Publishers Weekly, the highly respected trade magazine, released their advanced review of Flight or Fright this week. I’m very happy with what they had to say. In part, “This entertaining anthology of horror, mystery, and literary tales about aircraft (most reprinted) will have the reader thinking twice about flying. This is a strong anthology full of satisfying tales.” Click the hyperlink to read the whole thing.
Last week, I was interviewed by a newspaper from northern New Brunswick, where I grew up. Alas, the interview is behind a paywall, but the people for whom it will mean something will be able to see it. The interviewer (also the editor, chief-cook-and-bottle-washer) is someone I knew in school. He’s a year older than I am, so we crossed paths a little, and his mother was a substitute teacher that I had any number of times over the years. It was fun talking to someone from “back home,” to hear the regional accent again.
I have only a sketchy memory of the original Lost in Space. I no doubt saw some of it when I was a kid, in reruns, but I couldn’t remember whether most of the story took place on a planet or whether they flitted around from adventure to adventure. Turns out, both are true. In the first two seasons, they were crashed on two different planets, but in the third they traveled from place to place.
We finally got around to seeing the new incarnation of the show on Netflix last week, watching all 10 episodes over a four-day period. We quite liked it. It’s not as gritty as the Battlestar Galactica reboot, but they’ve added some depth and breadth to the characters, giving them interesting backstories and mysteries that are revealed over the course of the season. The biggest change is to Dr. Smith, who is a conniving, identity-stealing schemer whose motivations aren’t always clear. Not the comic relief like he was in the original, where he ended up being the focal character, along with Will and the robot. The robot, too, is vastly different from the tubby, harmless, arm-waving original, adding an ominous tone to the story. The kids are great, acting pretty much the way kids do. It’s not perfect, but it was enjoyable, and we’ll no doubt check out Season 2 when it becomes available.
