C.T. Phipps's Blog, page 25
October 26, 2022
House of the Dragon season one review
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON is a series I have a lot of mixed feelings on, mostly positive, but some negative. I was supporting an adaptation of the Dance of the Dragons from the very beginning. It's one of the most important events of Westeros' history as well as one of the few periods with as much intrigue as well as (to be honest) trashy relationships to make a series. I not just loved it from FIRE AND BLOOD but THE WORLD OF FIRE AND ICE as well as the two novellas ("The Princess and the Queen", ...
October 24, 2022
Interstellar Gunrunner by James Wolanyk review
INTERSTELLAR GUNRUNNER by James Wolanyk is something that has been recommended on my feed for some time. Indeed, for years, right under THE RULES OF SUPERVILLAINY it was always being told to me that it was something I might like. The problem was there was always something else in the queue and it wasn't like I didn't have a bunch of other space opera books to read ahead of it. Still, I remembered the title and when I saw the book trilogy was on sale for 99c, I decided to jump at it and picke...
October 23, 2022
House of the Dragon 1x10 "The Black Queen" review
Do you hate the Greens? I know I do. George R.R. Martin stated when he wrote The Dance of the Dragons, he expected fans to be divided on which side to support. Then he found out that it was something like 90% in support of the Blacks and 10% in support of the Greens. The show has actually probably modified those numbers but it's now, 80% support of the Blacks and 20% people who think the Greens aren't being portrayed right due to treating them as the scumbags they are.
I admit, if you cou...
October 17, 2022
House of the Dragon 1x09 "The Green Council"
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 1x09 "THE GREEN COUNCIL" is easily the best of the episodes so far. I think this will be a controversial decision but it's how I feel. After a lot of issues with previous episodes, I think this masterfully builds on what has come before and sets up the conflict between the Blacks and the Greens that will hopefully begin next book.
The premise is that King Viserys has finally died and Alicent believes that he named Aegon his heir on his deathbed. She proceeds to go to...
October 16, 2022
Ten Indie Space Opera and Military Science Fiction Recommendations
Space opera and military science fiction are genres that have benefited tremendously from the boom in indie publishing. If nothing else, geeks love space and thus the kind of people who own kindles and other e-readers are inclined to check out this pair of genres. However, there's a massive amount of books that can be intimidating for readers to sort through. This is in addition to all the wonderfully traditionally published books that can be found on Barnes and Noble or Amazon's websites.Basica...
October 15, 2022
Star Trek: Picard: Second Self by Una McCormack review
STAR TREK: PICARD is something of a broken base for me. It's one of my all-time favorite time periods in the Star Trek chronology for the world-building set up in Season One: the Romulan supernova, the Synthetic Ban, the destruction of Mars, and the lawlessness of the former Neutral Zone. However, the simple fact is that Season Two had no interest in any of this and thus I must turn to secondary canon in order to get my fill. So far, I've very much enjoyed all of the books in the setting but...
Star Trek: Picard: Second Self by Una McCormick review
STAR TREK: PICARD is something of a broken base for me. It's one of my all-time favorite time periods in the Star Trek chronology for the world-building set up in Season One: the Romulan supernova, the Synthetic Ban, the destruction of Mars, and the lawlessness of the former Neutral Zone. However, the simple fact is that Season Two had no interest in any of this and thus I must turn to secondary canon in order to get my fill. So far, I've very much enjoyed all of the books in the setting but...
Star Trek: Requiem (New Frontier #9) review
I am a huge fan of NEW FRONTIER and the series by Peter David is among there with the Dresden Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer for some of the biggest influences on my writing. No one can quite combine genre fiction, humor, and rabid fire quips with dedicated use of continuity quite like these books. Star Trek: Lower Decks comes close but I feel the world of New Frontier is a bit better at managing it all.
REQUIEM is the first of the three EXCALIBUR books that follow up a bold and ...
October 10, 2022
House of the Dragon 1x8 "The Lord of the Tides" review
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 1x08 "THE LORD OF THE TIDES" is one of the biggest episodes in the series and it's interesting because it is one of the quieter ones. While there's yet another unnecessary time skip, it carries over from the previous episode's development so I'm able to ignore it. It is a powerful episode with a lot of character development as well as culmination of several important plot arcs. I wouldn't say it's my favorite of the episodes but it is strong enough that I am going ...
October 7, 2022
Beyond a Steel Sky review
BEYOND A STEEL SKY is the follow-up to the classic cyberpunk point and click adventure game BENEATH A STEEL SKY. I really enjoyed that game and it's rusted Australian vision of the future as Robert Foster was kidnapped from the Outback where he was living, only to find himself up against a satirical society of upper class twits in a decaying urban hellscape. Basically, it was the video game version of the classic film Brazil by Terry Gilliam.
Making a sequel to that sort of game was alrea...
