Herman Melville Meets Dragons?

The Syfy channel is notorious for awful original movies. The Age of Dragons is no exception. While flipping through the channels the other night I came upon this movie. My father's a dragon buff so we paused to watch a few minutes.
It was an adaptation of Melville's famous novel Moby Dick. In a world where lamps and machinery are run on vitriol, a sort of inflammatory dragon oil, Captain Ahab hunts the great White Dragon who killed his sister and maimed him as a child. Ishmael and Queequeg soon join the crew after being recruited by Rachel, Ahab's daughter (an invented character that does not appear in the book). They travel in a sort of tank/ship across a vast terrain while commanded by Ahab who never shows his face to the daylight. Ahab was played dramatically by Danny Glover.
I did not watch the movie all the way through. Being familiar with the source material, I know that only one man would survive the voyage (and that adding a female character gives a romantic interest for Ishmael and lets there be two survivors.) It was not very well written and had poorly conceived CGI dragons.
Still, it was an intriguing oddity, a fantasy version of a classic nautical tale. If you love dragons or Melville, it may be worth a look. Just don't get your hopes up.

David Tennant is Engaged

It's been all over the news, so I'm sure everyone's heard by now, but I can't not post about this. David Tennant is engaged to Georgia Moffett, daughter of fifth Doctor Peter Davison and the actress that played Ten's daughter in "The Doctor's Daughter". I'm going to attempt to coin another new term here: Whocest- because that is how I'll be referring to their relationship.
Moffett is twenty six and has an eight year old son, she and Tennant are apparently planning their wedding for next new year's day.
I was very disappointed in this headline from the Daily Mail:
"Keep it in the Time Lord family: David Tennant to marry Georgia Moffett... daughter of ex-Doctor Who Peter Davison"
Now even I, an American, know that Peter Davison was The Doctor, not 'Doctor Who.' Shame, shame, an all too common mistake. The Daily Mail disappoints me once again.

Wait... do you hear that loud cracking noise? That is the sound of fangirl hearts breaking across the globe. Personally, I hope that they are very happy together and I completely forgive Tennant this folly, after all, he hasn't met me yet.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

I'll be honest, I've not read much Adams, I've never read the Hitchhiker's series (I saw the movie when it came out). Still, when I heard about this book the premise intrigued me. Since I've been on a mystery kick lately a sci-fi mystery seemed like fun.

This time there would be no witnesses.
This time there was just the dead earth, a rumble of thunder, and the onset of that interminable light drizzle from the northeast by which so many of the world's most momentous events seem to be accompanied.

So begins Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Adams begins slowly weaving threads of separate stories that don't connect for quite some time. The title character doesn't appear until about half way through the story, though he is shabbily delightful and haphazard. Somewhat of a con artist, he takes the approach of holism, or the interconnectedness of all things and other abstract scientific theories when looking at mysteries to be solved and he charges handsomely. The main character, however, is Richard, a young software designer, who finds himself in the middle of a complicated web of time travel and murder. He isn't particularly interesting, but the experiences he has are.
Adams uses sharp, insightful humor to build a world very much like our own, but just slightly slanted to make room for science fiction phenomenon. Though not all of his plot threads are sewn up in a completely satisfactory way, it still is amusing and thought-provoking. Random inexplicable things such as a sofa stuck in a hallway, a conjuring trick, the poetry of Coleridge, and the mathematical beauty of music all lay in Adams's landscape and add color to the story.
Ideas such as quantum physics and chaos theory are touched on in the story as apart of the plot and the way the world of the novel functions.
The story also curiously combines genres. It is, of course science fiction, but there is a mystery at the center and also elements of a sort of fantasy ghost story as well. Very peculiar.
It was certainly different than most of the books I read, but enjoyable. Adams was clearly a very creative, witty mind that loved combing scientific theory with fun and complex plots and some social satire as well.

Doctor Who Special and Series 6 Trailer

The Doctor Who Special that aired on Christmas Day. It was loosely based on Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol with the Doctor trying to rehabilitate a Scrooge character named Kazran during the "Crystal Feast"- that planet's version of the Christmas holiday. Overall, it wasn't bad. There were excellent performances by Michael Gambon and singer Katherine Jenkins. It starts with Amy and Rory on their honeymoon... dressed as a kiss-o-gram and a roman soldier... ahem.

For once the Doctor wasn't trying to vanquish some monster force, he was trying to prevent a man from becoming a monster. Interesting.

Some very humorous timey-wimey things occur. The Doctor might have married Marilyn Monroe, he and a young Kazran also get to wear some fezzes and some rainbow striped scarves. Though all this was amusing, they did play a little fast and loose with the established rules of time travel, such as crossing personal time lines.

Moffat also gave the Doctor a total Sherlock Holmes deduction moment- he notices a painting of Kazran's father and deduces the state of their relationship by its placement in the room in relation to the furniture, etc. For a moment I thought he must have accidentally forgotten he was writing Who and started working on the next season of Sherlock.

Still, overall it was enjoyable and a bit sad.

The series 6 trailer has me so excited! It seems to be very America centric (which as they have been filming in the US makes sense) with some great Western landscapes and a new hat for the Doctor, this time a Stetson- though River doesn't seem to like it much. She seems like she'll be heavily involved in next season... and possibly naked. Yeah. Anyway, some key quotations from the trailer seem to be the Doctor saying "Amy Pond, my life in your hands," and "...monsters are real." Some creepy doll creatures are on the menu (as if dolls aren't creepy enough).

There appears to be: 17th century characters, Nazis, the TARDIS from "The Lodger," the Doctor chained up and bearded, Utah, the Ood, mysterious markings on Amy and River. Neil Gaiman is said to have written an episode this season, so that should be interesting.

Star Wars Day?

As a reluctant sci-fi geek, I feel compelled to mention that today is what is often acknowledged as "Star Wars Day" or "Luke Skywalker Day." I must mention it if for nothing other than the fact that my older brother and I would spend days in the summer watching all three movies in a row and eating Spaghettios out of the can when I was about seven. Ah, childhood.
Today is the May the 4th which makes a clever little pun "May the fourth be with you."
Though according to Wikipedia, attempts to create a Jedi church have failed and no group other than hardcore Star Wars fans celebrates the holiday, it is still a pop culture mini-phenomenon.
In Los Angeles the city council declared May 25th Star Wars Day (the 25th was the release date of A New Hope back in '77). However, the 25th is also known as "Geek Pride Day" and "Towel Day".
Though I can't speculate what special activities one would do on Geek Pride Day, fans of Douglas Adams carry towels around on Towel Day.