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Keith Latch

I start episode 276 off with the closing theme music to Requiem for the Dark called The Flame. For those of you familiar with the anime series you will appreciate the complete version of the song.

Stories this week are the continuation of Keith Latch’s “The Stars Fell”. This week is part 3 and Keenan finds that not only did the strange meteor he discovered in his family’s field not only rendered him unconscious, but something ever so much more strange and confusing! However the first story is a wicked tongue in cheek (if I dare say so) story from the early pen of Philip K. Dick – “The Eyes Have it” where our protagonist has either found a description of the invasion of Earth by the most unusual creatures to date, or the gent is taking the written language far to literally!

From the Beam Me Up blog I review the movie based on Philip K. Dick’s Adjustment Team called “The Adjustment Bureau”, The 2011 Hugo Awards are out and I list a few of the winners, clever short films abound on YouTube, the first one I found this week was the Tron Duck Tape short, which is more a commercial for Duck Tape, but it’s nothing if not clever, Robonaut is turning out to be a Robo Not, my gripe this week is that robo hobo is turning into nothing more than an expensive toy. The Russians it would seem are looking to build a tunnel under the Bering Strait and at 65billion they are looking for investors, USA included… Fans of Portal will enjoy this fan made Portal short movie that is astoundingly well made! Nancy Fulda has sent us a note on her newest book of short stories and Russian Progress m-12m crashes in Siberia with three tons of supplies for the ISS – this could cause the station to reconsider a lot of options!

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Welcome to Beam Me Up.  This week’s episode is show 263.  I am very happy with how the show progressed this week, I think you find it equally entertaining.

I open this week with My Favorite Martian doing the song “All These Villains” This will get the blood pumping and the toes taping for sure.

This week’s fiction is a couple of short stories from Doug Hilton and Ken Liu.

Doug’s offering this week is a twisted tale in the vein of Damon Knights “To Serve Man”.  Doug’s story is titled “Better than Jelly Beans”  and it is every bit as twisted as you can imagine.  As the title suggest Humans are treated like rather unhealthy junk food.  Oh my!

Ken Liu’s Simulacrum is of much more serious stuff.  This week I play the conclusion of Ken’s story.  We are carried deeper into the dynamics and implications of the Simulacrum device and how it has impacted the inventor’s life and those around him to a most disturbing conclusion and totally unsuspected ending.  I hope you are as floored as I was by the last half of this wonderful story.

In between the stories I check out the Beam Me Up blog.  Kaydara is  a fan made movie based in the Matrix universe and is visually stunning, you will not believe this is a non professional movie.

Scientists have announced that sub-surface Moon rock may contain as much water as we have on Earth. Levels in fact 100 times higher than previous estimates.

I review the Green Hornet.  My whole review can be pared down to one word…Terrible.

NASA has placed the Spirit Rover  on the inactive list.  This after a year of no response to queries from NASA. NASA will cease trying to signal the rover.

During the height of the hysteria, a very enterprising person designed a DIY Rapture kit!

The 2010 Nebula Awards have been announced!

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This Beam Me Up episode is the first in year six – and we start off year six with episode 261, solidly in the weird column!  My pet peeve this week is a theme I have gone to before, and once again I am at that well.  Space Trash.  Would you believe that by 2030 the amount of trash being tracked will triple?!  That by the was is the least of the problems.  Is there a possibility of a new animated Star Trek?  Wonder woman tv series is a no go it seems.  Ron Howard’s Dark Tower project  is crumbling as we speak.   Superman / Batman public enemies was up for reviews this week.   And does anyone remember William  Campbell?  He played the q like creature on the original Star Trek.  Well mr Campbell has beamed out for the last time.

This week’s stories and music?  Well, my opening song is She Dont like Firefly.  Lol she is perfect in every other way, but doesnt like Firefly, so she is gone!   This week is episode 12 for the Dark InSpectre.  I want to thank Cyberwizard productions for their continued excellence in production values.   Our strangest story to date is Health Tip for Traveler.  A does and don’ts  travel brochure of the most unusual type!

Photo is David Goldman

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Episode 253 was a bit strange today.  But all in all, I think it came out as fun enough!  First, you have to hear this new song I found on youtube from Your Favorite Martian called Club Villain.  What a fun song, and it name drops about any villains you can recall!  Plus it will just keep your feet tappin.

Stories are good this week.  I remembered that it had been awhile since we had a Dark  InSpectre story from Jason Kahn so I corrected that error and played episode 10.  Inspector Garrett has to deal with more than just ghosts and corrupt politicians but we begin to see more of Jack’s past.  Something very wrong is buried deep but we are beginning to see that Jack’s interest in the “quad’s” is very very complicated….

Our second story is part four of David Steffen’s “the Utility of Love”  follows Dorothy and The Tin Man as they try to carry out the quest the Wizard set them to.  Author Steffen again uses deft control of his plot to bring us further along the convoluted path using many of the images we thought we knew in truly inventive and striking ways.  The end of the tale is drawing nearer, but that doesn’t mean that there are not many twists still to come.

From the blog  MDA of Canada may start a gas station in space?  No Ordinary family may come to a very ordinary end.  ABC isn’t talking but have they canceled our favorite superpower family?  Corning put together this video called “A Day Made Of Glass,” which is a very inventive short on all the devices that might one day be as common as the cell phone is now.  All these high tech devices have one thing in common, they use lots of glass.  NASA is reporting that Messenger, the first probe ever to orbit the planet Mercury, has made a successful orbital insertion and is now Mercury’s first ever artificial Sat.!   There is no question that last week’s earthquake in Japan did a great deal of damage, however some of effect are not that apparent but I can guarantee that they are every bit as mind bending!  And finally I take a break and watch some American animation.  I do a  review of the animated movie Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths.

All in all not a bad episode, even though the start was a bit rough.  Enjoy!

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Beam Me Up episode 249!  This week we continue with part two of Nancy Fulda’s “Knowing Neither Kith….”  The tension begins to really build as a mysterious evil preys on kith and kin alike. It looks as though evil will once again be freed to destroy the people.  The obligation to save everyone falls on a reluctant outcast with little interest in saving the very people who have rejected her in the past….  She has said that she would not go fight,  to save anyone… sometimes though  our most difficult choices are not ours to make.

From the Beam Me Up blog:  I review the straight to DVD animated movie Green Lantern first flight, Firefly is back on the small screen, is the Star Trek tricorder a real possibility?, what will long term deep space travel look like?,

Plus the internet sensation Meekagirl and her new video Star Trek Girl

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Episode 247 I think you will agree goes by fast.  I start of with a very funny parody song by Only Won called I want to be an engineer,  which is a very clever send up of the rap song I want to be a billionaire.

I had some very interesting articles this week.  Check out the blog for the ones I missed.  But first off, I review Despicable Me a not so bad animated feature with an all star voice cast.    Next from the blog, it seems red super-giant Betelgeuse is set to explode into a supernova some time within the next 100k years.  Should be pretty spectacular event when it does happen.  And you want to make a bunch of Beam Me Up fans see red?  Tell em the Millennium Falcon is better than the Enterprise 1701.  That is what happened when I found a top 10 list of the best star ships.  Yep, we had fun with that one.  The Kepler Space telescope has had some busy times of late.  In this week’s news is a report on one of the most unusual planetary systems to date.  Also Kepler has found the first rocky Earth sized planet in what is called the Goldilocks zone, the zone where a planet can contain liquid water.  So there are a couple of great articles for a great science project!

This week’s story is Riya’s Foundling  By ALGIS BUDRYS From Science Fiction Stories 1953.  A most unusual boy and a very lonely boy at that, finds comfort from a most unusual mother figure under the most unusual circumstances and in a place far removed from his own.

I think you will find the 247 episode fast and entertaining.  Enjoy!

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Beam Me Up episode 245 doesn’t hold back this week.  I open with a new song to the show.  I found a music video of Nico Touches the Wall doing Diver.  This cut has been the opening to Naruto Shippuden’s newest season and has plenty of energy which I thought might go over well.

My first story is another in the series  of Dark InSpectre stories.  Jason Kahn continues to thoroughly entertain with this series.  The final story is part one of Erin Cashier’s heart breaking Chinvat Bridge.  Part one really sets the stage for next week, but I think you will find the imagery and characters totally believable.  Be warned though, part 1 and part 2 do contain some adult language.

And from the Beam Me Up blog at http://beamEup.blogspot.com:  I review the movie Avatar, the Last Air-bender, from director M. Night Shyamalan.  This movie follows the animated series pretty closely which is probably a good thing as there isn’t really much going for it.  Paolo Bacigalupi has added to his haul of awards. Paolo’s YA novel, Ship Breaker, has won the prestigious Michael L. Printz Award.  If you thought quantum Entanglement and spook behavior at a distance was mind warping then wait until you read the article about the same effect being used for spooky behavior over time!  Oh yeah, there is something about the quantum math that says quantum tele-portation to the future is possible!  And for some really heated discussion.  One of our article submitters has sent in an article called The 10 Most Technophobic Movies and I want to tell you they are still sending in comments!

Check it out!  It’s all good – Beam Me Up episode 245

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Beam Me Up episode 243 is just brimming over with entertainment.  At the top of the hour is a very nice piece of flash fiction – ” What is your destiny?” by the Australian author
Scott James Smith which tells the tale of a life saving rescue by a very unusual five year old.  At the bottom of the hour we find that peace keeping and life saving can take a myriad of forms.  True heroes are often unsung and often unknown.  Experience altruism in it’s purest sense from writer Stephen Gaskell  Oh and his web page is www.stephengaskell.com  I say that now because if you write the page address as it sounds, you get another Stephen…Its GaskEll not Gaskill…found that out the hard way!

From the Beam Me Up blog at wrfrbeameup.blogspot.com, I finally sat down and watched the movie Inception starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine among others. Anytime you get a film from director Christopher Nolan you know that action will be a-plenty and this movie was no exception, just took its sweet time getting there.  I think my review in this week’s program, tells the tale well enough.    The newest issue of Antipodean online is ready.  Issue  151 has 10 fast paced stories that are bound to keep you entertained for a bit.  Have scientists discovered a new matter state?  A research team seems to think so with what they are calling an equilibrium gel.   I touch on a few of the scientific advancements that came into their own in 2010.  The article on the blog is called 8 sci-fi inspired advances that became “real” in 2010.  The whole list is on Dvice so I only listed a few.  first off…Cloaking technology really became big news in 2010.  Many implementations hold great promise as a genuine “cloak” in the very near future.  Laser weapons and household robots were two others that really burst into the public awareness as acceptable technologies.  Robots especially took many forms, from simple vacuum cleaners to pop dancing divas!

All in all, a good fast hour.  enjoy…

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Episode 241 of Beam Me Up on a fine Christmas after noon. Most sane people probably wouldn’t be here in the studios, but you know how dedicated I am! Well decenting voices to the contrary, I think we have a great episode this week!

Two serializations this week! Our first story is Dark InSpectre #7 from writer Jason Kahn. Second is the continuing antic of Parvo future pest – meister of Pest – world in episode 4 of Red Robot from the talented pen of Colin P. Davies and the off the hook production talents of Cyber Wizard production. This story keeps getting better and better each episode.

This week’s blog entries at the Beam Me Up blog at http://wrfrbeameup.blogspot.com do not disappoint either. I review the animated movie Batman: Under the Red Hood which may not match the animation and production values of movies like How to Train Your Dragon but still should be a treat for the Batman fans. The plot fits well into the existing mythology surrounding Batman. Oh I have got to thank Boing Boing for pointing out this next gem. There I found a link to the top 10 most popular posts of the year. Funny research, news articles what have you. The are weird oh so very weird, strange and wildly funny. From an article on the contraceptive qualities of polyester to possibly the strangest case hysteria in a medical clinic.

An article that I didn’t really have time to do anything but mention it, is a post from a new contributor. When Science Fiction Pushes the Boundaries of Science posted by contributing writer: Beatrice Owen.

This is a well thought out piece which deals with science pushing science fiction as well as the reverse. Interesting read.

That and a musical selection in the spirit of the season! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

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Beam Me Up episode 239 moves fast this week, so buckle in!  After a bit of foolishness, we bring in Oddcube for a serious….(oddcube?) review of Thongor Against the Gods by Lin Carter.  At the bottom of the hour, we revisit Colin P. Davis’ PestWorld universe for the second episode of Red Robot.  I hope you are enjoying this story arc as much as I am!

From the Beam Me Up blog at http://wrfrbeameup.blogspot.com/ I review the Blu-ray of Eureka 7 Good Night Sleep Tight Young Lovers.  This is a, for all intents and purposes, a reboot of the Eureka 7 Renton / Eureka story universe.  Even though many of the characters are recognizable, their back story is very different, including those of Renton and Eureka.

I also have enough time to mention the launch and re-entry of Dragon supply module launched aboard the Falcon 9 launch vehicle by Space X.  This puts Space X in very exclusive company indeed!  A company of one as Space X is the first commercial launch company that has sucessfully re-entered a spacecraft from orbit.

Stories that did not make this week’s program was a flyby of Saturn’s moon Hyperion by the Cassini explorer.  I have a short video, made from stills from the probe which shows the moon’s rotational characteristics, and they are some of the most chaotic I can remember ever seeing short of a special effects movie.  Something you just have to see to get the whole comedic impact is the short film that is a tongue in cheek post apocalyptic survival guide called “Ducked and Covered: A Survival Guide to the Post Apocalypse”

Short on description, long on entertainment…I crack myself up….