Star Trek Reminds Us We Can Do Better: Thoughts on Star Trek's 60th Anniversary

 

My 60th anniversary popcorn bucket from AMC Theaters

The first time I realized I loved Star Trek was while watching Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a memory I relived yesterday at my local theater for Star Trek's 60th anniversary. 

Captain Kirk and crew go back in time from the 23rd century to 1986 San Francisco to bring some whales back to the future in order to avert a cataclysm via mysterious whale-song aliens (most Star Trek fans refer to this as The One With The Whales!). When they arrive in 1986 and Starfleet-out-of-water shenanigans unfold, Kirk remembers, "they're still using money."

My ten-year-old mind reeled! They don't have money in the future? What? How could something that caused so much drama and heartache in the lives of all the adults in my life simply .... not exist?

Random Thoughts, Part 29: I've got 928 thoughts, but not being random ain't one of them

My Random Thoughts series has been running so long I'm starting to worry it's not really random. Oh, well. I did take a few months off from posting them, but that only means I have a few months of thoughts to post. And some memes and other stuff to look at just to keep it all a bit random. And now I've reached the milstone of 928 thoughts! What makes that a milestone? Nothing, really. It's just random. Enjoy!

 

2025 Hugo Ballot

 

I meant to post a bunch of reviews along the way as I did this year's Hugo reading, but the summer sort of got in the way. Oh, well. I still may write longer reviews for some of these and post them here (I did get to some of the novels in June), but since Hugo voting was due last night, I figured I'd just post my full ballot with a few general explanations while it's fresh in my mind. You can find short reviews for most of these on my 2025 Hugo Goodreads shelf.

Note that I didn't vote in all the categories. It's just too much (it's like taking on a part-time job!), and I don't feel all that qualified to judge some of the categories. Still, I managed to vote in most of the categories this year. See the Hugo website for the full list of categories and nominees.

As usual, I'm loosely following my principles of Hugo voting that I'm most interested in works that somehow break new ground in the genre, have some philosophical element, and/or are just plain enjoyable. Maybe other Hugo voters go on vibes, which are impossible to entirely eliminate, but I try reward things that are on the whole doing something new and interesting.

I'm thrilled to be attending Worldcon this year where I'll be on a panel and doing an academic track presentation as part of the Science Fiction and Philosophy Society. Maybe I will see you in Seattle at this year's Hugo ceremony on August 16!

Review of Reviews, May 2025: Andor, Sinners, and Books by Okorafor, Maas, King, Harvey, Hannah-Jones, Pargin, and Stanley

 

I have gotten behind on posting book reviews lately (I did get one last month), so I thought I should get around to that now that the spring semester is over and grades are entered.

And today just happens to be May the 4th, aka Star Wars Day (as observed recently based on the pun on the date), so I figured I would add a little bit about the latest season of the Star Wars show, Andor. Also, like many other people, I saw and had a lot of thoughts about Ryan Coogler's Sinners.

Books reviewed here: She Who Knows by Nnedi Okorafor, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, The Waste Lands by Stephen King, The 1619 Project, edited by Nikole Hannh-Jones, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, John Dies at The End by Jason Pargin, and How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley.

There is also a super secret Star Wars day review hidden in here...

Let the reviews commence!

Random Thoughts, Part 24: Opinions, Generations, AI, Ambition, 666, Doppelgängers, Noticing the Beauty of the Universe, etc.

 

My long-running Random Thoughts series has continued, randomly. Here we are at Part 24, which I'm happy to announce includes Random Thought 666! And there are also memes, because why not? Enjoy!

Pandemic Journal Reboot: The Rumors of COVID's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

 

My recent positive COVID test

During 2020-2022 I was posting a lot of my Pandemic Journal here on the blog. I got up to Part 25 in 2022. I didn't stop writing in that journal, and I even occasionally posted an entry on a specific topic, like this one on the Fourth Pandemiversary.

I guess just as most of the world lost interest in COVID, I lost interest in posting all of my entries here on the blog. I've also been journaling a lot less in the last year or two, often only once every couple of months.

I had a good reason, however, to start the Pandemic Journal again in earnest when I tested positive for COVID in late June! So, as both an exercise in self-indulgence and a public service announcement to get a COVID test if you have symptoms, here is a ... "sequel" doesn't sound right, so let's call it a "reboot" of my Pandemic Journal. And there are still memes, of course!

Cosmic Hope or Lack Thereof: The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin (Translated by Joel Martinson)

 

I read (and loved!) Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem back in 2016. I vowed to read the sequels soon... and then I ... didn't. I'm honestly not sure why (maybe: aliens?), but I watched and mostly liked the Netflix adaptation of The Three-Body Problem, which reminded me that I really should pick up the sequel (there are actually a few things from the second book in the series as well, so that was fun).

I'm glad I finally read The Dark Forest! This feels like a different kind of book to me (maybe due to being a second book in a series, or leisurely in a more focused way, or maybe I'm a different reader now?). Still, I enjoyed it almost as much as the first one.

Movie and TV Mini-Reviews: The Boogeyman, Yellowjackets, Star Trek: Picard, Beavis & Butt-Head, and More

As the prophecy of a recent post foretold, I'm back with some short reviews of movies and TV I've been watching lately. I'm including The Boogeyman, Yellowjackets, Star Trek: Picard, Beavis & Butt-Head, John Wick 4, Sinister, Insidious, and X. These reviews get weirdly impressionistic, so if you're looking for elaborate plot summaries and the like, you may be disappointed. Just the mood I'm in these days, I guess. Enjoy!

MLK Day and Kindred: History is Still With Us

MLK mural at the MLK Day Parade and March, Chattanooga, TN (Jan. 16, 2023)

 

Today has been another Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in the United States. In the past I've written posts including "MLK Day 2020: Labor, Love, and Community" and "So You're Going to Quote MLK?"  I thought of the former post a few weeks ago when Republican Congressman Chip Roy quoted King during one of the tragicomic votes for US House Speaker.

This year I attended the 2023 MLK Day Parade and March here in Chattanooga, Tennessee with my union, United Campus Workers. (See photo above).

Mini-Reviews of Spooky Stuff for Spooky Season, Part Two

 

Here at Examined Worlds, er, we don't say stuff like, "here at Examined Worlds." But if we did, and if there was a "we" beyond you and me, dear reader, I'd say something like, "Here at Examined Worlds, we consider spooky season to be a state of mind, not a month on the calendar."

And that's why I'm posting Part Two of my "Mini-Reviews of Spooky Stuff for Spooky Season" in the middle of November, a week before US Thanksgiving (although I may revisit some of my Thanksgiving horror favorites soon!). Enjoy!

Mini-Reviews of Spooky Stuff for Spooky Season, Part One

Halloween is here! And this spooky season I've been finding so much spooky stuff it's scary! It's so much I couldn't reasonably give full reviews of all of it, so here are some mini-reviews of some of the spooky stuff I've been enjoying in the last month or so. Look for Part Two soon!

Random Thoughts, Part 19: Randomize Then, There are Other Thoughts Than These

My long-running random thoughts series continues with Part 19! And since this is Part 19 and I'm a huge fan of Stephen King's Dark Tower series (where this number figures heavily, at least in the later books), I figured I would riff on my favorite line from the series (even though this quote randomly comes from the first book well before the 19 stuff took off... but that's more fittingly random, I suppose).

I haven't posted one of these since May, and the random thoughts stop for no blog, so I have even more random thoughts than usual. It looks like I got up to the totally random number of 502 with this post! How random!

And as always: plenty of memes for your random memetic enjoyment! Enjoy!

Review of Reviews: TV and Movies, May 2022

 

Apparently I haven't done a "review of reviews" since February 2021 and most of my reviews on the blog lately have been for books, so I figured it was time to do a "Review of Reviews" for some of the TV and movies I've been watching lately.

So check out my review of reviews of Firestarter (2022), Everything Everywhere All At Once, Severance, Outer Range, Inside Job, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Gremlins 2: The New Batch! (Okay, you got me. Gremlins 2 is hardly new, but I did watch it recently, so here you go.)

I've also been watching all the new Star Trek shows as of late: Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. It's a fantastic time to be a Star Trek fan! But that's a lot of Star Trek, so I will cover those in a separate post.

Without further ado: my review of reviews!

Expanding the Expanse: Abaddon's Gate by James S. A. Corey

 

I read the first two books of The Expanse book series around 2013 and 2014. I meant to read the third book soon... and then I didn't. Instead, I watched the entire TV show The Expanse, which just ended recently. Occasionally while watching the TV series over the years, I would think, "I should read the rest of the books someday." And then I didn't. Until now!

Hugo Ballot 2021: Related Work, Dramatic Presentations, and More

As I mentioned in my previous posts on Hugo votes, I was really scrambling to finish enough to vote for the novels and novellas this year, although I had the foresight to spend a couple weekends on the short stories and novelettes. I was definitely more in scramble mode for most of the remaining categories, and I only managed to vote in a handful of categories. You can see the full list of all the categories here.

Will I learn my lesson and start reading for the Hugos earlier in 2022? Honestly: no. But that's okay.

Here's how I voted!

Foundations of Psychohistory: Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov

 

I've read the original Foundation trilogy twice (once in my teens and once about 8 years ago), and I thought about reading it again with the new adaption of Foundation coming out on Apple TV. Or maybe I would read the later sequels (at least one of which I read awhile back). But then I found this latter day prequel on my shelf (that I had forgotten I bought!) and figured I'd check it out.

I can say I enjoyed Prelude to Foundation overall, although parts of it dragged on a bit. You probably have to have a soft spot or at least appreciation for Asimov to really like this. I read the original trilogy as a teenager, which maybe accounts for my soft spot for Asimov. Some people these days complain about Asimov's writing, but I think it's perfectly fine for what he's doing. Asimov was always mainly about the ideas, so if you're looking for in-depth characters or snappy dialogue or whatever... well, you're not going to get that here.

Grief and Creativity: Lisey's Story by Stephen King

Lisey's Story is a strange Stephen King book in many ways, but I found it as engrossing as most of his other work.

I had read somewhere that King says this is his favorite of his books, and somewhere along the way toward my King fandom in recent years I vaguely decided to try to read all of King's books at some point (a major undertaking given how prolific he is!). Then with the TV adaptation coming to Apple TV, I figured it was time to read Lisey's Story.

Random Thoughts, Part 14: Late (?) Pandemic Randomness

Made at: https://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/

 

My random thoughts series continues with Part 14! (You can see Part 13 here.) With this entry, I've broken 300 random thoughts and made it all the way to 332!

The pandemic has upended many things here on Earth, but my thoughts keep coming and they keep coming randomly. And now that we are (hopefully!) toward the later stages of the pandemic, I have occasional thoughts about that. But don't worry, there's still stuff about philosophy, the Culture Wars, cleaning the litter box, and the Snyder cut. And a few random memes just for a little something extra. Enjoy!

Random Thoughts, Part 13: Our Random 2021

 

Made at: https://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/

My previous entry in my Random Thoughts series was in November 2020, so with this post my Random Thoughts series rolls into 2021! There are still plenty of random thoughts to be had in this new and strange year. I've got stuff on philosophy (of course), but also recipes, medical stuff, Taco Bell, conspiracy theories, and Coming to America.

And as I started doing in 2020, I'll include some recent memes that amused me just to keep things more random.

Review of Reviews: Recent Science Fiction TV

 

Have I been watching more TV during the pandemic? Maybe. I've never been good at binge watching, though. I'm re-watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, but a lot more slowly than the first time I watched it in syndication in the early 90's (every night at 9pm!). Disney+ has 31 seasons of The Simpsons, which makes for a nice thing to watch while eating lunch or when I don't know what else to watch (a conundrum: they have an option to "skip intro"... what kind of monster would skip the intro to The Simpsons?). I've also been enjoying WandaVision lately, and I just started Truth Seekers.

I might say more about those shows another time. But I thought it might be good to do a review of reviews of recent science fiction TV! So here are a few thoughts about recent seasons of The Mandalorian, Star Trek: Discovery, and The Expanse and two other shows: Raised by Wolves and the new adaptation of The Stand.