This week we get Insurgent, the second story in the Divergent series. The Divergent trilogy (which seems to have either 4 or 5 books in it) is a YA series written by Veronica Roth, full of action and adventure. Since it was so popular it became a good choice for converting into a series of movies, and most likely the film I will be enjoying this weekend.
I am very sad to know we lost Terry Pratchett, the author who created Disc World and so many wonderful characters and situations. His web site is down at the moment (probably crashed the server from so many hits), but the BBC announcement mentions a few facts that most authors can only dream of. 70 books translated into 37 languages with total sales so far of 70 million books. And that’s not even counting his stories turned into movies, animations, or TV specials. He was brilliant and funny and I will miss his voice in the world.
Neil Gaiman gave the 13th Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture earlier today. It was broadcast live online, and you can watch it right now. I am truly sorry I will never again have a new Douglas Adams book to read, but these events are worth watching, and the causes they bring you are worth supporting.
I love the fact that even the folks putting together the Academy Awards realize that animation is a wonderful way to create and share stories that could never be told any other way. Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee created Frozen last year, won a ton of awards, and this year they got to host the Oscar party for all their fellow animators as their reward. I think they approached this with the right style, sharing a small but important slice of each nominees production, and then interviewing them about it, so they could share their vision with the world. This is a wonderful presentation; enjoy!
Archive Dot Org has a great assortment of X-1 episodes which you can listen to online, or download for your own collection. The show was one of the better presentations of science fiction radio plays, built from stories that appeared in Galaxy magazine, written by some of the best authors of the era. This program has been in the public domain for quite a while now, which kind of surprises me, as I would have thought they would want to hold on to it. Here are a few episodes to get you started; there are quite a few more available.
In Movies we get Predestination, based upon a 1959 short story by Robert A.Heinlein, All You Zombies. This very convoluted time travel tale is the more-or-less sequel to the earlier Heinlein story, By His Bootstraps. The other film this week is In Your Eyes, an award winning supernatural romance by Joss Whedon, is pretty much the ultimate opposites attract saga. This one was never in theaters, having been made to go direct to streaming, and now it is on disc just in time for Valentines day. If you don’t know about it, have a trailer on me…
In western animation there is LEGO: DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League vs. Bizarro League, for those looking for good silly fun. If you hadn’t heard, Lego is putting out a Doctor Who Lego Edition later this year. TV gets the long awaited Batman: The Second Season, Part 1, the first 30 episodes of season 2, with Adam West and Burt Ward.
In Anime Reideen: Collection 2 has Mechanical Beasts continuing to attack the Earth, who’s major defender is a high school boy piloting an alien-built giant robot. The problem is, no one knows who the robot is actually working for or what its purpose is. This is a remake of the 1975 Super Robot anime Brave Raideen. Engaged to the Unidentified may be a reference to UFOs, as a young woman meets her fiance from an arranged marriage for the first time. Something just isn’t right about her new family, who are very strange. Finally, Sailor Moon: Season 1 Part 2 continues the newest entry into this classic series.