I’m an aerospace engineer. I doubt something like this will ever be practical. But we all can be surprised. I hope I will be.

Important news: China has finally snapped. Is sending North Korea ultimatums, ones which WILL be and ARE being heeded. (Previous “urgings” from China were not.)

For more info see this Strategy Page report.

Do you ever live in your story worlds so completely you sometimes have to pause to remember which world you are in?  I do.

This behavior got its start when I was an aerospace engineer.  Usually (continue at full page article).

A sequel will soon be available to a military sci-fi trilogy by Aussie author Joel Shepherd.  The four books star Cassandra Kresnov, the latest model artificial person constructed as a better soldier in a far-future war.

Cassie is very curious and creative and smart as well as ultra-deadly.  She develops a conscience.  And deserts a cause she no longer believes in, a circumstance neither side of the war is willing to allow.  Unfortunately for them when they try to “correct” the situation.

The series delivers more than the expected satisfying action.  It quietly builds up a backdrop of a society which is super-advanced yet richly believable.  Tells a personal story.  And explores the deepest nature of what it is to be human.

I’ve never been a fan of Dr. Who – until the latest incarnation.  Three seasons have been broadcast on BBC and a fourth was recently approved.  You can get the videos from Amazon Instant Video and on DVD and Blu-ray.

Here is a short season preview and a longer excerpt from the first episode of the latest Doctor.

Looking forward to Joss’s SHIELD TV show like every one else. But here’s a bit of a dark horse I am also eager to see.

In-depth interview with Robert Downey, Jr. at ComicBookMovie.com.  RDJ comes off as a more thoughtful person than I’d given him credit for.  The link below includes the video and selected excerpts from it.

Robert Downey, Jr., interview

Sarah, a streetwise hustler on the run, witnesses the suicide of a stranger who looks just like her. Sarah assumes her identity, hoping that cleaning out the dead woman’s bank account will solve all of her problems. Instead, she has a worse problem: she’s a clone and she and her “sisters” are in the sights of a killer.  Can they catch the murderer before they are caught?

Showing on BBC America and Amazon Instant Video.

Story tellers invent and borrow many models of the story. Each is good if it stimulates our imagination. Each is bad if we let it shackle our imagination.

One model is the rising tension idea which goes back as far as Aristotle. He stated it in his Poetics. He felt that a compelling play must contain rising tension until it reaches a climax and (as with an orgasm!) the tension rapidly decreases to a rest state. Aristotle called this catharsis.

This idea was restated by playwright and novelist Gustav Freytag in 1863. It is often shown as a pyramid.

The pyramid as shown above is misleading. (To continue reading click The Rising Tension Model of Story Writing.)

Another fun series on SyFy.  Based loosely on “The Colorado Kid” novella by Stephen King.  Every 27 years the Troubles return to Haven, Maine.  Bizarre and creepy powers appear in random citizens.

The most recent visitation occurs just as FBI Special Agent Audrey Parker arrives on a routine escaped-prisoner retrieval.  Coincidence?  Or not?

Three seasons are available on Blu-ray and DVD.  Also on Amazon Instant Video.  Returns to SyFy this fall.

Click on image for the Wikipedia entry.