Has there ever been a cooler teaser line than “The Doctor Reutrn in Let’s Kill Hitler”?

E.D. Kain suggests:  5 Fantasy Books to Read While You’re Waiting for the Next ‘Game of Thrones’

Interesting stuff for comic collectors of a certain age via i09:  The secret history of the greatest Thor stories ever written.

I had always considered Thor (along with Captain America, I must confess) to be a tad boring.  However, Simonson’s run on the book in the 1980s was fantastic.

Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I finished the latest WoT book the other day, an exercise that, in many ways, feels like an obligation or, at least, the literary manifestation of "in for a penny, in for a pound." In other words, I have read all the others and I want to know how it ends. However, I have felt for some time like the books are an ongoing prologue filled with meetings that suggest what is going to happen without well, actually happening.

(From here be warned: spoilers).

To wit: what would seem to be a major scene takes place relatively early in the book when Rand appear at Tar Valon to tell Egwene about his intentions regarding the seals around the prison that hold the Dark One. So, what should be a rather major event, the freakin’ Dragon Reborn finally makes his way into the heart of the power of the Aes Sedai to speak to the Amyrlin and they have a meeting which announces what will happen later. Further, this was the first time Egwene and Rand have been together for ages, and this is all we get?

This then allows us to have scene after scene (usually made up of meetings) wherein the characters discuss what Rand is going to do. It even creates another set of discussions about what is going to happen: Egwene is going to assemble a coalition to stop Rand from breaking the seals. Look, especially at this point, I don’t want to read about what is going to happen, I want to see it happen. So instead of Rand moving to fulfill his plan, he doesn’t really do much of consequence for the rest of the book. Egwene, at least, fights off assassins, hangs out in the world of dreams, and pouts quite a bit about Gawyn.

What really gets me is that we don’t even see any of this even start. I thought, as a minimum, we would see the start of the confrontation between Egwene’s allies and Rand. But no–that’s for the next book.

The scene at Tar Valon well encapsulates what has been wrong with these books for a while: we know that something is going to happen, but instead of getting to it in some interesting way, the characters talk about it a lot, and then a bunch of minor things happen before we get to the important bit. An example from earlier in the series that most readily comes to mind was when Rand cleansed the Source–we knew hundreds and hundreds of pages it would happen, but had to wait for no discernible reason to get to it.

Heck, the worst example: it was pretty obvious to me the Moiraine would survive her trip through the gateway, and yet we had to wait how many books to resolve that one?

Another gripe I have: Rand is clearly the central and most important character, and the books were at their most interesting when we were mostly focused on him. However, Jordan decided to pretend like Perrin and Matt were of equal, if not more, importance. And let me state: Perrin is boring and yet he seemed to get the most attention in the book. There are aspects of his story that are interesting and worth including, but he gets far, far, far too much time devoted to his character. I got tired of the wolf dreams almost automatically. And was especially tired of his whining. He whines about all kinds of things: about being a simple blacksmith, about the fact that he isn’t a lord or a leader or a wolf or worthy of Faile or upset because people think he slept with Berelain or because of various banners. I am sure I am missing something, but enough with the whining already.

And really, after a while it just seemed like Perrin and his followers were just sort of hanging out in the west for no good reason. I had a similar feeling about Matt and the Band.

Speaking of Matt: he is more interesting than Perrin, but much of what he was doing seemed random. And how in the world could he end up married to the Empress of the Seanchan and still be wandering about as if it didn’t matter?

Speaking of whining, the characters do a lot of that: I was ready to choke Gawyn as he continued in his rather childish whining about how Egwene wouldn’t let him protect her and how he wanted to be her Warder. What was this: Junior High?

The molasses-like progression of the plot is made all the more annoying when one throws in the fact that there are means of instantaneous travel and communication. Yes, there are some caveats to be attached to those abilities, but they could be used a heck of a lot more efficaciously than the main characters do, especially when we are supposedly preparing for Armageddon.

One thing’s for certain: the last book better move at a breakneck pace to deal with all the dangling plot points.

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Yes:  Starbuck and Starbuck at Starbucks.

h/t:  Topless Robot  (no other word on the source).

Good stuff (especially if you are old enough to remember holiday specials of this type):

Via the WSJ:  BaQa’—or Is It Humbug? Aliens Attack a Holiday Classic

The answer runs an hour and 20 minutes and includes three fight scenes, 17 actors with latex ridges glued to their foreheads and a performance delivered entirely in Klingon—a language made up for a Star Trek movie.

[…]

The arc of "A Klingon Christmas Carol" follows the familiar Dickens script: An old miser is visited on a hallowed night by three ghosts who shepherd him through a voyage of self-discovery. The narrative has been rejiggered to match the Klingon world view.

For starters, since there is neither a messiah nor a celebration of his birth on the Klingon planet of Kronos, the action is pegged to the Klingon Feast of the Long Night. Carols and trees are replaced with drinking, fighting and mating rituals. And because Klingons are more concerned with bravery than kindness, the main character’s quest is for courage.

Amusing.  Part of me wonders about sitting through a play in a foreign language, let alone a fictional one.  Part of me thinks it would be fun.

In any event: 

Qapla’!

Of course, acquaintance with a certain long-running SF program (as well as the antics of a certain talk show host) are helpful in terms of appreciating the awesomeness in question.

Amusing (via io9): The 10 strangest creative liberties ever taken on superhero TV shows.

The Wonder Woman stuff is truly from the land of the bizarre.

And I have always hated H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot.