A trek into the Treks: Star Trek: The Next Generation

 My previous post in this series, A trek into the Treks: Star Trek: Enterprise was a long time ago. I hadn't realized it had been that long and I thought I should write the next installment before I forget all about ever getting back to it.

 While I grew up watching Star Trek (TOS) and The Animated Series in syndication I really consider The Next Generation (TNG) to be my Star Trek. It was the first Star Trek I actually watched first run and there is something to be said for having to wait a week between episodes. Not already knowing what is going to happen before you watch it because no one (outside the crew) has seen it yet. At the time, it was so modern looking, so smooth and polished (Corinthian leather comes to mind) though let's not look back at it now, it seems even more dated than TOS does now.

J. R. R. Tolkien, Part Two - The lesser known Tolkien

In my previous post about J.R.R. Tolkien, I wrote about The Hobbit and how it began what eventually became a deep love of faerie and fantasy stories. I was originally planning on writing about The Lord of The Rings next, but lets face it, everyone writes about Lord of The Rings and what more could be said on the subject. I will get around to writing my impression eventually but today I would like to look at his less well known work. I say less well known but really that's only to the world at large and not to Tolkien fans. Fans of his work know these stories as well as they do The Hobbit or Lord of The Rings.

Has it really been that long?

I can't believe it's been this long since I wrote anything here. I have plans for a couple more Star Trek Posts, another Tolkien post, and a few other scattered ideas and I don't know why I haven't gotten to them yet.

I will start working on those this week but for now, I have a few things I wish to vent here where nobody is going to see them. I have said since the beginning that I don't want this blog to be a rant-fest. I would rather talk about things I like and share them with anyone who comes here. There are, however, a few things though that have been bothering me for some time and I need to vent them out so that I can move on.

J. R. R. Tolkien, Part one - The Hobbit

As I talked about in my post Books That Captivated My Youth though I grew up reading Sci-Fi the past 25+ years or so have been dominated by Fantasy, or Faerie (Fairy) stories especially the sub-genre Epic Fantasy.

I would like to talk specifically about one author who almost single-handed brought me wide-eyed and fascinated into the world of fantastic fiction.

Field Notes Notebooks

I have been using Field Notes notebooks for years now. I purchased my first set in 2010. It was the Balsam Fir set and the State Fair Edition (Michigan). These are the perfect notebook. Small, tough, classic. I have not used a paper product from anyone else since that first purchase and I don't know that I ever will. They are that good.

The Books That Captivated My Youth…

Most of the books I read nowadays are epic fantasy. There is nothing I like more than to start a series where the books are 700 to 1000 pages long and there will be 10 or so books in the series. (Think Brandon Sanderson or Robert Jordan) It wasn't always like that though, when I was much younger science fiction was all I read.

As I believe I have mentioned before most of my childhood is lost to my memory, this includes a number of the books that I read. Some titles, however, stick in my mind and they left a lasting impression and I can still remember the stories to this day.

The earliest books that I can actually remember reading were written by Isaac Asimov and they were part of the Lucky Starr series. I still have all of these books in paperback in my library. These books would compare most effectively to the Tom Swift (third series) books which I also remember reading though I liked Lucky Starr more. I first read these when I was 8 or 9, but I have re-read them many times since then and they stand up really well. This is not something I can say about Tom Swift (any of the five separate series).

Space, The final frontier...

In my last post, I talked about Star Trek: Enterprise and why I was drawn to that show more than others. I explained it was mostly because of the plots revolving around exploration and discovery. That got me thinking about why Enterprise interested me so much and why the more action-oriented series (DS9 and Voyager, as well as the new movies) do not interest me.

I came to the conclusion that it's because real space is something that fills me with wonder. I mean how can you look up into the sky, even in a light-soaked city like I live in, and not be awed?

A trek into the Treks: Star Trek: Enterprise

Being the geek that I am it could only have been a matter of time before I posted about Star Trek. Since I started my second re-watch of Enterprise yesterday I thought this would be a good time to talk about it.

I want to start by explaining my history with Star Trek and where Enterprise fits into it.