Mark Martinez

An exciting tale, but I'm a little concerned about Section 31 as the new boogeyman in the alternate Trek verse. Will someone from 31 pop up every time something bad happens?

Set after the events of Star Trek Into Darkness, the first five-year mission gets underway with an iterating mix of old and new, in particular, a ore mature Kirk. I like the trends I see in this ongoing series.

It's all about the process! Wow!

Lyrically chilling turnabout tale.

Breezy, amusing Lovecraftian tale.

Nice twist at the end. Looking forward to more tales in this series.

Interesting way to end the series.

A rollercoaster ride on a seat lined with razor blades. A good read.

The end of this first installment of a series felt a little too much like someone hit the reset button followed by the pause button. Other than my dissatisfaction with the ending, I enjoyed meeting Devi Morris in all her Paradoxian kick-ass fury.

A good summary of the options for mobile writing with tablets or phones. The narrative is time-sensitive since hardware and software are constantly changing, but it's current as I write this and I found some useful information.

Anne Hillerman's storytelling skills aren't quite as smooth as her father's, but this is a good first novel and I think she'll grow into the world of Leaphorn, Chee and Bernie. She made a good decision to focus on Officer Manuelito who has a more complex life than her colleagues.

This one's not for the faint of heart or stomach. Stross tears the unicorn myth a new one in his most recent Laundry tale and explains why H.P. Lovecraft went mad.

Reading Miriam's tale left me punch-drunk. I guess I'll be picking up more of Wendig's work.

Nice blend of real and Trek history.

I've been reading and enjoying Kadrey's Sandman Slim novels recently, but I wasn't familiar with any of his earlier books. To my surprise, this book was sitting on a shelf in my office. I must have bought it years ago with several other New Ace Science Fiction Specials. Published in 1988, Metrophage is set in a hellish 21st century Los Angeles. With Japanese, Mexican and Middle Eastern corporations and oil cartels in control of a drug-addicted, modified populace, nearly every character is thinking about survival and little else. It's a bleak look our future, with an unsettling ending, in that nearly all the characters we might want to care about are dead and Jonny, who's been drifting with the tide, trying to make sense of what's happened around him, has been picked up by another wave and is heading out of town. Kadrey's story got me thinking. Are we almost in his hell?

Another wild ride Downtown with Sandman Slim. Can't keep up with all the movie references. We need a video playlist. Anyone know of such a beast?

Nice setup for the film.

I think Garrett and Strafa will be ok, but I'm worried about the Dead Man.

Part western, part thriller, part fantasy. I'm really enjoying the Longmireverse.

I really enjoyed this mash-up of organized crime and Lovecraftian horror, but it's the characters that shine in this novel–Mookie Pearl, a big bad who loves his daughter Nora, no matter what; supporting characters with heart like Skelly, Burnsy and Werth; and some really nasty denizens of the Underworld.

The two-volume adaptation of Larsson's best seller is competent and complete. There were a few moments in this second volume where I was a little confused and lost the narrative thread, but I found it again. If you're a fan of the novels, you'll probably enjoy the grahpic novel.

I keep buying Alien comics hoping for something new and original, but I keep encountering retreads.

Captain Robert April goes bad!

The last serialized novel I read was Stephen King's The Green Mile. I bought each of the slim paperbacks as they came out and enjoyed the very moving story. I wasn't sure what to expect from John Scalzi's The Human Division, but I've been entertained by his other novels so I pre-ordered the entire set of 13 episodes for Kindle. It turns out that my commute to work is about one Scalzi episode long. Very convenient.

Writing about his publishing experiment, Scalzi suggested that each chapter would be like a television episode in the first season of a show set in the Old Man's War universe. At first, I was a little disoriented. I guess I was expecting chapters in a book. After about three episodes, I understood that he really was approaching this like a TV show, and settled in for the long haul. He was as good as his word. Instead of 13 chapters in a contiguous storyline, he gave us 13 episodes featuring an ensemble cast, multiple locations, and introduced multiple story threads. Some episodes worked better than others, but overall, I had a good time reading his show. I experienced one brief moment of disorientation at the end of episode #13, which concluded without answering some of the questions raised in the plot. That was my book-reading self surfacing again. I got over it, hoping he would follow up those threads in the next season. Will there be another season? Apparently so. See http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/04/09/the-human-division-episode-thirteen-earth-below-sky-above-is-now-live-an-announcement-about-the-future/

I'll be there to read the new episodes. I don't think I'll buy the print edition, even though it has some additional material. Scalzi was up front about that when The Human Division was first announced. I'll wait for new episodes. I had to click a bunch of times to pre-order all 13 episodes, but this is acceptable. Pre-orders can be cancelled if the screenwriter starts jumping the shark during the next season.

So, with a nod to the recently departed and missed Mr. Ebert:

* Thumbs up for the story and characters
* Thumbs up for keeping me engaged and interested in reading another season
* Thumbs up for the episodic structure and commuting convenience
* Thumbs up for pre-ordering individual episodes
* Thumbs up for the experiment

Damn, I like these characters. Which means I'm going to have to read the whole fucking series! Just what I need, more books.