Check this out: Boeing, who introduced many of us to the friendly skies, will be giving astronauts a lift in space. Though there are several suppliers of this rising industry, it seems as if Boeing’s got their toes in NASA.
Read more about it here.
Archive for the ‘Sci-Fi’ Category
Need a Ride? 2 comments
Threads of Eternal Light Leave a comment
I know, I know, one more thing about the universe and you’re going to scream, right? However, this one is absolutely gorgeous! I’ve only watched it about 100 times…
See, I guess what intrigues me the most is that space, for all its vastness, has a certain order. According to the scientists at the University of Hawaii, galaxies are but bit players in the universe. They live in gorgeous threads of light, continuing throughout time, without regard to limits of distance.
Our home base, The Milky Way, is barely a studio apartment in a vast expanse of housing, just like any small flat in a giant city – one singular home amongst millions. Yet those apartments are structured within a building, positioned on city blocks, within the confines of an area. Some areas are more concentrated than others, while other sections of the city are more spread out.
The Milky Way is similar, in that respect, as it’s placed on a long street headed towards a more densely packed region. All galaxies are subject to gravity, and are forced towards or away from a center. As habitants of earth, we are subject to constant motion: our planet rotates as it travels around the sun, as part of a solar system that lives in its galaxy that travels toward other galaxies in a cluster that is part of a larger network, all moving towards or away from a center.
To consider the endless possibilities of our universe is to feel very small indeed!
When The Impossible Became Real Leave a comment
I’d say it was the early 1990s. Happened so long ago I can’t quite remember the exact year.
On this particular Friday, there was a a bit of civil unrest and a march downtown, towards the World Trade Centers; the cause, an injustice and the ensuing protest either worried people or, as was often the case in New York, completely ignored. I chose the latter as I headed to my favorite midtown Irish pub to meet my friend Louise for an after-work drink. We often met there on Fridays and became friendly with some of those who shared in our weekly ritual. You could tell it was a good Irish pub; over half were natives of the Old Country.
“Say, what’dya think of that?” said one young Irishman, pointing at the TV.
“The protest? Typical day in the city. It’ll be forgotten by the time we leave here,” I said.
He laughed. “Yea, and I heard in the subway here that the Trade Center had burned to the ground.”
Rolling my eyes, “Like that’s ever going to happen.”
* * *
It’s a few years later. Another Friday. I’m rushing to Grand Central Station with my skis slung over one shoulder, my backpack on the other. There’s more chaos than usual and even though I had my train ticket in hand, I struggled to get out of subway and into the station. I ignored all the brouhaha and raced for the train that was due to leave in less than a minute. Unsteadily wobbling towards the train that would eventually take me to my cousin’s place in upstate New York, a sympathetic conductor holds the doors for me as I leap aboard. The doors close instantly and the train lurches forward.
Every seat’s taken, but where am I going to go with my load? I lean against the sides near the doors and lose myself in my thoughts, until I can’t help but notice nearly everyone is talking about The Explosion.
“What explosion?” I ask a commuter.
“You mean, you haven’t heard?”
“No, I’ve been stuck in meetings all day. What happened?”
“A van drove into the parking garage at the World Trade Center and exploded. Not sure, maybe six, seven, ten? I don’t know, but people got killed. Don’t know everything yet, but the word is it’s an act of terrorists.”
I scrunch up my face in disbelief. “Here? That sort of thing only happens in other countries.”
The commuter shrugs and says, “Don’t know everything yet. Could be some kids unhappy about something. Story’s still developing. Whoever it was, they were wackadoo.”
By the time I arrive at my destination, my cousin knows more. “Yes, that’s right. People died. Lots of damage. The parking garage is totally wrecked. People were eating their lunch in a break room when they died.”
“God, how horrible. Does someone really think they can blow up the towers? Don’t they know they were built to withstand a 727 crashing into them?”
* * *
What a gorgeous day, I thought to myself as I boarded the No. 1 train going uptown. It was a Tuesday, and I held auditions the day before. I produced shows for kids and I looked forward to calling those who made the cut, and writing letters to those who might be on second string. I worked at Lincoln Center at the time, on the 6th floor. The door opens and the receptionist says, “Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“A plane crashed into the World Trade Center.”
“What, is the pilot blind?” Shaking my head, I continue to my office.
Turning on the computer, I read the parade of emails that churned through and sipped my coffee.
Suddenly, a woman screams. “The second tower! It’s hit!”
She has an itty-bitty TV that’s mainly used to watch videotapes. Turning it on to learn more about what the receptionist has said, the image of a second plane crashes into the other tower flashes on its screen. Everyone runs towards her office to see. Pretty soon, it’s evident this is no ordinary day in New York City. It’s probably the worst one in my life. Ever.
My sister calls. “Oh, thank God you’re there! I’m standing in a towel and I’ve been trying to reach you for over a half hour. There’s hardly any phone service.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
She tells me. An iron taste fills my mouth as I can’t quite grasp the news that my beloved New York is on fire, the Pentagon is too, plus somewhere out in Pennsylvania a plane seems to have been shot down. And perhaps more’s about to happen, but no one knows…yet…for sure. “Don’t freak out,” she says, “You must remain calm to be safe. Do you hear me?”
“Sure,” I say, but wonder what safe translates into on this occasion.
Our executive director calmly informs everyone that since Lincoln Center is a tourist site, it’s being considered a target and we are to evacuate. Gathering up my stuff, I turn off the computer and leave. I’m too frightened to be scared, too much in shock to worry about what comes next.
Yet, there are shreds of encouragement tucked in corners. The cataclysmic events that brought down two towers united a city of eight million. As I walked home from Lincoln Center to my apartment in Murray Hill, the roads were clogged with traffic going nowhere. Sidewalks were lined with crowds, each gathering in front of anything that broadcasted. Monitors and displays in store windows, formerly showing videos of the latest whatevers, now presented a variety of news stations. A cop, hands waving in exasperation, shouted to a lady, “Ma’am, I can’t tell you what’s going on because I don’t know what’s going on.” Crossing through Central Park, an overturned garbage can held a boom box, ringed with listeners. A Parks Department pickup truck played its radio for anyone that cared to hear.
I crossed Sixth Avenue. My eyes were drawn to a particular, peculiar image in the distance: a distinct, crooked, Y-shaped double plume of smoke. I deny its existence and move on. Drifting down the streets, aware that I was headed home but unable to process the unfathomable series of events, I look up at the crystal-clear blue sky. How can it be that such a gorgeous day brought such a horror?
This must have been what Pearl Harbor was like, I remember thinking.
Yet for all of this, no one, and I mean no one panicked. They helped. Store owners handed out water and sneakers to tired passers-by. The police, aided by academy cadets, stood on every corner and did their best to help people on their way, soothe them, or, in a few instances, embrace those who worried aloud that their son, daughter, husband, wife, friend or other family were trapped and died. “Just get yourself home,” I heard one cop say, “and keep the faith. That’s what I’m doing.”
I finally arrive and turn the key in the door. My neighbor hears me and rushes out to give me a hug. “Come over,” she says.
“In a minute,” I reply.
My answering machine is full. Friends from England, Australia, Germany and throughout America have tried to reach me. All are crying. All fear the worst. I try to send an email but there’s no more service. My neighbor’s door is open and I walk in. She’s glued to the TV. We both have friends who worked there, and I have a close friend who worked across the street. Suddenly, a huge cloud of smoke heads uptown and we rush to close the windows. At the same time, F-16s fly over. “Oh, God, what next?” my neighbor says.
“Don’t worry,” I answer. “We’re safe.” But for how long?
Later, I return to my apartment. I’ve eaten nothing and don’t care to. Can’t watch the news any more; the sirens blaring and planes above tell me what I tune out. Closing my eyes as I fruitlessly try to sleep, the repeating image of crashing towers plays a loop in my brain. The next day is equally beautiful, but eerily silent. Going for a walk at 6:00 am, when the city’s just starting to bustle in earnest, it’s noiseless and still. No one goes to work. Nothing is open.
Days after, the odor of burning electricity drifts throughout the city. I can still smell it. A few blocks from my home is Bellvue Hospital, set up as a triage but turned into a morgue and memorial.
Gradually, life returned. Through all the tragedy and sorrow, New Yorkers, ever a resilient bunch, picked up their daily habits and continued on, showing the terrorists that NOBODY’S going to mess with THEIR city! We shopped, dined and enjoyed each day for our friends and family that could no longer.
Exactly three weeks after this horrific event, a British man, a friend of a friend, came on holiday, having booked months in advance.
Nine months later, we married.
Twelve years later, we still are, very much in love and quite happy.
Thirteen years later, we’ll never forget that each day brings with it fresh opportunities for love, forgiveness and hope that one day, we’ll all figure out a way to get along in peace.
Remember that, and the lives of the victims of that tragic day will not have been lost in vain.
The Fate of Our Lives, Shimmering in Eternal Light Waves Leave a comment
Credit: ee.princeton.edu
Here’s another wonderful video from Dennis Overbye at The New York Times. In it, he explains how time and light partner up to offer a show from nature centuries after it occurred.
Light, in space, is literally a living memory of events long past. There’s a profound statement at the accompanying article’s end, stating that even the light on our face shine forever.
Can you imagine? That glorious day at the beach where you smiled at the sun as it reflected on the waves and your face? That’ll live on, in the shape of light rays. And so, whatever light touches, it has the ability to record and send off our particular experiences. Using light to record humanity? There’s been speculation with sound waves and how others out there will find us via our words, sounds, broadcasts. How would they make sense of our pictures? They’d arrive apart, since light travels so much faster than sound ever could.
Now imagine if both the sound and light waves intersected, but with completely different meanings. Light from the 16th century paired with sounds from this one – this jumbled mess as message. Who would read it? How might it be interpreted?
Light is absorbed when it encounters obstacles, such as black holes. Light waves, from a fairly concentrated source on Earth traveling outward, face the possibility of reaching entirely different destinations. Some of those particles risk absorption, but others fly free. A patchwork image received by an off world interpreter might wind up with a Swiss cheesy image not entirely accurate of what it was meant to represent. Perhaps, too, that’s what we might receive here at the home planet.
Darkness is the absence of light. What gives some light waves the ability to survive while others terminate, creating darkness? Or is darkness merely another form of light? Is it light that the eyes on this planet have not evolved to discern? What forms out there might interpret our version of light as darkness?
Just a little something for your minds to unravel as you attempt to rest your weary brains for the night.
Seat-Of-Your-Pants Sci-Fi Story 1 comment
Gretchen Weerheim and sister Gwen Jones with some familiar friends made entirely of Legos
Lord, it’s been hard to keep up with this blog when I’ve had so much going on in my personal life.
Summers, on the whole, are meant for enjoyment. Mine, however, consists of closing chapters and starting new ones. On the brink of Summer 2014, my mother passed away. My father, who has Alzheimer’s, deeply grieves her loss. After 60 years of marriage, that’s not hard to grasp. He refuses to leave his bed, and when he does, it’s for brief spells only. My sister and I have been taking care of him in a tag-team fashion. We’ve had to face some ugly realities, such as selling his house and placing him in smaller quarters. We refuse to place him in organized, institutional housing and evaluating alternatives comes at a cost – financially and otherwise.
All this stress really shut down my creative mind to the point where even pondering what to put down in both a novel I’m working on plus this blog made me feel guilty. I’d sit down, armed with coffee and good intentions, only to stare at the screen and wind up reading anything from The New York Times to The Comics Curmudgeon.
Last week, after a long day tending to my father and his house, I sat down at my desk and once again, grew despondent. Nothing. The sound of crickets outside reflected the activity in my brain. Seeking inspiration, I read through my older blogs, trolling for ideas, thoughts, encouragement.
I found it – from two fellow bloggers who comment regularly on what I manage to write.
Among my archives I reread “The Plot Thickens,” in which I describe an exoplanet first thought to exist and then suddenly, it vanished. D.R. Sylvester positively commented on a description I gave regarding an astrophysicist (“red-headed ball of fire”). Then Hugh Roberts of Hugh’s News and Views commented on how another brief posting of mine, “A Gorgeous View of the Universe” inspired him. Feeling somewhat more encouraged, my mind took a right turn back into my family and how they shaped me into the writer I’ve become.
An earlier blog, “Mom, Up With The Stars”, described my mother’s influence on my love for sci-fi. My father, the middle child out of eleven, born shortly before the stock market crash of 1929 and whose family fell victim to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, had inspirations for writing. Dad had a way with words and loved good stories, especially history. Both parents encouraged my sister and I to express our artistic ways, no matter what form they took. Gwen Jones, a best-selling author whose titles appear on the Woman’s Fiction and Romance listings, encouraged me to move my writing talents from technical/educational to science fiction. Thanks to her, I belong to Liberty States Fiction Writers Group, a highly-regarded group consisting of many best-selling published writers in all genres, plus those who are well on their way. Andrew, my husband, is probably the biggest fanboy ever. His multitudes of sci-fi novels fill many of our shelves and I deeply value his input and opinions. He’s a great plotter, too.
With this basket of goodies at my table, I chose to take another approach to writing. With one novel finished and another underway, I’d thought I’d create a side project, if you will. You might notice it listed at the top of my blog – a new page called “Incurable Mistakes – A Serial Story.” Using D.R. Sylvester’s suggestion that the red-headed ball of fire astrophysicist plot line might actually work, I bore that in mind as I sat in my father’s home and began telling a tale. I invite anyone out there to come and join me. Read along and if you have a great suggestion, send it on and I’ll work it in. Call it a group novel. The only thing I haven’t figured out (haven’t tried, actually) is how to make subpages for new chapters, although I’m sure it’s easy.
I’m not making promises, but I will try to slap together 500-1000 words a week. Anything readers of this blog can add to the pot might make this stew tastier!
Bring it on, folks! What say you?
Defining Lucy Leave a comment
What is it about the name Lucy that translates into a woman of exception?
My first exposure to anyone named Lucy appeared like this:
Thanks to “Peanuts” and Charles Schulz
Though depicted in cartoon form, Lucy was mean, authoritative and plain bossy. Her combative side played against her profession as a therapist, although her rates were rather low to reflect the acidity of her plain-spoken advice.
Credit: “Peanuts” by Charles Schulz
Don’t be fooled by her placid expression – this girl ate boy’s psyches for lunch!
Somewhere along the line, well before the above Lucy’s time, another individual bearing the same name roamed the planet. None of us were around to duck her left hook or receive any sort of constructive advice from her jaded mind. This particular Lucy avoided verbal battles and stuck to those pertaining to self-preservation.
Credit: University of Minnesota at Duluth
Lucy’s daily life revolved around the basics: food, water and trying not to be eaten by hungrier life forms. Her ambitions weren’t to solve ancient mysteries, yet she became one for moderns to discern. Little did she realize she’d become a celebrity in scientific circles; the most she probably hoped for was to make it to the end of each day in one piece. Still, I can imagine her fighting off both her kind and others who might interfere with her general happiness and well-being. Take a look at that face: is that a smile or a taunting smirk?
This brings us to yet another Lucy:
Credit: “Lucy”, Universal Pictures
As you can see, this Lucy beautifully combines the self-preservation instincts as our ancient Lucy with the no-nonsense style of “Peanuts” Lucy. As the unwilling recipient of a manufactured illicit drug from a notorious Asian drug god, Lucy finds herself evolving rapidly through the 100% capacity of her brain. All sorts of neat things happen, both for good and ill, but she makes it plain that once she’s got this drug in her system, she’s driving the bus and she’s not waiting for anyone to get on.
My husband Andrew and I went to our local dodecaplex to see “Lucy” for ourselves the other night. Eschewing overpriced greased popcorn, we scored prime seats and sat through the merciless chain of dull trivia slides, irritating adverts and banal animated rules and regs for the theatre. As the lights grew dim, we were subjected to the endless onslaught of trailers, including the truly frightening one for “Fifty Shades of Awful” (one look at the male “romantic” lead leaves you questioning: Him? Really? That’s the best casting could do? Hint from a woman to guys: DON’T take your favorite lady to see this on Valentine’s Day when it opens. Trust me. Flowers and chocolate are a far better choice).
Just short of a revolt from the audience, the film finally started. I’ve always like Scarlett Johansson and she seems to do well with sci-fi roles that have a bit of bite to them. Though she started off a bit weak, her performance strengthened as the film went on. What I didn’t like about the film was how it expected viewers to take a real leap of faith about how the plot unfolded, and just expected you to believe what was happening required little or no explanation. Although that could be said for many sci-fi films, on the way home Andrew and I laughed about how aspects of the plot unfolded without regard to plausibility. Still, we liked it a lot, it was entertaining and fun and I’d recommend it.
Besides, SJ’s Lucy gets to meet her ancient predecessor. Shame there was no mention of Charles Schulz’s creation.
Where Is Everybody? Leave a comment
The New York Times had an excellent article on the possibilities of life Out There. You know, all that space that the universe occupies. According to Carl Sagan, there was no reason not to expect life that was comparable to humans. But if you asked the competition, evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, we were it. Sure, it was reasonable to expect primordial soup in other locales, with perhaps a few vegetables thrown in for variety, but Mayr was steadfast in his beliefs that the chances for humanlike life anywhere but here was slim to nil.
Naturally, there’s also that school of belief that attests to aliens living among us, including the abductees who’ve been tested and probed. Those unexplained sightings of strange ships hovering over dark highways in remote locations – that can’t be fake, eh? There has to be something real under Area 51, right? After all, why do they protect it so fiercely?
If you ask me, I’d bet the rent on life existing outside our little blue dot. Compare it to the lottery. The higher the stakes, the more players become involved. Eventually, a number’s picked and a winner is paraded before cameras as the newest bazillionaire. On occasion, though, there’s more than one winner, and regularly three or four. I’m no mathematician, but what are the chances that several people will bounce into the local gas station, drop $20.00 on gas and another $3.00 bucks for a few Powerball tickets and all come out winners? It happens. So why not expect life on other planets?
Carl Sagan maintained that sound waves generated from TV and radio drifted out among the stars would signal to intrepid space voyagers our existence. That was detailed in Contact. Those sound waves possess properties that cause them to stretch and grow as they wander further from their source. By the time those waves are detected, what discernible information remains attached to these signals would be challenging to interpret. But then again, the right exoplanetary scientist might find them an intriguing prospect: thin signals meaning what? A project to research, to turn heads into another direction to discover their source? Our planet, uncovered at last?
What’s to say there isn’t a planet with inhabitants who share the dreams of finding others, only to be told the possibilities are so incredibly remote it isn’t worth a bother?
Here’s how I see it: out there, far from Earth, a soul ponders what bioforms rose and prospered elsewhere in the abyss of space. Technologically advanced to send out space probes, this soul launches a machine capable of seeking clues, if not evidence. Time passes, the soul dies, but other scientists take this soul’s place and keep on with the vigil. Eventually, the machine wanders so far away from its home planet that even its trail of crumbs grows cold. After a great deal of time, the machine is lost to memory and passes into legend, but the language on the foreign planet evolves to the point where even the legend transforms into a mystery and eventually forgotten. Meanwhile, life on that planet succumbs to its own evolution as its inhabitants face other issues that seem more pressing or trivial, but interest in further explorations has shriveled as it’s become necessary to focus on the lack of rain, food, or a dwindling resource that is elemental to the stability of life on said planet. Or, life for the other planet’s inhabitants is fulfilling, and therefore interest plummets because all needs are met and exceeded. Curiosity fades as the inhabitants indulge in The Good Life and place high importance cultivating perpetual happiness.
On a peaceful September morning, blue skies except for drifting patches of cumulus clouds, a flash streaks across the sky. Whatever caused it crashes into a suburb of a medium-sized city, resulting in a fair amount of damage to both the landscape and the object. Upon cautious examination, its solid core leads Earth scientists to believe it’s not merely silicon. Placed in the hands of a particularly observant scientist, a barely imperceptible vibration reveals a secret only a sensitive hand would notice. “Hey,” says the Earth scientist, “I think we got something here…”
No alien spaceships, no apocalyptical force, only a simple device, badly damaged and time-worn, offers a clue to a glorious civilization similar to our own, whose own culture is seemingly lost to the wastelands of space and disbelieving souls.
Quick but Quotable Links! Leave a comment
Hey There!
In addition to my regularly-scheduled blog entries (which, I admit, have been rather slim as of late…sorry!), I’m dishing up a delicious serving of quick but quotable links. That is, once you take a look at what I’ve got here, you’ll be talking about them to your friends, family and blogosphere buds.
So without further ado, here they are:
1. This comes via the website Cool Infographics, which offers a wide selection of ordinary data magically transformed into wonderful graphics detailing ideas, thoughts, facts and other items of note. Randy Klum is the author of both the site and the book of the same name. The link below details 50 years of visionary sci-fi computer interfaces, or, in other words, television shows and movies’ predictions for our digital futures, starting with “Lost in Space” and continuing onto the movie “Oblivion.”
http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2014/8/13/50-years-of-visionary-sci-fi-computer-interfaces.html
2. There’s a whole batch of brash storm chasers following tornadoes, or hurricane hunters that fly planes directly into the eye of a hurricane to see what’s going on inside. I’ve witnessed tornadoes forming myself (not by choice) or totally nasty thunderstorms approaching while driving. Now imagine yourself aboard the Cassini spacecraft and zipping around Saturn. You’ve discovered a storm at its north pole unlike any other. Click here and prepare to be amazed…
3. Here’s a followup to the blog a wrote a few weeks ago regarding the zombie spaceship otherwise known as the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3, or ISEE-3. Unfortunately, the hardworking citizen scientists were unable to steer the craft into a direction that would bring it closer to the moon. However, I highly recommend that you not cheat yourselves out of this remarkable adventure and learn more about its extended mission and those that made it possible. Visit its website here.
4. The Martian Confederacy by Paige Braddock and James McNamara is a relatively new online graphic novel. It’s the year 3535 and three outlaws struggle to save Mars, once a former vacation destination. Read it!
5. Thinking about the perfect Christmas present? You can’t go wrong with a genuine lightsaber! Pick out the perfect one for your favorite Jedi knight right here.
That’s it for my quick short list! Enjoy!
What’s In a Name? Leave a comment
Credit: JPL
(Click on the below link for a VERY COOL video!)
Used to be that naming planets was a fairly simple task. The Ancients looked up towards the skies, observed that a handful of stars travelled across the sky (and, in fact, planet means “wanderer”) and gave them a suitable name that reflected what they saw.
For example, Mars, glowing red in the heavens, was named for the Roman god of war. And it wasn’t just the Romans who considered this planet the embodiment of conflict and challenges, many cultures and their languages also saw fit to give it this distinction. The Greeks called it Ares, Hindus call it Mangela, Hebrews call it Ma’adim, in Sanskrit it is known as Angaraka, and in Babylon one would notice the rising and setting of Nergal.
With the advent of stronger telescopes, more planets within our solar system were discovered, though not bright enough to spot with the unaided eye (mostly – if you know where to look on an incredibly clear night in the middle of a very dark, dark field with absolutely no chance of any interfering light from any source, you might see Uranus, but that depends on other conditions, too). I’ve seen Jupiter’s four bright moons, through a telescope but with my own eyes, too (but you have to cover up Jupiter with a magazine to see them; it’s much less of a challenge to spot them even with birding binoculars or a decent pair of opera glasses).
Nowadays, we have a problem of riches. Thanks to the hard work of astronomers, astrophysicists and others trained to observe the telltale signs of wobble and movement, there are over a thousand planets at our disposal. Sure, they’re ridiculously far away and chances are you’ll never see any of them though your backyard reflector. But you might see the star they’re rotating, and imagine what kind of life lives upon these exoplanets, as they’re called.
Do you want to blow your mind? The New York Times has an amazing interactive graphic that’ll keep you busy for hours. I can’t even find the words to describe how amazing this chart is, but if you check it out, make sure you scroll down to the end. I won’t give away what’s there, except you’ll gasp and say, “hmm! The ones found are the result of NASA’s Kepler mission that have confirmed planets rotating around stars. If you click on some of the graphics on the above link, up will come information about the planet and its sun.
Of course, it’s impossible to find appropriate names for this batch that seems to be growing daily. That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been attempts. The International Astronomical Union is sponsoring a contest for that very purpose. Have any ideas? Here’s your chance to honor a hitherto anonymous planet with a memorable, catchy handle, just as you would a baby.
Trouble is, what would the inhabitants of said world think?
Sham Sci-Fi Leave a comment
Did anyone miss me? I’ve been busy with a few things, but not too busy to put pause to my daily activities and make fun of the worst that the SyFy network has to offer. And yes, I know I’m not the only one here who has commented on this very subject but…
Sharknado? Sharknado II??
Okay. It barely qualifies as anything, and I wouldn’t dignify it placing it in the same category as science fiction.
So here’s my question: Why?
There’s sooooo many sci-fi writers out there, dedicating their precious hours to composing what will shape up to be terrific stories with – gasp – plots! and yet somehow, these same writers struggle to see the light of an editor’s desk. How is it, then, that some crank hack manages to pull off not once, but TWICE a crappy story?
I speak with authority. My husband and I watched the first entry quite a while back and we would have changed the channel, but we were watching that train wreck believing it to be a parody. Sadly, we were mistaken. Embarrassed to admit our mistake, we pledged to mentioned this incident only between ourselves. The next day, Sharknado was all over the media, an unlikely success. Not in the blockbuster vein, mind you, but in the gobsmacked, godawful disbelief category. Viewers just like us shook their heads, wondering what subliminal force soaked our brains like dry sponges and wrung them dry.
Then, our worst fears took root: if once wasn’t bad enough, SyFy figured they’d give a horrid idea a second go. As if New York doesn’t have enough problems, let’s add tornadic sharks to its woes. Fear not, though, because our hero comes armed with a chainsaw once more.
Now, this entry catches the attention of The New York Times. They’re not bragging about it, natch. Their review is rather nasty…but fun. Needless to say, I skipped watching it, having busied myself with real goals and ambitions for my life.
Still, I was a tad curious.
So were the good folks at the Huffington Post. My husband Andrew thoughtfully sent me a link to Sharknado 2. The best part? It’s two minutes long and cuts right to the chase.
Kind of reminds me what Robert Rodrigues would do if he had two minutes to trash a trailer. Or film. Check it out!
I promise my next post will return to my regularly scheduled programming.
Moon, Stars and Beyond 