[Books] Star Trek: Discovery - Desperate Hours Audible Review

I've been more cautious about purchasing the books associated with the various Star Trek shows mainly because they tend to play fast and loose with an overall continuity. In distinct contrast the Star Wars books have largely been in a fairly organized larger story that started the Expanded Universe and is now known as the Legends continuity.

But yet another Audible member sale came along and I ended up securing a copy of Star Trek: Discovery - After Hours, which is my first venture into written fiction based on the most recent Star Trek show. I wasn't sure what to expect and I didn't even bother to read the synopsis. I just got it since it was on sale.

And while it wasn't a bad story on its own, but how it factors into the larger continuity is a little tricky. It's positioned as a prequel but a key aspect of the story may not work well with the coming second season of the show. But who cares, it's just a book, right?

[Movies] Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Review

Netflix's content curation efforts does result in some odd movies showing up in the library. I've noticed an uptick of interesting award-winning features from a while back now being available for viewing. And so I find myself finally getting around to movies that I've been intending to see but have not made much effort into seeing for one reason or another.

Enter Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a movie that has a lot of good reviews but one that I've never really been all that eager to queue up for watching because I have very mixed feelings about the works of Jim Carrey. He's not a bad actor but he does end up in very odd projects (mainly his earlier comedic work) so that has dissuaded me from jumping at the bit to see any movie featuring him.

But this turned out to be a more interesting effort even if it wasn't quite something I'd say that I totally loved or overly enjoyed. But I am happy to have finally seen it.

[Books] Battletech: Freebirth (Twilight of the Clans - Book 4) Review

The Jade Phoenix Trilogy was an odd series of Battletech novels that focus on the triumphant rise of Aidan Pryde who died as a hero for Clan Jade Falcon despite his rather complicated journey to becoming a warrior. The key aspect of that story was how he had to masquerade as a freeborn warrior after circumstances had conspired against his perceived destiny with the clans.

What I had not been expecting to encounter the characters from those books in latter Battletech novels, but that is exactly what happened. And even with a lengthy event such as the Twilight of the Clans story arc, having different authors write different parts of the story also opened the door for their personal creations to join the story.

And that is how Star Captain Horse became a part of this larger story telling of the end of Clan Smoke Jaguar at the hands of the Inner Sphere. But as Horse is of Clan Jade Falcon, how his story ends up intersecting that of Clan Smoke Jaguar does make for a rather interesting diversion from things that was pretty intense.

[TV] Making a Murderer Review

Crime documentaries are a mixed bag and a lot of times they can feel a little sensationalist in terms of what they choose to emphasize. The worst ones have the overly elaborate reenactments that work to up the scare factor and make things more real somehow.

I wasn't sure what to make of Making a Murderer when I noticed it was being heavily promoted on Netflix. Admittedly I tend to focus on lighter documentary fare as end-of-work-day viewing and murder stories aren't quite as easy to get into. But I figured I might as well give this a go and was rather surprised at the story that they presented.

[TV] Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Season 1 Review

Tobie and I have yet to even try to get into the recent Riverdale TV series mainly because it's really not the genre of show that we'd appreciate. It's for similar reasons we stopped watching How to Get Away With Murder among other shows as we tend to favor stories of a different genre flavor.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was a not a show we expected to try watching but initial social media reactions were pretty strong and so we eventually checked it out. I suppose the old ABC TV show Sabrina the Teenage Witch also plays a factor in terms of potential expectation the light comedic tone of that show is worlds away from what this show endeavored to do.