Category: Bookshelf

Books, Music, Movies, etc.

Starting off 2026

…with think­ing about some high­lights of 2025! I real­ize it’s been over three years since I’ve post­ed here. Like any per­son­al site, it’s not that noth­ing of note has hap­pened. Rather, that so much has hap­pened I just haven’t got­ten around to writ­ing here. With­out any fur­ther lin­ger­ing on that, here are a few of my… Con­tin­ue read­ing Start­ing off 2026

For the past few years, each April 26th I have to look up why it’s “Alien Day”. The date is named after the plan­et LV-426, where the xenomorphs are first encoun­tered in the orig­i­nal, 1979 Rid­ley Scott film. Well, I’ve been a fan of the hor­ror-sci­fi fran­chise since I saw the sequel, Aliens. I’ve since watch any film in the series (good and bad) and read a lot of the comics. So, any­way, hap­py Alien Day to my fel­low sci-fi fans.

Aliens
Some comics, graph­ic nov­el col­lec­tions, and my attempt at draw­ing a xenomorph from cir­ca 1996.

Octavia Butler’s Oankali

Amy Deng’s Oankali for an art exer­cise “Imag­in­ing the Oankali.” A Google image search for Oankali and Ooloi does’t turn up much oth­er than a lot of rough fan art, but I liked this draw­ing a lot; as much because of its ana­lyt­i­cal approach as the rep­re­sen­ta­tion itself. For the sec­ond year now, I’ve read… Con­tin­ue read­ing Octavia Butler’s Oankali

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

I recent­ly lis­tened to the direct-to-Eng­lish trans­la­tion of Solaris com­mis­sioned by Audible.com. While I could appre­ci­ate much of the nov­el, I frankly did­n’t find it all that enjoy­able of a read/listen. I felt guilty about my 3‑star review on Goodreads.com until I noticed that Patrick Roth­fuss gave it 2 stars. Solaris by StanisÅ‚aw Lem My… Con­tin­ue read­ing Solaris by Stanis­law Lem

The Windup Girl

I fin­ished the audio­book of The Windup Girl, Pao­lo Baci­galupi mul­ti-award win­ning nov­el about life in a dystopic Thai­land after glob­al warm­ing and genet­ic engi­neer­ing have wrecked much of mod­ern soci­ety. Baci­galupi is a won­der­ful writer and it is an imag­i­na­tive sto­ry, wor­thy of the praise and awards that were heaped on it after the… Con­tin­ue read­ing The Windup Girl

The Hyperion Cantos

Last night, I fin­ished the final book in Dan Sim­mon’s epic sci­ence fic­tion tetral­o­gy1, the Hype­r­i­on Can­tos. My imme­di­ate reac­tion to the series’ con­clu­sion was that I only want to read it again. They are just that great of a read. In fact, if any­one who knows me had read these pre­vi­ous­ly and did­n’t rec­om­mend them… Con­tin­ue read­ing The Hype­r­i­on Cantos

Reading Zero History

Watch­ing this video of the Fes­to Air­Pen­guin, I’m remind­ed that every­thing in William Gib­son (@greatdismal )‘s Bigend tril­o­gy has already hap­pened, just not yet in that order.

Pandorum

I watched Pan­do­rum over the course of a cou­ple of days this past week1. I real­ly had­n’t seen or read a lot about the film, oth­er than a trail­er and a very short inter­view with Den­nis Quaid on Leno (or some evening talk show). I was­n’t real­ly sure what to expect; but what­ev­er I was… Con­tin­ue read­ing Pan­do­rum