I remember really digging Ender's Game when I read it.  I actually think I liked the companion book "Ender's Shadow" better but I thought it was a cool book back in th eday. Take that suggestion with a grain of salt as I last read it when I was 11 or 12 and thought Stephen King was the pinnacle of English Literature.

Also, not a good book, but I read a Shadowrun novel tie-in called 2XS recently.  It's like a hard-boiled Dashiell Hammet sort of dectective story that takes place in the near future where magic coexists with cyberpunk tropes. It has overblown action scenes that would do a late '80's Schwarzenegger movie proud and a plot twist so dumb you'll be mildy angry with the writer. It's one of those books that everything about it is pretty bad but it's a really entertaining and quick little read. I recommend it only if you are ok with reading a book equivalent to a bad 80's sci-fi flick.

hardboiled wonderland and the end of the world

this is pretty much my favourite book so i am going straight for the other one you mentioned at top speed.

post moved

OMG a Doctor Who -Star Trek crossover!

Not interested. (Still waiting for a Monk/Dexter crossover.)

a doctor who/star trek crossover could never work, because star trek is for boring people.

It'll sell well, because most sci-fi fans ARE boring people.

But it'll never work well in a story sense because they are vastly different perspectives of reality. One based on fantasy and surreality, written well respected writers(apart from the odd one admitedly) and with ideas chiselled out of the granite that is post-war london.
and the other is a lame atempt at mixing the ideas of ancient greek warring states with the american west, false ears, and the colour grey.

doctor who is written as a load of short stories each made to be very different from the last. When it first started, the first episode was 60's london, which then went into a caveman story, and then into a science-fantasy epic and then into a short story about the characters stuck in the tardis going insane. Notable series producers had their own feel on the show, Robert Holmes brought in a more horror feel to it, neil adams made it camp, pointless and dumb, john nathan turner made it very 80's and excessively violent, Andrew Cartmel brought an amazing sense of depth, mystery and mythology to the show. In recent years, Russel T Davis (who was responsible for the episode you're on about) really dumbed down it's potential for subtext and introduced a high amount of camp and 'kiddyness' to it. I'm not a fan of the episodes he's written. Lately Stephen Moffatt has been introducing a mythology and mystery back into it and it's been much more enjoyable as an adult, though I fear he may end up alienating the children audience which would be a really dumb thing to do. When Doctor who is bad, it's absolutely abyssmal, but when it's good, it is amongst the best television ever made. No other mainstream tv series in the early 70's tackled ecological and political issues to the degree that doctor who did, which is thnakfully a result of having liberal intillectuals and marxists as the writers/script editors.

Also Star Trek was heavily based on greek history, the creators have aknowledged it many times. Greece was made up of various warring states, each made up of their own very different culture. Sparta was war like(klingons), The Athenians were cultural and intillectual etc(vulcans)
plus there was more than numerous references to greek mythology in the stories, characters and the fact that every planet they landed on seemed to have ancient greek/roman ruins on it for some bizarre reason.

I've gotten really REALLY into buying vinyl lately, mostly weird and experimental music since that's my taste, so zappa, beefheart, magma, gong, hawkwind etc etc.
When people say the quality is better, they really aren't lying. It's warmer and has a noticable depth absent from digital copies, so I'm now having to balance between buying stuff on vinyl and on cd. And y'know, with around 500 albums already on cd, im not going to give up on getting them.
mp3s are only for listening to when out of the house, the sound is so compressed and flattened that listening to them through speakers is pointless. Anybody who only listens to mp3s is an idiot. I hate that I have to mix my music down to mp3 to share it. I mean with my rock stuff it's lo-fi anyways, but my electro is really harmed by it.

One thing I've noticed about vinyl is that records originally recorded digitally sound kind of synthetic and poorly balanced. Considering the music you listed, I doubt you've had much of this problem, but I'd still suggest that if you get music originally recorded on digital equipment you go for the CD.

But otherwise vinyl collecting can be fun for the "Treasure Hunt" kind of experience that goes with it these days and stuff recorded on analog machines sounds amazing on vinyl.

Well the recent star trek movie isn't based on the setting that the crossover takes place on. It seems like I could be interested in star trek in a general sense, but I never really got into watching either star-trek series. I reckon it was something that just existed outside of being exposed to the generation I belong to.

I did see wrath of khan recently, but all I got out of that movie was how much other TV shows love to drop a reference to that specific movie.

Dr Who on the other hand, I have seen a lot of the recent episodes that have come out. But I only watched those to confirm without a doubt how much I loathe that show on just about every conceivable level. Yeah, I have only seen that one guy portray the Doctor, but based on the very idea of who the doctor is, I am pretty sure I would hate that guy above all other guys regardless of whoever happens to play his part.

I reckon I do not disagree with the show on the basis of it being a fantasy series, so most of my loathing must stem from the concept of a show set up like that one being widely considered as something that qualifies to belong under the category of "science fiction". Basically it takes pretty much every single aspect of that particular genre that I personally love, and goes the exact opposite direction with it.

For instance, even if I operate under the assumption that the self preservation principle employed by the Angel species in that series has zero correlation with actual quantum physics, and the Doctor just calls the state "quantum lock" in order to give a familiar analog to explan the idea properly to dumb humans, I could still go on at an absurdly extensive length about now there is absolutely no aspect of that species that makes any practical sense whatsoever from a survival/evolutionary standpoint. The way I see it, the very concept of the Angels at it's every core, can serve as a perfect metaphor for the very nature of how I could never tolerate much less accept that show ever being considered a work of science fiction.

No Dr Who, you cannot use the basis of the main character having an inheritley higher level of intelligence than any conceivable member of the show's audience as a golden ticket that gives you free reign to have anything happen in any way possible. All you are doing by claiming it doesn't have to make sense to anyone else as long as it makes sense to him is only accomplishing is a setting where the entirety of human effort and development (that he 'loves' so much) are founded on nothing more but complete lies.


If you want a metaphor for that, its as if the Doctor personally equates anyone believing in any aspect of reality as anyone ever knew it, as the same as a child looking at a puppet and believing they are witnessing the actions of an actual person. Even if I was willing to accept that kind of grim, lovecraftian premise, it still means that every single motivation the Doctor has ever had for placing value on the human race itself is a blatant contradiction. From my perspective, it is literally impossible for that show to ever make sense regardless of how anyone can interpret it.

In short, I can never tolerate the concept Dr Who as science fiction, in the same way that Einstein could never tolerate the concept of Quantum law as science fact. (which is ironic, because I am actually a big fan of quantum law. If you are going to make a show just for the sole purpose of me personally hating it, then I appreciate you taking the trouble to shit all over the basic principles that allow that field to operate for the purpose of nothing more than to generate 'dramatic effect')

doctor who isnt sciene fiction for the main part, it's science fantasy. In the earlier days there was a much heavier sci-fi side to it, but especially recently, it's more about ideas and concepts than about making things scientific, because ultimately if you rely too much on established science, you'll lose the kid market who want to see their green aliens. Plus in a narrative aspect, the weeping angels stories work excellent, and the series creates no pretentions towards realism. It's the adventure and the excitement, the knowing that there is always something more. Like when you read a Jack Kirby comic and it's all just cosmic and totally above us, to humans the characters seem like gods,  and their battles are amongst our comprehension.
Though judging a 50 year TV series on the past couple of years is pretty dumb.