Clik here to view.
Selectively Learning From the Past: The Expanse, “Gaugamela”
On first watch, this episode is a tense system-wide train wreck. On second watch, it made me cry twice. Brace for impact. Spoilers for episode 4, “Gaugamela,” absolutely follow. Bobbie and Alex don’t...
View ArticleClik here to view.
11 Oddball Holiday Specials that Should be Classics
First, I should admit that I’m a sucker for a lot of holiday standards, from The Grinch and Peanuts to Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman. I adore both White Christmas and National Lampoon’s Christmas...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Midnight Sky Takes Us Into Space—and a Bleak Near-Future
Space movies are usually about hope. Usually, if a character heads off into the harsh vacuum of space, it’s because they’re exploring, or learning, making contact with aliens, or transforming into...
View ArticleClik here to view.
To Be Free, Face Your Deepest Fear — Star Trek: Discovery’s “Su’Kal”
This week’s episode picks up right where last week left off, with the crew still gathered in the mess hall to memorialize Emperor Georgiou, but the gathering becomes the subject of several revelations...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Charlie Brown Christmas Perfectly Captures a Complicated Holiday
Charlie Brown looked into the shining void that is Christmas, and became a hero. Here was a child who acknowledged the sadness beneath the festivity, the loneliness, the aching search for meaning under...
View ArticleClik here to view.
I, Cthulhu, or, What’s A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City...
Please enjoy what has become a quiet holiday tradition in the Tor.com offices: the reading of Neil Gaiman’s original story: “I, Cthulhu, or, What’s A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Medieval Origins of Christmas Traditions
I’m smelling mulled cider on the stove, seeing mistletoe in the entryway, and hearing carols carried upon the wind. It’s Christmas time, so let’s talk about some of the origins behind my favorite...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pixar’s Soul Aims to Spark an Appreciation for Life
The opening of Pixar’s Soul serves as a great metaphor for the movie as a whole. In the first scene, we’re introduced to a black musician named Joe Gardener, voiced by Jamie Foxx. As he teaches a class...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wonder Woman 1984 Is Bursting With Unfinished Thoughts
Sometimes you watch a film, and it feels as though you’re having a conversation that never quite makes it to the point. You can see the threads, the ideas, the potential of the discussion you’re making...
View ArticleClik here to view.
You Cannot Live Backward: The Expanse, “Down and Out”
Shall we take a tense and life-threatening trip around the system? Let’s. Spoilers for episode 5, “Down and Out,” follow! “Gaugamela” was a lot to take in as it was happening, but it was really just...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Yippee-Ki-Yay, Michael Burnham! — Star Trek: Discovery’s “There Is A Tide…”
When Die Hard came out in the summer of 1988, nobody had particularly high expectations for it. Just another summer blow-’em-up, whose lead was a smirky TV star best known for his quips on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Author and Podcast Host Anton Strout Has Passed Away
Anton Strout, USA Today best-selling author of the Spellmason Chronicles, and host/curator of the Once and Future Podcast has died suddenly at the age of 50. His passing was announced on the Twitter...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Doctor Who Takes Security to a Truly Unsettling Place in “Revolution of the...
The Doctor is here to help us ring in the new year with her fam and an old friend (who will never stop flirting with her, gender regardless). Summary The scrapped casing from the Dalek that got...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Where Fantasy Meets Reality: The Magic of Libraries
Libraries are magical. We know this, as readers: Rare is the book lover who can’t recall the moment of sheer wonder and exhilaration the first time they understood what it meant to use a library. All...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Canadians in SF as Written by Non-Canadians
Canada! Perhaps best known to fans of British soap operas, for whom it serves as that mysterious land to the west to which characters vanish after their purpose on the show has been served. Of course,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Doctor Who Brings John Bishop On Board
Happy new year to this man and this man only: the BBC announced on Friday that comedian John Bishop will join Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor for Doctor Who‘s thirteenth season, set to air later this year. It...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My Little Pony Taught Me To Write Fluffy, Glittery Violence
I don’t have many memories from before I was six. I don’t think most people do. We have the idea of memories, the stories our families have told us about how cute we were when we were little, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Star Trek: Voyager Rewatch: “Demon”
“Demon” Written by André Bormanis and Kenneth Biller Directed by Anson Williams Season 4, Episode 24 Production episode 192 Original air date: May 6, 1998 Stardate: unknown Captain’s log. Because...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Should We Bring a Cat to Space?
For the first time since the shuttle program ended in 2011, two American astronauts went to space on an American spacecraft, SpaceX’s Dragon. The astronauts hung out at the International Space Station...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Of Animal Bondage: Andre Norton’s Iron Cage
Iron Cage is one of the darker Norton novels. It’s set in a universe that consists exclusively of people who treat other sentient beings as things to be used and abused, experimented on and thrown...
View Article