As the lockdown eased, we sat down and watched the ten episodes of Picard, the latest in the Star Trek franchise, with 79-year-old Sir Patrick Stewart returning to his most iconic role. In case you don't know much about it, here's the official trailer:

Click to view

I have actually seen only a very few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it was ( Read more... )

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Second paragraph of third chapter: Much of the land area of Anomaly is jungle, and the planet has a very active, almost Mesozoic, ecology. Its surface and seas are aswarm with creatures man-sized and larger, mostly quite aggressive. So I've selected both the landing site and the landing party with some care.
As mentioned before, I picked up a few ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter: Lieutenant Uhura's quarters were a notable exception. They were richly, tastefully decorated with hanging fabrics, a non-regulation assortment of pillow-couches and a chair made especially for the extremely sensitive skin of a Deltan - a chair which was sheer heaven for a human. Sculpture ranging in size from a ( Read more... )

I spent most of last week in bed, and finally got round to watching this great example of the Star Trek genre, which I had not seen before (I still haven't seen the third or fourth films in the series either). Ricardo Montalban as Khan, and Kirstie Alley, years before Cheers, as Vulcan fledgling captain Saavik are both rather more memorable than ( Read more... )

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  watervole: Star Trek XI and thoughts on Kirk's motivations.
  (tags: sf)
  

Since I've written up all the films I've been watching in bed this week, I'll also say something about the one we actually saw in the cinema last week. As it happens, the only Trek novel I have read in the last twenty years is a Vonda McIntyre story about how Kirk and Spock got together, so I had already been exposed to one origin tale. (Her recent ( Read more... )

I bought this cheap at an Irish sf con several years back (or possibly even won it in a raffle) and finally have got around to reading it. Slightly disappointed to find that it covers only the first five years of ST:TNG (1987 to 1992) and even more surprised to realise how few of the individual episodes I can remember having seen (specifically, ( Read more... )

jacobsmills has a question about the Alliance Party's slogan.

neohippie1 draws my attention to this congressional intervention accusing the US administration of being faux Klingons:

I wondered to myself, does this happen in other jurisdictions too? And it does:

( Star Trek references in Westminster and Leinster House )