By Sam Christopher

Rating: ½ out of 5 Stars

I remember watching an interview with Dennis Hopper—I think it was on Tom Snyder’s MSNBC show—about Waterworld. The problem Hopper had was that it seemed to him that everyone outside the production he heard talking about the film seemed to be hoping it would fail. It was one thing to see a picture and not like, but to want someone’s work to be below par seemed wrong to him. I agree with him. I know in the past some readers have complained that I was hard on certain films but it was only after I had seen them. I give breaks on effects and acting talent for films made on thin budgets but I just don’t think money has much to do with the creativity of the writer(s) and director(s) (although I do understand that producers can often meddle so much as to damage the final product). I try and look forward to seeing the films I’m going to review, even when the trailers and/or commercials aren’t too thrilling. Which was not at all the case with this film, as the commercials and online trailers I saw made it look very good. That plus the fact that it was the top box office attraction this past weekend and I had heard nothing bad about it (from the only one person I know that saw it, an admittedly small sample) made me feel pretty hopeful about seeing it. But then…

First, there was the trailers before the picture, an utterly forgettable montage of images that only served to make me ever so glad I own a television. The only ones I can remember anything at all about are: The Cabin in the Woods, which doesn’t look very good to be honest but is being produced by Joss Whedon, so maybe it’ll work out; the new GI Joe picture, in which a US President apparently tells the entire world at a press conference that he dispatched a gang of assassins to murder America’s elite fighting force (yeah, that guy will be re-elected); and then there was one that starred actual Navy SEALs doing… something (I think they were trying to save some CIA operative but I’m not really sure). And I just remembered there was something made by the people who did Borat and it looks awful. Then our main feature started and no one in the audience suspected that the trailers would come to be viewed as the highlight of the evening.

The film starts off very well. Shot in cinema verite, it creates an interesting situation with a triple homicide apparently committed during an exorcism and subsequently follows the efforts of the murderer’s daughter, Isabella (Fernanda Andrade), to speak to her mother (the murderer). Then the film shows us a couple of priests who will no doubt eventually be “drummed off the force for playing by their own rules” and then runs us through various hoops and flashes various mcguffins at us for the remainder of the film. Basically, this is a cross between The Exorcist (minus the truly scary portions, the fine acting, and the literate script) and Fallen (minus the star power of Denzel Washington). And the ending… I can’t think of a worse one. I mean, I’ve seen some bad endings but I honestly think this one might be the absolute worst; it is truly Night of the Zombies bad.

Now I know I haven’t said much about the actual story but that’s because I quite frankly can think of nothing that garners interest, other than the beginning. The rest is mostly just a mish-mash of events that never really gel into a horror story. This happens, that happens, and then the end comes and the viewer is left wondering what the hell just happened. And who do I see to get back that last hour and a half of my life?

By Sam Christopher

Star Trek: TITAN: The Sword of Damocles—Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Greater Than the Sum—4 out of 5 Stars

Star Trek: TITAN: Over a Torrent Sea—3 out of 5 Stars

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Losing the Peace—4 out of 5 Stars

This is a review of the ST novels that tie in directly before and after the Star Trek: Destiny trilogy by David Mack (you can read my review of those at this link) that essentially ended the threat of the Borg forever while simultaneously leaving us with a weakened Federation… y’know, I never thought about this before but this is an interesting parallel with what DC did with Superman in the early ‘70s. First, they created a scenario in which the greatest threat to the Man of Steel was removed from Earth by transmuting all kryptonite to… I think it was lead, or iron. Either way, it was no longer a problem for Supes. But then they also weakened him by having the Quarm’r, the Sand Superman, leech off some of his power. I think they halved it, or maybe it was diminished by a third. Anyway, just thought of that; sorry for the derailment. Anyway, the only novel not reviewed here that should in this list would be Keith R. A. DeCandido’s Star Trek: A Singular Destiny, which I read about somewhere and all it said was that it was a different kind of ST novel, one without any of the main characters from any of the shows. I thought I would get around to reading it at some point, as Mr. DeCandido is a good writer and I thought the idea sounded interesting. Then I find out that ST: ASD is really the lead-out story from ST: Destiny. But I already have four books to review here so that should be enough for the moment.

First, Geoffrey Thorne’s ST: TITAN novel, The Sword of Damocles, just never grabbed me. It’s an interesting idea all around but the narrative seems to drag in places, although I almost gave the book three stars just because of the outcome. The ending is very satisfying, especially if you never really liked it anyway. And the problem the ship faces is creative; but I would have liked it better if the ship that was destroyed had been precisely what it looked like, only with a separate temporal explanation that we never knew about. (Sorry for the omissions but if you haven’t read it I don’t want to give too much away.)

Next, we have the first of two in a row from Christopher L. Bennett, this one being ST: TNG: Greater Than the Sum. Here we see the Enterprise being sent in search of the Federation ship assimilated by the Borg super-cube in ST: TNG: Before Dishonor. The USS Einstein—nicknamed here “Frankenstein” by a new member of the running TNG cast, T’Ryssa Chen—was thought by Starfleet to have been destroyed after the super-cube’s demise but—as Peter David showed the reader—it escaped and here attempts to assimilate an entity that could rival Q in power and can best be compared to either DC’s Mogo or Marvel’s Ego (although much larger and more complex a system than either). It’s also cool that we meet up again with Hugh and the Liberated. There are a couple things that happen here I’m not overly thrilled with but they fall more into narrative choice than anything else and they do not detract much from the story. Besides, it’s all more than made up for by author Bennett showing that former Enterprise Security Chief Leybenzon is every bit the idiot we all thought he was. This book leads us right into ST: Destiny…

…and Bennett’s own TITAN story, Over a Torrent Sea, leads us back out, at least from this Riker-led ship’s perspective. This is a story that is very Aili Lavena-centric, which gives us a good overview and background of her homeworld of Pacifica, mostly a water planet with an aquatic population, through the lens of Droplet, a world with a surface almost entirely of water and an aquatic civilization to match. All the stuff about Droplet and the ancillary stuff about Pacifica is cool, the main drag on this tale being the amazingly annoying sexual undertones that seem to be everywhere. I never want to read again about a Lavena liaison decades ago with Riker, and the sexual tension between them even today… and how would Deanna react to it… and how would it affect his command presence if everyone knew… and… Oh my GOD! I just wanted to throw the book across the room at certain instances here. And then there’s the relationship between Pazlar and Ra’Havreii… I admit there were times here where I just wanted them all to drown. This is another story where the narrative seemed to drag here and there for me. Maybe it has more to do with the characters than the authors.

Finally, we move into the post-Borg era for the main thrust of Starfleet with William Leisner relating the excellent story, ST: TNG: Losing the Peace. This is all about the aftermath of the Borg invasion and the trouble the Federation is in in the wake of that “war”. Characterizations, narrative, plotlines are all well-thought out and well put together here. This is an engrossing story that is hard to put down once begun. My only caveat would be that the ever-so tiresome plot device of Starfleet admiralty and Federation officials on Earth sending someone to relieve Jean-Luc Picard of his command. Did they not learn their lesson in Before Dishonor? How many times does Picard have to save their bacon by doing what is right rather than what they tell him to do before they get it? At least I don’t think Akaar will question him anymore (what a great use of a quote from a mostly worthless film!).

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By Sam Christopher

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 Stars

I had to think about this one for a little bit. I thought the idea was intriguing from the very first mention despite the bad taste left in my mouth after the 2001 debacle that was Tim Burton’s “reimagining” of the original PotA. I then saw the first trailer and was less than pleased. I saw an awful lot of scenes of guys walking around in lab coats yelling at each other and talking about money and prestige, not very many scenes of apes rising to do anything. But then there were the new trailers, in which the apes were doing everything. These sequences were what got me excited about the picture again. I knew full well the whole time I was going to see it (just as I’m going to see Pitt’s World War Z despite all the bad press it’s gotten lately). I own everything you can get PotA-related on DVD, sans the ’01 remake; it’s a pretty safe bet I’ll watch any new film at least once. So I did. But then I had to think about it.

First, there is some lab stuff here, although it looks now as though the first trailer just showed all of that. The whole story revolves around the lab work but we don’t really see much of it—thankfully. What we see mostly is a son’s love for his father and a father’s love for his “son”. James Franco’s characterization of Will Rodman, the geneticist who is trying to breed a virus that will cure Alzheimer’s, is excellent, and John Lithgow as Rodman’s father with Alzheimer’s is perfect as usual. But the star here, of course, is Andy Serkis as Caesar, the preternaturally intelligent chimpanzee who is born from the chimp who best responds to Rodman’s virus (named “Bright Eyes” in one of several nods to the original series). Caesar is taken in by Rodman when the rest of the specimens are ordered to be destroyed and grows up knowing only love from his human caregivers; he is never treated as a pet. But one thing leads to another and Caesar is taken by the state for the “crime” of protecting a man he sees as his grandfather from a boorish neighbor. He is placed with other apes… and thereby hangs a tale. I only add here that I was surprised to see this film not shot in 3-D, given the action sequences. It doesn’t bother me that it wasn’t, just a surprise.

I will close with two things. SPOILER ALERT: First, I read a review that said the only thing that really shows the apes “rising” to take over for Man as the preeminent species on the planet really happens in the closing credits and that may be true. I would like to say the advent of Caesar along with his “progeny” signals that Man’s day is coming to an end, as we are shown several times that the other apes do not share Caesar’s respect for Man as a lifeform. But the truth is that Man’s numbers and technology would be very difficult for any emergent species to overcome without equivalent numbers and equal technology. The scene in the end shows us part of that equation coming to pass. Frankly, it is this scene that sets up any true sequel; without it, I’m pretty certain Caesar’s troops could not survive in any pitched battle with humanity as a whole. More than that, it also makes the world of Pierre Boulle’s novel as plausible as the ruined world astronaut Taylor finds in the original PotA movie.

The second thing is that I know several people who refused to see this new film because of their love for the original series, and because of the complete disaster that was the ’01 remake. To them I would say to give this one a chance. It is much better than one might think. A very interesting take on this well-trod path and well worth the time of any sf fan.

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”- H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, like his contemporary Robert Ervin Howard, is a member of that vanishingly small subsection of writers who have become ingrained in our cultural consciousness almost without our really knowing anything about their lives and, in some cases, even their actual works. Almost everyone, for instance, has heard of Cthulhu, just as virtually everyone has at least heard of Conan the Barbarian. Many people don’t realize how truly Lovecraftian certain mass market enterprises are, such as John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) and even The Blair Witch Project (1999) in its own way. Many people, as mentioned in this documentary, play the games associated with Lovecraft’s works—The Call of Cthulhu, etc.—or even see films such as Re-Animator and From Beyond without knowing anything of their source material. I’ve read many of Lovecraft’s tales and more than a few later works based on his mythologies but, as with the aforementioned REH, I really knew nothing of his life and personality until watching this film. I had read criticisms of his “racism” and “old world philosophies” here and there, and while I don’t deny they existed I’ve always thought it rather arrogant of us to require modern sensibilities of people who did not live in modern times. We don’t look down on people of the 17th Century for not having our understanding of science, why should we take them to task for not having our social mores? Not saying racism is ever okay, just that it’s more understandable in a provincial era that doesn’t have the mass communication we have today. It’s much easier to form opinions based on apocrypha when there’s little objective information to contradict it. But I digress…

This is an interesting film for those of us attracted to the horror genre in general and the classics of the genre in particular. Here we have many current practitioners of the art of dark fantasy storytelling—Neil Gaiman, Caitlin Kiernan, Stuart Gordon, John Carpenter, Guillermo del Toro, etc.—telling us what they think about various aspects of Lovecraft’s life and work against the backdrop of a chronological recounting of same. There are fascinating anecdotes, mainly from Kiernan and Gaiman, along with pithy, cute observations, mainly by Carpenter and Del Toro (my favorite one from Carpenter is about how Lovecraft obviously had some kind of serious problem with fish), all intertwined with a factual account of the man’s life and times. Some of the revelations: Lovecraft’s wife left him and they would eventually divorce due to his unwillingness to find gainful employment while working on his writing; Lovecraft was his own harshest critic, almost never thinking anything he did was very good; and Lovecraft made virtually nothing from his works during his life. He was a strange man with strange ideas (as mentioned rather obliquely in the first paragraph here), ideas that he expressed in his writing while never falling into the trap of believing the things he wrote about were real. (Frankly, I now get the joke that had to be behind the beliefs of Sutter Cane in the Carpenter film In the Mouth of Madness.)

There are all kinds of things I could talk about here but I would really rather you watch this documentary. It’s the first one I’ve seen based on Lovecraft and it has made me wanting to see others. I’m also wondering if there isn’t one of similar quality about Robert E. Howard. Have you ever seen The Whole Wide World? That was very good, and I have the book it was based on. Maybe I’ll be ready with a review of it soon as well…

Buy Lovecraft Fear of the Unknown On DVD from Amazon.com:

Sam Christopher’s Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 Stars

I’ve never seen Torchwood. I’ve never read anything much about it, either. I don’t watch much television in the first place, and this show just fell below my radar. When I saw the ads for this season, though, completely by accident, I thought I might give it a shot. Fair warning, in preparing for this review I have still not read anything at all about the previous seasons. I wanted this to be a review of this season alone rather than the show in general. There will be some spoilers, although I will try and keep them minor as I can.

The story: People stop dying. I mean everywhere. We learn they don’t stop aging and they can be hurt, but something is keeping them all going. Our first glimpse of the phenomenon is a child molester/murderer, Oswald Danes, played by Bill Pullman, being given a lethal injection while a CIA agent, Rex Matheson, played by Mekhi Phifer, is skewered by a pole in a traffic accident. Neither of them die, of course, and it is learned that not dying is more a general malady throughout the world than specific to these two. Which draws the attention of the remaining members of Torchwood, an immortal man (who has suddenly been made mortal here) named Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), the latter of whom had thought to live out her life with husband and baby in quiet anonymity. And here is where the subplots and shenanigans go wild. There apparently has been a CIA initiative to find Torchwood, one that Phifer and another agent, Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins), was attached to. There is a drug company that apparently knew “Miracle Day” was coming and had stocked up in preparation for it. There is a secret organization within the CIA with a vested interest in… something. This organization—apparently founded by Odysseus, their slogan being “We are No One”—is constantly after our heroes and…

Bottom line, I enjoyed the first couple episodes and will continue to watch for a little while longer, but the leaps of logic seem to get worse as the series progresses. I thought it lame that Danes got out of prison within hours (it seemed) of surviving a lethal injection attempt simply because he threatened to sue the governor of whatever state he was in personally, but to make matters worse the character then becomes some kind of guru for the Undying. We’re told that scientists aren’t saying anything, religious leaders aren’t saying anything, and the government’s not saying anything… but the child molester who famously (people mention it constantly throughout the show) blamed the 12-year-old girl he raped and murdered for “not running away fast enough” is not only talking but gathering acolytes?!? More, the “Black Floyd” organization (so named because their symbol reminds me of nothing so much as the cover of Dark Side of the Moon) may turn out to do something of interest at some point but so far has only succeeded in making me wonder how these inept thugs have survived. Too heavy-handed most of the time, their actions generally lack the subtlety and foresight of true master manipulators. From what we’ve seen so far, anyway. There are still six episodes.

John J. Joex’s Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

I have seen Torchwood before.  I have seen parts of the BBC series (which ran three seasons) as well as the Doctor Who episodes that first introduced Captain Jack Harkness.  For those not familiar with the show, it actually began as a spin-off series from Doctor Who (Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who and the organization came into existence because of him, but that’s too involved to delve into here).  Originally, the series was directed at a a more adult audience than the more youth-skewing Doctor Who as it dealt with more mature themes as same-sex relationships (Captain Jack considers himself “omni-sexual”) and also worked plenty of moral quandaries into its stories.  In the first season of Torchwood, we see a fully funded and operational organization heavily equipped to deal with potential alien threats. But this changed throughout the first three seasons as Torchwood eventually had to go underground and on the run. Which brings us to Season 4 where the American pay channel Starz has decided to pick up the series and relocate it to the states.

So far I have enjoyed the Americanized version of the series, which is a continuation of the British series, not a reboot like Syfy’s Being Human.  However, I do agree with Mr. Christopher that the show has had several leaps of logic and I’ve also cringed as it has descended to near-camp at times (the very end of episode 2 as a prime example).  But then I credit that to the Britishness of the series (origianl creator Russel T. Davies is still closely involved and is writing several episodes) as we saw that sort of thing with the BBC episodes, and just try sitting through an episode of Doctor Who without cringing several times at the absurdities they introduce.  The British Torchwood toned that down from the series that spawned it and now the American version has toned it down further.  And none of this is a deal breaker for me yet.

I like the general direction of the current season’s story arc thus far and I believe it has potential to deliver some good Torchwood-style wtf moments.  I also like the way that the have dealt with the repercussions of this Earth-changing event.  In previous American genre shows like FlashForward, I always felt like they glossed over how the people across the world reacted to the central event in the series.  In that show, I believe the blackouts and future visions would have sent major tremors throughout the world’s social and religious organization.  But we saw very little of that and instead were given run-of-the-mill procedural episodes (until the series finally hit its stride right before cancellation).  But with Torchwood, we are seeing the repercussions of this unprecedented event with things like the “Dead is Dead” campaign and the groups believing their souls have left their bodies.  These are mostly just glimpses, but at least the show acknowledges the global implications of what has happened.

The good news for those who don’t like protracted story arcs is that this will resolve at the end of Season 4′s ten episode run.  The bad news is that Starz is not committed to further seasons of Torchwood at this point (more on that in a later post).  I have enjoyed Miracle Day through its first four episodes and feel like it offers an interesting alternative to the more straightforward American fare we usually see.  And I am hoping that this series will continue on in some capacity because it is one of the few genre shows currently running that’s willing to rise above the expected formula and take some chances.

Buy the Previous Seasons of Torchwood on DVD from Amazon.com:

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 2 ½ of 5 Stars

The first time I saw a trailer for this it was a teaser. It showed Harrison Ford looking old and gruff—y’know, the way he always looks nowadays. BUT… he was also in a cowboy hat! And there were other guys running around in Old West gear while some flying thing shot photon torpedoes at them. It looked lame, but Harrison Ford was in it so I thought, “Maybe…” Then I saw some more, longer, trailers. I saw that Daniel Craig was in it, too, along with several other long-time favorites like Clancy Brown and Keith Carradine. And the story itself looked kind of interesting, with an alternate history look to it. I didn’t know that this was based on a comic. I don’t remember even now seeing the Cowboys & Aliens comic or the tpb it was collected into, although I’m sure I did since I see almost everything whether I buy it or not. Getting back to the run-up to the film, the point is that the more I saw of it the more I wanted to see. Granted, that’s the point of them having trailers in the first place but when that’s all you have to go on…

And the film starts out looking good. Craig wakes up in the middle of nowhere, memory gone, wounded. With a strange manacle-looking thing on his left arm. He makes his way into the nearest town and has the local preacher work on the “bullet wound” in his side (which is odd later when we find out there’s a “Doc” there the preacher never mentioned), we see a couple of Clint Eastwood-type “cooler cowboy than you” moments and then it all just sorta peters out. Yeah, there are a few cool scenes here and there even later in the film when we all know what’s going on, but for the most part it’s just kinda flat. Reminiscent of Independence Day in a lot of ways. The aliens are here for pretty much the same reasons, they act pretty much the same… it could be argued that Cowboys & Aliens is a prequel of sorts to ID4, except that I’m sure it’s not. The main problem here is that there is little meat to this story other than some dimestore “Can’t we all just get along?” philosophy and some fairly shoddy-looking science. Of course, I expected that when I saw the opening credits and the names Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci mentioned prominently in both the production and the screenwriting lines. I loved Star Trek, but let’s face it, there was virtually no story behind that film at all, and the Kurtzman/Orci-led comic prequel, along with the Alan Dean Foster novelization of the film, shows that in every ugly detail. Far more glitz than growl in that film than this one, of course, but the basic theory remains.

And then there’s the fact that there’s no additional scene after the credits. That is amazingly annoying, especially here. I say that because there isn’t a twenty minute closing credits run where we are shown everyone who has ever participated in special effects work, as we are in most films now it seems (and I’m not slamming the practice of putting on everyone who had anything to do with making the film; they all absolutely deserve to be recognized), I’m guessing because there just wasn’t nearly the animation f/x and computer graphics we get in virtually every genre film of late. I guess they felt the audience hadn’t sat through enough to deserve a post script. That’s okay. Even though I found the film enjoyable to a point I had already seen enough.

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

In one sentence: A faithful rendition of the character’s origin story with enough tweaking so as to bring it in line with the Marvel Film Universe, Captain America: The First Avenger makes Cap accessible to even the most jaded moviegoer while satisfying (mostly) the long-term fan and the newbie alike and lays the final groundwork for the much-anticipated Avengers film of next year.

Wow! This is a great film. I know you’ve been hearing it from various places but it really is true. Chris Evans, who took a shellacking from many fans when he was selected for the role, is perfect all the way through, both as (digitally-aided) pre-Super Soldier Serum Steve Rogers and as the hero himself. The great thing here, and what is so true to the character in the comics, is that Steve’s central character never really changes at all through all the physical stuff that goes on. He is always who he has always been, just a guy who hates bullies and believes that everyone should have the freedom to be who they are. Steve is courageous even before he has the power of Captain America and he never lets it change him—although he is human enough to allow his head to be turned by a pretty girl. Steve believes in the ideal of the American Way and is willing to lay his life down to share it with others. He is the ultimate patriot and the ideal soldier, a man whose conscience dictates his actions and whose every instinct is for helping others.

And then we have Johann Schmidt, the man who is known as the Red Skull, played by Hugo Weaving. In this film (and maybe in the comics, too, although I haven’t specifically read this), the Red Skull is the first recipient of the Super Soldier Formula and Dr. Erskine’s—the creator of the formula—greatest mistake and regret. The Skull we are introduced to in this picture is every bit the polar opposite of our hero, just as he is in the comics. It seems that the SSF here amplifies the personality traits of whoever takes it. Where it made Steve even more courageous and brave and honest, it has apparently made Schmidt more avaricious and bold and power-hungry. He will do virtually anything to further his own aims, even though they may cost his “beloved” Fuhrer in the end. Schmidt creates a secret organization within the Reich, one long-time Marvel fans will easily recognize, Hydra, and uses it to create advanced weapons and scientific techniques in furtherance of his own goals. Schmidt’s battle with Rogers is an epic struggle that has gotten more ridiculous in some ways in the Marvel Comics Universe as we get further away from WWII in time, but in this film we are given a very good rationale for their both living to the now of 2011. Granted, we don’t really know if the Skull will be back but… they are planning a sequel… and they have already set up the character so they don’t need any certain actor to play him (although I would like to see Weaving again if they do bring him back).

It’s really hard not to say too much about this film. If you haven’t seen it I really don’t want to give too much of a detailed synopsis. If you know the mythology of the Captain America character you already know pretty much what happens in the film (the big stuff, anyway), and if you don’t I hate how much I’ve already said. As difficult as this is for me to say, with Thor being my absolute favorite character, this is my pick for Best Superhero Film of Summer so far. I wasn’t thrilled with X-Men: First Class, but I really enjoyed Green Lantern, and I thought they did a fantastic job with Thor. But Captain America: The First Avenger was really a great work, one that I would put on a level with even Spiderman 2 as the best of Marvel’s output in this arena. I was a little worried that we were going to see too much of the WWII era through the eyes of today, as cynicism too often seems to be our current drug of choice in any artistic endeavor, but this is one time they got it right. I applaud everyone involved with this film and can only ask humbly for more.

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

This is a review of three books that contain one story. All appear under the Star Trek: Destiny title. The first book is Gods of Night, the second Mere Mortals, and the third Lost Souls. It is the story of four starship captains who band together to save the Federation from the onslaught of the Borg. Another title for this series could be “How Ericka Hernandez Saved Humanity”. Trekkies (Trekkers, Trek-fans, whatever you want to call us) will certainly remember Hernandez as the captain of the NX-02 Columbia from the tv show Enterprise. I know, I know, one would think she might be a couple centuries too old to be fighting the Borg alongside the likes of Jean-Luc Picard and William Riker, not to mention Captain Ezri Dax of the USS Aventine, but that kind of linear thinking will get you nowhere fast in the Star Trek Universe.

Gods of Night introduces us to a mystery: How did the NX-02 Columbia, a ship with no better than Warp 5 capability, come to crash-land on a planet in the Gamma Quadrant? First, we are shown the event of Jadzia Dax and Benjamin Sisko finding the wreck in 2373 but not having the time to investigate fully, then the story jumps ahead a decade to the new Dax, Ezri, as starship captain committing her crew to a more detailed analysis. Oh, and by the way, there’s also the small matter of the Borg invasion fleet that is hell-bent on slaughtering every being and every world in the Federation. Interspersed with the doom and gloom of the invasion are little side-trips author Mack takes the reader on back to the 22nd Century, where we learn how the Columbia came to meet the mysterious and xenophobic Caeliar, a meeting that would have a most profound impact on the entire galaxy. Side-note: One of the Caeliar is named Lerxst, which is a nickname of Rush singer Geddy Lee. I wondered if it wasn’t some weird accident at the time but I have since learned that David Mack is a huge Rush fan. (Okay, that may not be fair. The guy does love Rush but I haven’t seen him and have no idea how “huge” he is. He could be rail-thin and five-foot-nothin’ for all I know.) Funny thing is, knowing that it’s hard not to think of this trilogy in terms of the epic songs the band used to do, like 2112 and Hemispheres.

Mere Mortals shows us more of the aftermath of the humans’ first ill-fated “interaction” with the Caeliar, as well as more of the Federation’s battle for survival with the Borg. The Enterprise and Aventine meet at the Azure Nebula, which appears to hold the key to the Borg’s travel into the Alpha Quadrant and attempt to ascertain the Collective’s route (there are many subspace tunnels that intersect there). Meanwhile, the President of the Federation is meeting with the representatives of the other surrounding territories in an attempt to gain ships and allies in the fight ahead. Also, there is the curious case of the USS Titan. Too far away to affect the outcome of the “Borg War”, it is instead investigating a strangely hidden world and sun. Making contact with the people of this world, they will discover what the crew of the Columbia found two centuries earlier. More, they will find a starship captain ascended nigh onto godhood.

Lost Souls is the story of another “tribe” of Caeliar, a group that was lost in a great disaster (read Gods of Night) and fell prey to the demons of fear and weakness. It is also the tale of the climactic final (and I do mean final) battle with the Borg. The Collective is shown as it began and a unique solution is tendered and accepted.

I know this is the most skeletal of discussions, but these books really need to be read. Trekkies will love them because they’re Star Trek, and even beyond the main story they give some insight to the continuing development of the lives of the characters we have come to know and love (yes, yes, I’ve even gotten to where I like Riker and Trois… better, anyway), but sf fans of all stripes should be able to get a great story out of the books. It is just an epic saga that moves from one mystery to the next until it shows how they all coalesce to form something both tragic and wonderful, along with a glimpse, however fleeting, of something even grander beyond the horizon. The only blemish in this entire 1300-page odyssey is that I just can’t believe that four Hirogen can just waltz through the Enterprise or the Aventine like that. I just thought that was so lame. Author Mack almost saved it but it was still… just lame. And, worse, completely unnecessary to the story. I almost deducted a quarter point for that sequence alone, but then he used an analogy given to him in a random conversation with the real-life Lerxst and that was enough to overcome this one misstep in an otherwise magnificent story. Trust me, even if you already know what happened to the Borg (as I did because I had already read ST: Voyager: Full Circle) this really is all about the journey.

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By Sam Christopher

Rating: 1 Star out of 5 Stars

I loved this film’s predecessor, Resident Evil: Extinction. I’ve never seen the animated film they did after Extinction but I would watch it. When this film came out I had hopes for it, hopes that fell as every new trailer or commercial or interview I saw about it looked and sounded worse and worse. More, it had the stigma of being the fourth film in this series. Remember how the mundanes (mainly) always said that that Star Trek film franchise was all about the even-numbered ones, and that the odd-numbered films sucked? This franchise, for me, is the exact opposite of that. I thought the first one was pretty good; I could never understand the outpouring of hate for it by critics. Sure, there were things about it I thought were lame, mostly things about the all-powerful Umbrella Corporation (I’ve still never figured out what they hope to gain with the T-Virus), but overall I liked it. The second film, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, was so bad I erased it from my memory. I swear, I watched it a couple times (once because a friend had never seen any of them and wanted to go see Extinction with me) but I can’t really remember anything about it now… other than the gunfight. I almost didn’t go see Extinction but a couple friends wanted to get together so we did and I was very glad of it. I still think it’s the best of the three, now four.

RE: Afterlife starts off with whiz-bang action, and intersperses some connecting scenes introing old and new characters (“Hi, I’m Alice, and you are…?”) and setting up the “story” of this film with more whiz-bang action. There’s lots of slo-mo and ducking bullets… that…sssslowwwwly… ggggggoooooo bbbbbbbyyyyyyy. And then there’s lots of near-Lovecraftian monsters and death and corpses staggering and clawing and feeding. Oh, and there’s the guy who apparently runs all of Umbrella with an iron fist (get it? an umbrella held in an iron fist? Well, I never promised it was funny!) also infected with the T-Virus, also housing what looks to be a very Lovecraftian parasite. His deal is that if he ingests Alice he’ll gain complete control of the virus. At least that’s what he thinks. Okay, okay, moment of truth: The only thing interesting in this entire film to me is the mind-control thingie Claire Redfield is wearing when we first see her and which Jill Valentine (who looked familiar to me but I had to read was in Apocalypse) is sporting at the end. I’m really afraid the story will be lame but, hey, it’ll be the fifth (they’ve already announced another one, RE: Retribution).

Generally I would tell you a lot about this film. It does fall into the category where I don’t want you to waste time or money on it and I usually give a solid synopsis of those so you can feel like you know the story without seeing it… and I did. Believe me, the above is pretty much all that happens in this entire flick. It is a mish-mash of monsters from sf and horror with no hint of a storyline through most of it. There are a few cool scenes here and there but it’s really not worth your time. Put it this way, early in the movie Alice is wrestling with Wesker (the “Dark Overlord” of UC) in a helicopter. He injects her with something and she thanks him for making her human… and it’s never mentioned again, nor does she really act any differently. Wesker needs to eat Alice in order to quell the T-Virus within him… but has no compunctions at all about blowing her up. It’s just a disjointed mess, for the casual fan anyway. True fans of the RE video game might get all this and love it because they already know the story. For me? I’m just asking that the next one make sense. If they have to cut down on the slow motion and such that would be fine.

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By Sam Christopher

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

I finally got to see this the other day and . . . I first read about this film last year, and everything I read said it was the greatest zombie movie ever made. No, they didn’t say that expressly, but where I was reading there was nothing but universal praise for it. That’s a red flag for me, as even Romero’s stuff isn’t universally loved—even by us Romero fans (although I have to say I at least like every zombie film he’s made). More, everyone seemed to praise the money aspect of the making of the film more than anything else. Another red flag. Granted, it is impressive that anything supposedly made for what amounts to $70 USD could earn anything like the “known-ness” this one has, but I’ve never been a believer that I should like something more simply because of its price tag. But then a couple negative reviews crept in with folks saying they thought it was over-hyped and not very good at all. So I thought about it. I watched a couple trailers for it and they seemed intriguing (which is their purpose, after all, so I never get too head up about that). I thought about it. I almost bought it once. And then someone gave it to me for my birthday a couple weeks ago. Here’s the story…

The film opens with Colin stumbling into a friend’s house, going to the kitchen, and revealing a nasty looking bite on the arm before being attacked by a zombie. He kills the zombie then dies himself and the rest of the film follows him in his new “life”. He generally wanders around, attacking living folk here and there, although keeping surprisingly clear of conflict. The people we see him go after are generally either already somehow subdued and already becoming “food” or just right in his face and leaving him no choice but to attempt to take a chunk out of them. The surprising thing about the film is that with this low of production value here’s only three places I can think of that are questionable as to characterization or narrative rationality. And two of them are pretty minor. The other, the one I had the most trouble buying, was actually something that Romero himself did in Dawn of the Dead (and, yes, I wondered about it there, too), so I guess director Marc Price probably felt he was on solid enough ground with it. This last scene has to do with Colin walking right by two people who are struggling with one another, passing within a foot of them and just walking away without even growling their way. I didn’t get it but it wasn’t show-stopping bad. The other two scenes, one where it appeared Colin and another zombie were locked into a house only to have them open the door within seconds and leave, the other concerning what certainly appeared to be a kill-shot delivered to the head of Colin by one of a gang of hunters, were confusing to an extent but nothing more.

Now that I’ve registered my complaints I tell you to see this film. It is interesting and fun. The gore isn’t overdone, nor is it avoided. There is a sentimentality to the story without being maudlin as it is an earned sentimentality that is there more to show what Colin was in light of what he has become. The one thing the film doesn’t do, despite what I had read before, is make the viewer feel sad for the dead Colin. I could never see him as anything more than a dangerous predator, no matter how often he was shown stumbling around in a seeming pathetic daze. The only times I thought of him as anything else were when we see him still alive. Be that as it may, good, bad or indifferent, this is a very good film, one well worth your time.

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