She's a little bit River Song, a little bit Lara Croft, but predates either.  She's worshiped on some planets as a minor goddess of inebriation.  She's interstellar archaeologist Bernice Summerfield, one of the Whoniverse's most successful spinoffs, and she's just hit YouTube in her first animated adventure, a prequel for season 11 (yes--eleven) of her audio adventures.

Several months back, I wrote a piece on femme Doctors.  It subsequently got linked to from a couple of places (including here, in French!); where, oddly enough, one throwaway detail got picked up on: that I, personally, don't particularly want a female Doctor.  People seemed to think that that implied I didn't see women seeing themselves in the lead roles; in fact, I'd stated that it was because I thought the Whoniverse has plenty of kickass female characters already.*

Front and center of these is Professor Bernice Summerfield, interstellar archaeologist and action heroine.  Why Benny Is Awesome is a long and complex topic, and better writers than me have had a go.  But let's say that any random Doctor Who companion discovered that the Doctor had lied to them, by omission or not, and/or tinkered with their destinies.

• Probable Rose reaction: None, too busy making googly eyes at Doctor.
•  Probable Martha reaction: Expression on face indicates that she's hurt and disappointed.
• Actual Benny reaction: "Git! Git! Git!"

For everyone who's complained that the Doctor's companions are wide-eyed teenyboppers with supermodel bodies, Benny is the tonic.  She's over 30, ex-military, smart and focused, with a career and a backstory and (you may wish to sit down for this) regular-sized boobs.  And that was just when she was introduced, in 1992.  Since then, she's acquired an ex-husband, a half-human son (long story), an implacable nemesis or two, a best-selling book or three, and has died at least twice.  Think Martha kicked ass in "Human Nature / The Family of Blood"?  She did--but the original companion for that story (in the Virgin New Adventures novel "Human Nature", whose author, Paul Cornell, adapted it for TV) was Benny.

Find out more about Benny at the TARDIS Wiki, or check out the Big Finish page.  You can start from the beginning with the audios; or, if you're into books, I suggest you start with The Dead Men Diaries, a collection of short stories that picks up Benny's life as she starts work at the Braxiatel Collection.

* In fact, of the many spinoffs, no fewer than seven have or have had female leads (The Sarah Jane Adventures, K9 & Company, the Sarah Jane Smith audios, Virgin New Adventures, Bernice Summerfield, Gallifrey) and one has two female co-leads (Gallifrey). This is a quick-and-dirty count; I'm probably undercounting. I defy anyone to compare this gender balance to the Star Wars and Star Trek universes and their associated spinoffs.

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     While looking for a replacement battle mat for our weekly D&D games, I stumbled across Gaming Paper.  I'm always intrigued in anything thrifty or frugal, but this seemed too good to be true!  A low cost alternative on which I can create custom terrain?  Wow!  The arts and crafts side of me struggled with the logical side of me and curiosity won out.

      I was quick to email the folks over at Gaming Paper and request a roll to evaluate.  (They kindly sent me 4 rolls- but we'll get to that at the very end.) 

Here are the facts about Gaming Paper, as put forth by the creators:

"Gaming Paper is the latest innovation in roleplaying and miniatures accessories and is a low-cost alternative to expensive battlemaps and tile sets. It’s an inexpensive, reusable and disposable product for gamers.

 

Gaming Paper is sold in convenient rolls that are 30 inches wide and 12’ long, for 30 square feet of playing surface. At only $4/roll, it is a fraction of the cost of other gaming mats on the market. Not only is it usable for miniatures games, but it is also ideal for roleplaying games. Anyone can use pens, markers, or other simple writing implements to create detailed terrain for campaigns or miniatures battles."

 

To give you a visual, here's a photo of the paper compared to the more expensive mat:

 

 

The bottom layer is my mat, the shiny layer the gaming paper.

 

    The company actually created their own YouTube channel to show many demos of what is possible with Gaming Paper.   Also, it's worth noting that the product is up for "Ennie Awards" in two categories: "Best Aid or Accessory" and "Best Miniatures Product".

 Now, about my experiences with the product:

I tested a roll of both 1-inch squares and a roll of 1-inch hex grid.  I subjected it to many tests- cutting, writing utensils, spills,  small children...  Here are the findings:

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I've been following Courtney Stoker for a while now, and not just because she had the good taste to link to me.  She's of one of my favorite schools of fandom: the one that believes that the text must and should be deconstructed not just for plot, themes, characterization, etc., but also as a reflection of the culture in which it was made.  It was partially reading her uncompromising stuff that gave me the courage to ask the Being Human panel at Comic-Con about the veiled sexism in season 2. (After the jump, for those interested.  Also, semi-spoilery for BH season 2--discussion of themes but no major plot points.)

Anyway.  She's been interviewed by a paper called the Washington City Paper, on the surprisingly fractious intersections between feminism and geek culture.  Read it here.

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One of the most painful conversations to overhear when I'm out and about is the debate over what book to get for an adolescent girl (painful because social mores declare that it is odd for me to interject).  You're likely to hear painful suggestions like Twilight or one of its host of derivatives.  You might hear references to the Uglies series, or perhaps something by Nicholas Sparks or Jodi Picoult.  Maybe they'll even throw out something along the lines of Wicked or the Hunger Games series (which is fine as far as books go, except that I personally found Wicked and Nicholas Sparks to be a bit...adult).  Don't misunderstand me, there isn't anything inherently wrong with most of those options (the exception to that being Twilight, my thoughts on which, however, have been documented elsewhere).  But I would like to offer up some alternate suggestions that are sadly forgotten in today's society.  These are the 5 books that I feel every single girl ought to read before she is 20.

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 ......and I even tried to resist the urge to make comments about angry trees or "Vhat a tveest!"

That's what an awesome date I am. 

 No, really!  I'll prove it!

[Seven hours later, after tossing the glasses in the "KEEP 3D GREEN" bin]

 Huh.  That was pretty cool.  I wonder if they assigned someone to just stand next to M. Night Shyamalan to yell "NO!" every time he said, "Well, it might be totally unexpected if-"

I am not familiar with the series itself.  As previously stated, I don't like to see the original or read the book prior to seeing the movie if possible because I'll probably end up indignant on principle.  So this perspective isn't comparing anything to the animated series.

It was a cool movie.  I will say that.  It was very entertaining, and it managed to intertwine a whole bunch of different plots without making me forget who was doing what and where.  However, part of the way it accomplished such a feat was by kinda making each of the elements controlled by different races.  So I did feel a little Captain Planet channeling in there.  'cause that Avatar, he's gonna help to put asunder bad guys who like to loot'n'plunder!

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My friend Tony is a professional film geek: he runs film festivals. The big one is the Bradford International Film Festival. It's the UK's equivalent of Cannes, and it's amazingly successful. Because he runs the BIFF, though, he also gets to be involved with the other film festivals run in Bradford: BAF, Bite the Mango, and the Fantastic Films Weekend. The #ffw (pron. fuffwoo) is a joint venture between Tony and Sarah Crowther, and is a glorious celebration of a very British geekdom. If you're British, and of a certain age, you will remember late night horror movies on the BBC.

My own initiation into horror came with Taste the Blood of Dracula at the tender age of six, and was swiftly followed by such classics as The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, Vault of Horror, and many, many other wonderful films. The FFW gives me the chance to see these as they were meant to be seen: in a darkened cinema, sitting with my mates, clutching a paper cup (although, given the civilised nature of the National Media Museum, the paper cup generally contains Proper Beer rather than fizzy pop).

Classic films shown this year included Psycho, Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General, and The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue. But the FFW is not just about classic films, it's a total experience. There are new films too, and the museum's TV Heaven facility shows selections of sci-fi and horror TV shows, and directors and actors come to talk about genre film-making and to introduce their films (I loved Jenny Agutter talking about American Werewolf in London a couple of years ago) and the film make-up ladies from the local film school come and do wound make-up on people (I got my wrist slashed) and teach you how to do it yourself if you want to learn.

Sometimes they show silent movies with live accompaniment. Sometimes they dig out 70mm prints of films (Aliens in seventy mill was amazing). Sometimes films break, or there are typos on the tickets, but that doesn't matter, it's all part of the charm (as is the annual dusting off of the ropey old print of Horror Express, IMHO the best film ever made, to be shown to a whooping, cheering, utterly appreciative audience - Monster? But we're BRITISH!)... It's a wonderful, wonderful thing. It's also unique in the UK. They do a similar thing in Manchester, but it's nowhere near as good, and the facilities at the National Media Museum are unique in Europe in the range of types of film they can show.

The nicest thing for me, though, is the atmosphere. I get to run into old friends and make new ones. Because I have been going to it for years, I have got to know some of the museum staff (shout out going to Jeni and Tristan). Everybody is happy and enthusiastic about the films and the geekery, and you don't get looked down on by people like Mark Lawson, who think that horror and sci-fi can only ever be trash. I know that most of the audience for this blog is USian, but if you have an opportunity to get to Bradford in June of any given year, and you have any fondness for horror or sci-fi or fantasy movies, you should totally support the FFW.

Because it's unique, it's also precarious. Every year the museum gets a lot of event pitches, and it's always wanting to do new stuff, so it needs to be reminded that there is a public demand for the FFW to continue. Tony is already soliciting suggestions for stuff to show next year (I have asked for Dark City and Ginger Snaps) and if you have a suggestion, you can send it to tony DOT earnshaw AT nationalmediamuseum DOT org DOT uk. The more emails he gets saying "I loved the FFW this year, please do it again next year, I'd love to see *insert name of genre film here*", the more likely it is that the museum won't drop it in favour of something else.

 I hope to see some of you girls there next year :D

Further reading: reviews are up at the blogs of several geek-girl attendees: my own, innerbrat, and Purple Pen. You can follow Sarah Crowther on Twitter, and the National Media Museum has an official tweet stream. And you van check out the views of the (mostly) boys on the British Horror Forum here (although you WILL need a free account for that one - shout out to Daz and Sladds and Moo and Nadia and James).

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It's a shame that Splice is being marketed the way it's been.  Based on the trailers I've seen, it looks like a horror movie.  It's not.  It's actually fairly thought-provoking.  I enjoyed it, and I was pleasantly surprised that it was more than some freaky thing escaping from a lab and running around eating people.

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Despite the bad reviews I'd read, I decided to see the Black Waters of Echo's Pond.  I find that what I like in horror movies is often a lot different from what's mentioned by other reviewers, and I thought the premise sounded kind of neat.

The film is about a group of 20-somethings who decide to spend a weekend at their friend's house on an island in Maine.  They find a weird board game, and hey, why not play it, right?  After all, they're there to spend time with each other and reconnect as a group, and they want to do more than sit around and watch TV, smoke pot, and get drunk.

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Note:  These are quick, post-movie first impressions.  I may or may not write a full, in-depth review (with spoilers), but I wanted to give you guys an idea of what you're in for if you've been looking forward to this film.

If you're looking for cinematic eye candy this weekend, you could certainly do worse than Clash of the Titans.  Story and script aside, this is the first movie I've seen where the 3D effects are for the most part fairly subtle.  There aren't any blatantly obvious things flying at the faces of the audience, as was used gratuitously in the Final Destination.  The atmosphere was handled well, too.

 In addition, the cast is kinda cool.  In explaining it to you, I must warn you of these facts:

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As an aspiring author, it behooves me to support the publishing industry. Usually this means that I just overspent at the bookstore, and almost always this means I came home with a new comic book trade. This weekend, I picked up Superman: Red Son, and let me tell you my friends, it was totally worth the cover price. I love a book that makes me think, and Superman: Red Son delivers that in spades.

Red Son is an alternate reality story answering the question "what if Superman had crashed in the USSR instead of Kansas?" and I think they tackle it in incredible ways. Superman is still Superman, still struggling to find a way to give the world the peace he knows it deserves, to give humanity safety, security, the basics of food and shelter, and he is still very much a sympathetic hero, communist dictatorship aside.

The really incredible thing for me, in this story, was realizing that the differences in Superman's choices are ultimately very slight. These are choices that Superman might have just as easily made as an American--the difference is not the politics and economics of his homeland, but the cries of the people he loves. The results of those slight differences, however, are incredibly large, and in Red Son, we see Superman take the world into his hands as a political leader, as a lawmaker, as a ruler. Instead of choosing to lead by example and allowing humanity to make it's own mistakes, he tries to keep humanity from making any mistakes and fix the systems in place that are already broken through his own personal interference. Superman decides he knows what's best for the world, and sets it into motion.

It would have been very easy for this story to have been made into the typical pro-capitalism propaganda, and they didn't escape those overtones entirely, but they did succeed in writing a story that at least allowed the reader to consider that capitalism and America's Way isn't the only way. In Red Son, there are glimpses of what communism and the Marxist revolutions were meant to be-- a chance at utopia and an ideal world. 

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I can't begin to explain it, but I'm just fascinated by choreographed dancing.  I will watch and re-watch Bring It On just to see the cheer sequences.

MTV rarely has anything remotely resembling television on anymore, but they do have America's Best Dance Crew...which managed to succeed where America's Next Top Model failed as far as catching my attention.

I only want to see the last fifteen minutes of America's Next Top Model.  I want to see how the pretty pictures turned out.  I don't care about who may or may not be anorexic or whose boyfriend is mad or Tyra's latest story about herself or...whatever else happens on that show. 

America's Best Dance Crew has the stuff I want throughout the show.  Sure, judges say things, but it doesn't last too long, and it happens in between each group's performance, so I don't have time to get annoyed enough to change the channel.  After all, the "Oooh!  Shiny!" kicks in as soon as the next dancers come out.

I don't generally care about the dance crews or whatever beyond the show, but these guys just entertain the hell out of me.  They're called Poreotics (also spelled Poreotix).  And they're a bunch of hilarious Asian dudes in weird sunglasses.  And they just....see for yourself:

 

 

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Starcross: A Stirring Adventure of Spies, Time Travel, and Curious Hats by Philip Reeve (YA science fiction)

If you loved Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series and lament the fact that there is no spiritual successor to those books, this Philip Reeve series comes closer to that than anything else I've seen. It's not so much pure comedy as a mix of comedy and adventure, but I haven't read anything this funny in a while.

Starcross is the sequel to Larklight: A Rousing Tale of Dauntless Pluck in the Farthest Reaches of Space. The premise for the setting is that you throw science out the window. Space isn't a vacuum; it's filled with aether, and it can be navigated with alchemy-powered aetherships. All the planets and moons are inhabited by strange creatures, as is space itself. We're in the Victorian era. The American Revolution failed (put down by Admiral Nelson), and the British Empire, which closely guards the secrets of alchemy, has spread into space and made colonies of several planets.

We follow the adventures of Art and his older sister Myrtle, and the pirate Jack Havock (all of whom are teenagers, I think, though I'm not sure of their exact age). Most chapters are written from Art's point of view, but we occasionally switch to Myrtle's, and their brotherly/sisterly sniping at one another is a constant source of amusement.

Myrtle is one of the most original and interesting characters I've seen in science fiction. She's obsessed with being a proper English lady. Here's a passage from the book that explains her better than I could:

Mother was concerned about Myrtle's education, too, for it seemed to have been confined to piano playing and deportment. She kept asking anxiously whether Myrtle would not like to study for some Career or Profession, for, as she said, 'This is the Nineteenth Century, Myrtle, dear, and many avenues of life which were once purely the preserve of men are now wide open to members of the fairer sex.' Had not Mother's dear friend, Miss Marian Evans, lately been appointed editor of the Westminster Review? But Myrtle insisted that a lady does not seek anything so common as Paid Employment, and continued playing her horrible piano, and embroidering improving samplers. However, she did agree to learn a little French, for, as she said, 'then I may write in my diary in French, and if A Certain Person is ever tempted to steal bits of it again, he will be most aggrieved to find he cannot read it!'

The events of the book keep putting Myrtle in danger, and while she always hopes the dashing Jack Havock will rescue her, more often than not, she finds that she has to do the rescuing herself. As it happens, she's quite resourceful and more than capable of rising to the occasion. This is one of the funniest takes on feminism I've ever seen. Myrtle is determined to be useless, but continually proves herself otherwise.

It still blows my mind that so many SFF readers/writers are not reading YA, because there's a revolution happening in SFF right now, and YA is where it's happening. We're getting top-notch writing, fast-paced stories, deft characterization, and wildly original ideas. This book is part of that revolution.

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If you knew me in Real Life, you'd probably already know that I'm dangerously addicted to TED Talks. If you are reading this and have no idea what TED is, here's an explanation from the TED website:

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year's TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.

The TED Talks are video recordings of  people giving talks at these TED conferences. The smartest, most accomplished people in the world, telling me about their work, their ideas, their cutting edge gadgets. Right there on the web, for free.

I could lose DAYS on this stuff. I'm not the only one. Last year, my husband and brother-in-law (with total family involvement from our excited children)  hacked their Wii remote to create a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer after watching this TED Talk by Johnny Lee:

I ask you, where else could you find information that would make a whole family excited about disassembling  part of an expensive video game system instead of just, you know, using it to play games. (Of course, later that summer we created a low-tech air conditioner with a a box fan, a length of copper tubing and a bucket of ice water,  so maybe we're not the best examples.)

Still there is a lot of information to be had there. I can trace the fact that my sons are now home schooled back to this talk by Sir Ken Robinson, about how schools kill creativity (fair warning- it's 20 minutes long, but quite amusing):

 

 Now, for the tech-lovers among us, take a look at this jaw-droppingly awesome augmented reality mapping technology from Microsoft:

They have now added a "Best of the Web" feature which allows them to share extraordinary and inspiring talks that were not recorded at TED conferences. Like the Harvard commencement speech given by J.K. Rowling that has so recently moved and inspired me, The Fringe Benefits of Failure.

Many of the shorter, more entertaining videos have made their way onto YouTube. The best of these give us insight into our world and ourselves, or else give detailed instructions on how to turn household appliances into doomsday devices.

Well, okay. Not really. But TED Talks are like the best bits of the best lectures you might ever have heard in college, and they are totally free. What's not to love about that?

I am going to leave you with one I found to be quite fun, though perhaps not earth-shatteringly revolutionary. Micheal Shermer: Why People Believe Strange Things.

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It's  Women in Horror month on the Interwebs, and we at GC are here to say that we've traced the calls, and they're coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!

Wait, sorry; got the cue cards mixed up.

Anyway.  When our trusty leader UberWench asked for suggestions on notable women in horror, my reaction was "Shit, THAT's easy. Tananarive Due."

Florida native Due has written a couple of nonfiction works, but she's perhaps best known for a string of novels (My Soul To Keep / The Living Blood / Blood Colony) that are way more unsettling creepy than, on the surface, they should be.  The stories concern Jessica and her growing unease about her ridiculously perfect husband, David--who is secretly a 500-year-old immortal, thanks to his Living Blood.  There are about 50 immortals, we learn, based out of Ethiopia; all immortals have Living Blood, which can transform a mortal into an immortal if administered at the moment of death.  With me so far?  They're basically immortals, except they can sire more immortals like vampires do.

And what they have done--what Due has done--is make the whole vampire-romance thing scary again.

Part of that has to do with the way vampires have been (pardon me) defanged during their rise to pop-cultural stardom: I love Angel, Spike, and Being Human's Mitchell as much as anyone, but I think we lost sight of the terror of vampires, really, when we had them swear off blood.*  The denaturing of vampires then proceeded unchecked, until the nadir was reached with the execrable Twilight series, where vampire boyfriends are like regular boyfriends except sparklier.

Whereas the real attraction of vampires is that they are dangerous.  They pose a continuous threat--urge to kill barely held in check by nobler morals--and while there's no doubt about Edward's saintly restraint (despite his incessant claims to the contrary), there's plenty of doubt where these immortals are concerned.  Amorality and selfishness are the products of unnaturally long life, Due argues: everything else sort of gets worn away.  So when we see David calmly kill to protect his secret, calmly prepare to turn his wife and child, it all seems so natural that we can't help but see where he's coming from.  500 years of watching everyone he loves die; why shouldn't he turn his beloved into an immortal to keep him company?  The alternative is to go completely batshit insane, a fate that's befallen a fellow immortal who's spent too long hanging out with mortals; and which, as Due observes, is a particularly awful fate if you can't die.

It's David's essential decency, warped as it is by his centuries of undeath, that really establishes his power as a villain.  He really does adore his wife and daughter.  He privately bemoans how sorry he is to have to kill people, but he still resorts to it rather too often for the reader to believe him.  The signs of his lurking creepitude are all there in hindsight--Jessica's family and friends, we see, consistently find him self-absorbed and controlling--but Jessica's willingness to believe otherwise blinds her to them.  And it's Jessica's participation in her own rescue and redemption that establish her as a heroine.

Due also has a few standalones out: Joplin's Ghost is a neat sort of ghost story / psychic thing, easier to read than to describe.  I haven't read The Good House, which looks like a solid entry into that quintessential Seventies horror subgenre, the evil house story.

There's apparently a movie of My Soul To Keep that's stuck in development hell.  The male lead's been cast (Blair Underwood, on account of him being the story's champion and driving force behind the movie effort), which spoils my dreams of Chiwetel Ejiofor (the Operative from Serenity) or maybe Paterson Joseph; but, y'know, it's all good.  For Jessica I'd like either Zoe Saldana or Gina Torres.  That is all.

* To some extent this is a storytelling thing.  Vampiric struggles to stay clean provide lots of noble angst (Being Human is especially fond of this trope)--but also, it's hard to write stories about a group of heroes when one of them logically should be doing nothing but attacking the others.  One of the Eighties Doctor Who writers made this observation about the character of Turlough, a companion whose motivation for joining the TARDIS was to kill the Doctor: so far, an interesting and unique character. Trouble was, storywise you either had to have him be separated from the Doctor or else babysat by another companion, because otherwise he should, logically, attack the Doctor.  The writers wisely wrapped up that arc within three serials, but then Turlough lost much of what made him interesting.  I don't think it's an accident that Spike was defanged at precisely the same time he became one of the principals on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

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I'm a sucker for comic books.

I love the art. I love the story telling. I love the combination of art and story telling. I love that they use art to tell a story just as much as they use dialogue and narration. And I love bulked up superheroes, flawed and perfect. I love that we've taken the richness of classical myth, and recreated it for our modern world in a way that people who would never otherwise pick up a book on the topic can find meaning. The reinvention of myth and even the reinvention of what it means to be a hero. I love it all.

Lately, I've been taken in by the relaunch of Marvel's Thor title. It started innocently enough. I've always been fascinated by mythology, pantheons, and the cultures that worshipped them were always my favorite part of history classes. I took a class on Norse Mythology in college, in fact. It's impossible to ignore the influence of the Scandinavian people, and their heritage when you live in North Dakota for any extended period of time-- but I'm pretty sure my love for Norse Myths, and Thor in particular, came before I fell into that Midwestern (and I say it lovingly) black hole.

The Thor title in its previous incarnations (588 issues? really?) never attracted my attention, though. For one thing, it wasn't until my teens that I cultivated any real independent taste for comic books that wasn't influenced by my older brother, and for another, it's a little bit hard to jump into those titles when they're on issue 500 and counting, and you have no idea what the heck is going on. In my opinion, this is the number one problem with the big titles, today. Superman, Spiderman, X-men, Avengers-- you almost have to know the entire history, as well as read every other title in the universe to have a context for the story in the issue you picked up off the rack, but that's another post altogether.

But I was totally blown away by Ultimate Thor-- that is, Thor as he appeared within the Ultimates 1 & 2 titles (3 was a catastrophe that I've been trying to repress). The idea of turning Thor into a hippy conservationist using his powers to try to save the planet, ecologically, while boozing it up with his fellow activists was so alarmingly different, so incredibly unique a take, that I couldn't resist. Who can say no to a thundergod smiting a whaling ship with a bolt of lightning? Not only that, but this incarnation of Thor didn't feel at all compelled to speak awkwardly in the third person with outdated language! I was hooked!

So naturally, in my casual stroll through the graphic novels section of the bookstore, when I happened across volume one of this new title in trade paperback form back in August of '08, I had to pick it up. Why not, I thought? I had a long train ride ahead of me to go visit my sister, and some reading material was in order. But once I read the first couple of pages, that was it. Marvel had me. Again. Just when I had given up on them because of that horrible Ultimates 3 fiasco. Here was a Thor I could respect! And more importantly, a story that treated him as more than a musclebound oaf.

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When you’re a fan of several different franchises as I am, you have to realize that in doing so, there is a certain amount of risk involved.  A danger of your fandom not living up to your expectations and/or coming to the point that causes you to ponder “Why in the world did I ever start watching/reading/playing this?” is always present, even if it is only the danger of the story ending.

I first came to grips with this painful fact at the tender age of eleven, when my family and I sat in our living room with our eyes glued to the television, and we watched the last flight of the Enterprise 1701 D into an artful background of sun and nebulae on the small screen. Star Trek: The Next Generation is still my favorite show, but there is no one more depressed than I am about the fact that there will be no more of it.

Other examples include: Heroes, which turned to crap after the mesmerizing first season. Doctor Who, it will never be the same – no, really, it won’t. 

That’s why the main requirement of being a fan is unfailing, sometimes obsessive love.  But even after all of that, it’s hard not to wallow in despair at times. 

Sometimes we as fans just need a more solid ground to stand on.  There is one thing in this entire universe that I know will never fail me.  It’s a person actually, and his name is Bear Grylls.  Perhaps you’ve heard of him?

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Some of you may have heard about Jude Law's upcoming movie Repo Men (or as it may have originally been titled, Repossession Mambo).  For those who haven't, here's the deal:

A company can replace your organs if they're failing.  And they'll do it on a payment plan.  However, if you stop making payments, the organ(s) can be repossessed.

Neat film for sci-fi/horror geeks, right?

Yeah, it'd be even better if it wasn't a blatant ripoff of an extremely good musical film which sadly went almost straight to video.  

I understand that original ideas are hard to come by and all that, but nothing irritates me more when a better-quality original is overlooked because the "new" product is more well-known.  Even worse, there are plenty of instances in which the original is later seen as the rip-off.  For a good example from the music industry, see also:  Mushroomhead vs. Slipknot, which is quite the beehive to poke with a stick and an extremely polarizing subject among fans.

Consider this a public service announcement, folks:  Repo Men is just a big-budget version of Repo!  The Genetic Opera.  Repo! is fantastic.  It's been described as "a Rocky Horror meets Blade Runner rock opera/movie musical."  Now, I personally hate Rocky Horror, but I adore the Genetic Opera.  It also has the same amazing vocalist as the 5th Element, where she made her brief appearance as a blue opera singer.  I don't want to give away the plot because this film is definitely one you should go see for yourself, but "Repo man goes around killing people and taking organs" doesn't begin to describe what's going on.

Other facts about Repo!

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Last summer, I found myself in an unusual place for a geek: in possession of the season's hot ticket.  Yes, I am referring the RSC's totally sci-fi* Hamlet, with David Tennant as the Melancholy Dane, and Patrick Stewart as King Claudius (and, helmeted and be-bearded, as King Hamlet Sr.). 

The RSC knew a good thing when they had one, and promptly committed it to celluloid.  It's already out on DVD in the UK, and will be shown on PBS sometime during 2010.  This is a good thing, because it's--among its other virtues--a very accessible production, and everyone should totally check it out.

 Read on for my review of the original stage production.  Word has it that the film version is pretty darned similar.

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Throughout most of history women generally have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Wife-hood and motherhood were regarded as a woman's most significant professions. Historically, women have been considered intellectually inferior to men.  In the 20th century, however, women in most nations won the right to vote and increased their educational and job opportunities. Perhaps most important, they fought for and to a large degree accomplished a reevaluation of traditional views of their role in society.

We here at GeekaChicas.com, now know and embody what women throughout the ages have known: a woman is capable of ANYTHING she puts her mind to, whether it relates to strength, intelligence, health, or even the right to make personal choices.  And, in the true holiday spirit of GeekaChicas, I'd like to present my list of charities that support a great cause: Girl Power!

 1) Equality Now

Equality Now was founded in 1992 to work for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women around the world. Working with national human rights organizations and individual activists, Equality Now documents violence and discrimination against women and mobilizes international action to support their efforts to stop these human rights abuses. Through its Women's Action Network of concerned groups and individuals around the world, Equality Now distributes information about human rights violations; takes action to protest these violations; and brings public attention to human rights violations against women. http://www.equalitynow.org

2) Girls Inc.

Girls Incorporated® is a nonprofit organization that inspires all girls to be strong, smart, and bold. With local roots dating to 1864 and national status since 1945, Girls Inc. has responded to the changing needs of girls through research-based programs and public education efforts that empower girls to understand, value, and assert their rights. In 2006, Girls Inc. reached over 800,000 girls through Girls Inc. affiliates, our website, and educational publications.  http://www.girlsinc.org

3)  Powerful Voices

This Seattle-based charity has been improving the lives of adolescent girls through innovative evidence-based programs in public middle schools and in the juvenile justice system. The organization was formed to address issues at their root, by instilling leadership skills, fostering the development of critical thinking, and promoting the individual potential in adolescent girls.  Girls learn to stand up and face the challenges they will encounter. They become advocates for themselves and activists in their communities.  http://www.powerfulvoices.org

4)  Girls Write Now Inc.

Girls Write Now is New York’s premier creative writing and mentoring non-profit organization, matching bright, creative teenage girls from the city’s public high schools with professional women writers in the community since 1998. Through weekly one-to-one mentoring, monthly group genre-based workshops, and a five-part public reading series, their mission is to provide a safe and supportive environment where under-served or at-risk high school girls can expand their natural writing talents, develop independent voices, and build confidence in making healthy choices in school, career and life.   http://www.girlswritenow.org

5) Expanding Your Horizons Network

 Expanding Your Horizons in Science and Mathematics™ conferences nurture girls' interest in science and math courses to encourage them to consider careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.   http://www.expandingyourhorizons.org

*all graphics are courtesy of the charity websites.

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I first encountered Doctor Who as a wee slip of a girl, but as I was not 100% sure that I hadn't hallucinated it*, it probably doesn't count.  I encountered it again much later--after college, even--and recognized in it a union of my lifelong love for SF and the love of camp I'd developed as a teen.  After years of watching MST3K and feeling faintly guilty when I liked one of the movies, I discovered in Doctor Who a show where not only was it OK to laugh at the bad parts while still being inspired by the good parts, it was encouraged.

And lo! after years in the wilderness, Doctor Who is cool again.  Chances are good that you, O reader, know a fan, and are perhaps wondering what sort of gift would elicit the Squee of Joy and not the Oh How Very Nice of Meh.  We don't know that, but you could do worse than to surprise her with one of our specially-selected treats--read on for details!

(Images mostly from the Doctor Who Image Archive)

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