SpaceBrew Review: Ancient Shores

Ancient Shores
by Jack McDevitt

as posted on Goodreads

This book was like a “wave” at a football game. You know the one where people stand up in turn waving their arms around and it gives the effect that the stadium is an ocean? Yeah. That. Let me explain the analogy.

Well you probably got that it was up and down with the suspense, drama and general kickassery of the story. It was indeed. The gait would pick up and get me real interested, then it would slow back down and even bog down with unnecessary character introductions and irrelevant loose ends. But it also reminded me of a stadium wave because of how imperfect the wave part of the wave actually was.

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  • Reading time:6 mins read

Life Comes At You Fast (And So Do Cars)

It’s weird – I never thought it would happen to me. I am so defensive and cautious and alert, and even what one might call ‘super-ambulatory’. But none of that matters. I even saw it coming. He was turning left, but looking right as he pulled onto Lemmon heading Northwest. I noticed he was turning wide, into the center lane, obviously swerving wide to avoid me. But then at the last second, he changed course and started aiming for the inside lane, right where I was.

People have these theories that if ever a car bears down on them, they’ll jump in the air, do a fancy football juke, or a double-back-flip over the car. Well I just thought I’d be able to dash out of the way real fast. Well, as it turns out, time isn’t very elastic, and it just marches forward, second for second. And by the time I realized he wasn’t seeing me, I was out of options. So I turned and faced the truck. A Tahoe, it was. A white one with a black driver. And faster than lightning, he hit me.

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  • Reading time:4 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: Dooms Day Book

I have so many things to say about this book. I’ve never really read anything like it. I do love time-travel tales. It follows that I love anachronistic situations, people getting stuck in a different time, and – well, just a bunch of bad schlit happening. This book has all that. I also rather enjoy tales set in medieval times, or the Middle Ages, as it were. I’m not, however, big on fantasy. You show me a dragon or a wizard, and I’ll show you how to set down a book so fast you risk injury to the wrist. Alas, this novel had nothing of the sort. This book was more like a National Geographic presentation about the Middle Ages.

I hesitate to say anything about what happens in the book for fear of the spoiler. It seems to be that every other review on the book sort of just expects you to know it though. The thing that perplexes me is that if Connie Willis had expected you to know the preliminary twist, why did she write so deeply into the book trying to add suspense and mystery over it? Why did she not just advertise it on the dust jacket? Well, I don’t know. But assuming you aren’t only going to read one review – my review – of the book, I’m going to have to go with the notion that you probably already know what the book was about, and that huge plot device that seems so carefully hidden by Connie yet so destructively advertised by every other reviewer I’ve seen. Further, if I don’t talk about it, then I really can’t tell you why I thought so highly of this story.

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  • Reading time:8 mins read

Time Machine Status: Repaired

Some time ago, I requested your help with finding the cause of my failing Fonga Plug on my time machine. I’m sure you remember the column. It ended up not being the Reticulating Cockball Assembly, after all, and instead the Hyperflux Induction Modulator. And since you cannot buy one of those at Auto Zone, I had to craft one myself.

So I started with the basics. Of course you have to have the Hatford Loop. Without a Hatford Loop, your temporal course will never stabilize. You can literally get lost in the ether between seconds, trying to find your way back to 2254. I have heard horror stories about guys tearing off into the mezazoic period with a camera and a dream of photographing a dinosaur and turning up fossilized in the future. Don’t even ask.

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  • Reading time:3 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: The Prestige

Occasionally there comes along a film that is so great it makes you say a cuss word and choke on your bourbon. And even more remotely, there comes one that makes you rearrange and alter your top-five favorites list. Well, friends and enemies, this here is one of those.

This film came out around the same time The Illusionist arrived on scene. Just like Deep Impact and Armageddon, The Matrix and The Thirteenth Floor, and Little House On The Prairie: The Movie and James Bond in Casino Royale. Like movies always seem to hit the scene at the same time. Like they both thought of it at the same time and one of them didn’t copy the other’s idea. (Like Leeanne Rimes suddenly deciding she needed to sing How Do I Live Without You shortly after the superior Trisha Yearwood had already sung it. And sang it well. And there’s your introduction.

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  • Reading time:4 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife

After several years of deliberating and delaying and any other excuses I could find to put it off, I’ve finally finished building my HTPC. To you lay folk out there, that stands for Home Theater Personal Computer. And let me tell you: you need to get yourself one of these bad boys.

Anyway, the point is that since I have finally finished it out, my red-haired wife and I have been watching a lot more movies. And she’s even stayed awake for a few of them. I know, I know, most of what I write on this site is fictitious, but trust me, this is true! And last night she stayed awake through the entire viewing of The Time Traveler’s Wife.

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  • Reading time:6 mins read

Bacon Talk: Breasts

Good morning, friends. Welcome to Bacon Talk: our award-winning weekly segment, where we get together and discuss whatever’s on our minds, over a hot pot of coffee and a greasy plate of bacon. Really, can you think of anything more perfect? I think – excuse me. Uh, Haycomet, please make a note to remind me to get with Butch and Bruno after our talk. I want to go ahead and have a balcony built outside the 23rd floor conference room windows. I’d like to have bacon outside next week.

Sigh. Okay. Sorry about that, readers. Anyway, here on Bacon Talk we’ve been covering some really ground-breaking topics that are both newsworthy and relevant to your lives in a way you and I can’t really begin to express. Yes, friends, we do listen to our readers. And we do talk about the very things that make you happy. Because making you happy makes us happy. And when SpaceBrew is – okay, I’ll shut up.

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  • Reading time:12 mins read

The Heisenberg Handbag

Are any of you married? I don’t know if that really matters. I think the more relevant question is, “Do you know a woman?” This question is really only aimed at the men though. So, men, do you know a woman? And secondly, does she have a purse? Because OH MY GOD. My wife does. And I’m not talking about the two-hundred-dollar job she bought from some online French retailer. It cost sixty bucks to ship the damn thing. And when it got here it looked like a nylon bag to me. I mean, props for the orange rubber handle, but dude – seriously? It looked like a ten-dollar cheap-ass Target job.

Well, I guess I sort of am talking about it. See, I’m actually going to talk about all of her purses. She has several thousand, I’m sure. It’s ridiculous. I actually had to build an add-on to our closet just to house all her fine luxury purses. And we’re not talking Target job shit here. She only buys the finest handbags made from the finest material. Like Indonesian Batwing Silk, South African Lion Mane Weave, Alaskan Malimute Pelt and Egyptian Dung Beetle Chiton. And she always tells me how great of a deal she got on them. “Oh but honey, this Hungarian Elephant Scrotum Silk one was on sale for half off!” Oh, that’s great, babe. So how much was it? “Three hundred and sixty dollars. Can you believe that deal?” she says, wrinkling her nose. No. I can’t believe it. How could anyone pass that up? Why didn’t you get four of them, sugar?

:what:

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  • Reading time:7 mins read

Bacon Talk: Space Travel

Hey Space! Look at this huge silver tray full of bacon and that gigantic pot of hot coffee- what a beautiful sight! It’s nice to see you too Space, but for as awesome as you are, you really can’t compete with bacon. Who can? So anyway, how are you doing, Space? What would you like to discuss this morning, Space? I’m a little spaced-out, so I’ll give you some space to talk about whatever you want. Anything in particular come to mind?

Good morning, Haycomet. I’m great, thank you. Well, I’ve been thinking about that, and I think I’d like to ask you a few questions about something very dear to me, and that I someday hope to make near to me. Space Travel! Yes, I went there. I capitalized both words. Because Space Travel – from what I hear – is awesome. Well, not really. The traveling through space part of Space Travel is probably very boring and very slow.
So do you ever spend any time thinking about Space Travel? Where would you go if you could just hop in your HayShip and take off? (See, I’d call mine my SpaceShip…)

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  • Reading time:10 mins read

The Time Traveler Convention

We had a little get-together the other night with a few friends, and I think some of the things that happened that night are worth mentioning. It was a hot summer night, just like every other night has been this year, here in Texas. It’s so hot that when my wife and I sit outside and just enjoy the cool night air after the kids are in bed, it’s actually still over 100 degrees. And we’re talking about after nine o’clock. But there is one good thing about it. At least we’re not in Oklahoma.

So Haycomet and Byronic came over and brought their tinycomet – who (and this is another story, but) installed Open Solaris on one of my print servers and re-allocated a slash 28 from my DHCP scope to serve as her science lab, then delved into some hard coding time, whereupon she ran all six of my computers at 98% CPU usage for over two hours grinding out application for her theory about relativistic dimensional vacillation. So in short, we spent a few hours sipping cognac in a fine 17th century hall surrounded by warpainted women in loincloths and pasties who thought we were Norse gods. Thanks, tinycomet!

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  • Reading time:6 mins read