Seems like there is a surfeit† of speculative tv shows and books and movies and…

I don’t have the time to watch them. Read them. See them. Even listen to them.

Not in the least because I’m creating some of these. Just in the past couple of months:

• Selection Ourselves—audiobook (edited the text, wrote introductory materials, voiced, mastered, and published it)
• Rebuilt parts of my website—light web mastering and ongoing fixes for the AudioBook and Bio
• Hammered out 16 chapters of The Book of Visions.  (A mixture of editing and drafting. Just under 220 pages. As of Tuesday, May 25th.)

Enough of what I’ve been doing.

From the Department of Too Much to View, Read, Listen

From Thrillist, a collection of the Best SFF Movies of 2021, so far. Trailers and teasers, and I don’t know what to start with.

• On HBO, we have the Game of Thrones Prequel.
• Now that NYC is opening back up, there is even a GoT Show on Broadway. Yes, you read that right. Check it out here. 
• Amazon’s got The Wheel of Time. 
• Also from Amazon: A Lord of the Rings TV show. 
• There is talk of Lui Cixin’s The Three Body Problem series going to screen. 
• Netflix won’t be left behind with their Kingdom series.  
• From Marvel: the Black Widow. 

  This is just NEW stuff. 

Plus rumors and stuff in development:

• a Pratchett book is in the works with BBC.
• Perhaps Conan the Barbarian via Amazon—so we can expect serious gore and exposed flesh. 
• The Chronicles of Narnia from Netflix. Obviously, to do battle with the Magician series. 
• Apple isn’t to be left out. But they are going old school, as in the Foundation Trilogy by Asimov. 
• Can’t count Hulu out with the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. 
• Plus, talk of Consider Phlebas from Amazon. 
• And Ringworld—not the failed one from Syfy, but a real money deal backed by Amazon. 
• The Mauritanian
• Dune
• Chaos Walking
• The Reincarnationist Papers
• Artemis 

Plus, there are actual books. To read and listen to.      
I have to say Good Omens is a hoot to listen to. People kept giving me sideways glances on the bus and subway it made me bust out laughing so often.

My brain is hurt by all the stuff I’ll probably miss. 

     At least I can catch some in theaters again. Or regret more sharply for having missed seeing them actually playing on the big screen. 

Then again, it’s a matter of perspective, as Tor Books points out here. (If you’re feeling that guilt for not having read and seen it all, I’d suggest you spend a few minutes on that piece.)

Department of Found and Abused Words

 †I do and did mean above surfeit: an excessive amount of something. As in, I won’t be able to find the time to watch all this and read and listen to everything I want. Can’t do it. Just one life. So many breaths to take, you know. 

      I specifically don’t mean one of the more abused words of late: plethora. This does NOT simply mean a lot or plenty. NO. It means an extreme excess, a needless super abundance. So much it’s unhealthy. 

And yes, a helluva lot can be a surfeit or even a plethora, but often it’s just a bunch of whatever. A plethora can’t, or at least shouldn’t, be used to simply mean “a bunch of stuff.”        Yes, I know, language changes.
      And I’m on a fool’s errand.
      Yet, I still defend the singularity of unique. That is a word that cannot be qualified—it’s a superlative, like “most,” and not a relative like “large.” So, most, more, or less unique makes zero sense. It’s already unlike anything else, an absolute—a unique quality.
     Really, how can something more unlike anything else than something else that is unlike anything else?
      GRRRRR.
      Rant over. 

From the Department of High Fantasy

    As said, there are 220-odd revised pages of the Book of Visions. Most of that needs spell-checking and a quick grammar review. But right now, the opening scene is ready to taste. Just over two pages, it’s to whet the appetite for more and promises you just what sort of ride you’ll be going on reading it. A link to those few pages is right here: Just Trying to Get Home.  Click and receive a simple word document.

      If you do decide to dig it, let me know if you’d turn the page at the end to find out what happens next. And what sort of story YOU think you’ll be reading. Don’t have to. I’d just appreciate it.  

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