of speculative fiction based shows that are appearing, I guess it is time for the Geeks to inherit the Earth and all, though it makes me wonder what would have happened if Fox had waited until today to produce the failed series, Firefly. Then I realize that since it's Fox, they would have still tossed it from night to night, ensuring that it could not produce loyal viewers, because no one would ever know what day or time it would appear. The television version of the lottery. Frankly, I have to wonder if someone in the programming department of Fox just hates spec-fic shows, because whenever they have a good one on their hands, they do their best to kill it (re: Space: Above and Beyond, Dark Angel, & Firefly).

Finally, the anime field is still somewhat dearth of good shows. Of course, since it is the summer season that is to be expected. I'm three episodes into Code-E and am quietly amused, and hopeful. I downloaded the full season of Tokimeki Memorial Only Love, a slice of life, drama series based upon a dating sim game. It has a number of amusing portions, but is not anything overtly wonderful. I may grab the last few episodes of Idolmaster Xenoglossia that I've missed in the hopes that the storyline has gotten better, or at least to give me something to watch. Then there is always Sky Girls TV. I downloaded the first two or three episodes of this, but was seriously unimpressed with the animation, and since I had something else to do, I turned it off and never got back to it. So I might give that another go, especially since it's supposed to be science fiction.

Also, I may have to give School Days another try. I'm not 100% certain why I stopped watching, but I think it may have been just to realistic in its portrayal of teen angst and that hormonal induced stage of crushes and first love. I've learned a bit about this series since I dropped it. Of most interest is the fact that in the game it was originally based upon, there (as is always the case in these things) multiple endings. In a couple of these endings one or more of the characters would die. The most often scenario was the 'losing' girl committing suicide. If this ending is chosen for the anime it would make for odd watching, as such a show would be powerful to viewers, but I'm not certain it would pass the test for animated fare here in the States. After all, there's still that annoying bias that animated = children.

And I think that's all the rambling for No Krakana today.

Wow, I'm verbose in the mornings, ain't I?