DenebStation SF Book Reviews

      I am a little conflicted after finishing episode 5 of the Disney + series Alien: Earth . So far, the only human character I find interesting is the Chief Security Officer, Kumi Morrow of the Spaceship Maginot. That might be on purpose as he is probably the real protagonist rather than Wendy, the Android with the mind of a child. Or maybe that is a big fake out. None of the other humanoid characters really capture my attention. The aliens are the ones stealing the show for me.  I think this opens the world a little more and reminds me a little of Van Vogt's book The Voyage of the Space Beagle.    The Voyage of the Space Beagle follow the crew of men (there are only men) on their five-year mission to explore space outside of the Milky Way Galaxy. Along the way they encounter different aliens that threaten the crew in different ways like sucking the potassium out of their blood or laying their eggs in the men's stomachs. What makes the stories more...

1970- "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" by Samuel Delany -  This is a literary science fiction tale of the thief and master impersonator, known by aliases that all have the initials H.C.E. rising from being a lowly crook to a wealthy criminal overlord in a vibrant interplanetary underworld.  He is being pursued by the Interplanetary Secret Service Maud Hinkle who mysteriously knows about his past, present, and future. We follow H.C.E.'s life using monthly criminal code words based on semi-precious stones, The story introduces the concept of holographic information storage which can unravel a person's entire life trajectory using a single date point. It brings up questions of self-determination and the surveillance state. This was my favorite story from the 1970's because the world Delaney created comes alive and the questions about free will, identity and surveillance lingered in my mind days after reading the story. I could talk about this s...

 We think of time as something linear- past, present, future. But what if it was a helix that spirals and weaves the past, present, and future together as a whole?  I am a middle-aged woman who grew up in a Conservative home in Tennessee. Now I have my own conservative home. We move a lot.  I wanted to write stories. I wanted my stories to be read by Levar Burton on Reading Rainbow. I wanted my stories to be read in universities. I wanted my stories to be read on my blog that has no followers. I didn't write them down. They aren't good enough. Earth- 21 degrees north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean. After I landed in Hawaii, I threw my luggage into my non-air-conditioned dorm and immediately looked for a job. I didn't look Polynesian enough to work at the Polynesian Cultural Center. Another girl got the position to tutor English because I never studied Spanish but studied Japanese instead. I ended up serving food in the cafeteria.  In between classes and before w...