312 pages; $14.99; Amazon

I've only read a handful of science fiction novels during my lifetime. While I don't mind watching a good science fiction movie, I'm just not really into the reading books set in the genre, except for the occasional anthology, like the recently released 18 Wheels of Science Fiction.

Published by Big Time Books and edited by Eric Miller, 18 Wheels of Science Fiction features 18 short stories about futuristic truck driving.

Here's the official blurb from the back cover:

An alien fuel additive shows just how fast a big rig can go... A disembodied driver wages war on self-driving trucks... A haul through time takes an unexpected turn... Reality shatters for a trucker using an experimental delivery device... Stargazing gives an overweight driver a new lease on life... A young girl risks her life to hitch a ride out of an apocalyptic wasteland...

Take a trip through the imaginations of 18 visionary writers as they explore the future of trucking in these speculative tales. The highways of the universe will never be the same.

The short stories are:

The Wreckers 

by John DeChancie

Speed Trap 

by Jeff Seeman

Thin Ice

by Bond Elam

Q-Bits

by Lucio Rodriguez

I, Truck

by Gary Phillips

Over Flat Mountain

by Terry Bisson

Wheels Of Wrath

by Janet Joyce Holden

Shotgun Seat

by Paul Carlson

Job No. 34264

by Lisa Morton

Essential Oils

by Michael Bailey

Big Rig, Big Rip

by Alvaro Zinos-Armaro

A Flicker of Bright Light

by Del Howison

Hit/Run

by Edward M. Erdelac

Everything Looks So Small

by Carla Robinson

Silent Passenger

by Kate Jonez

Indica Asterion & The Wizard Of Ozymandias

by Sean Patrick Traver

Human, Trafficking

by Michael Paul Gonzalez

Drive

by Eric Miller

Final Thoughts

Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @  Caffeinated Book Reviewer!

Good Evening, Everyone!

My Current Reads!

Last week was an extremely busy week for me. Between running errands, taking care of my grandmother's issues, my television dying, and planning Thanksgiving dinner, I decided to redesign this blog, which took me 36+ hours to complete. Since I didn't have any free time, I made the decision to delay last week's reading schedule.

Books on my agenda this week are: Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter 2:The Axe Will Fall by C.A. Verstraete, Elevation by Stephen King, and Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan.

I had planned on reading Lizzie Borden 2 and Elevation last week, but those were the two main books I shoved aside in order to work on the blog's redesign. 

 

Last Week's Reviews

Her Fear by Shelley Shepard Gray

(book)

Black Sails: The Complete Series

(Blu-ray)

Blood, Sweat and Terrors

(DVD)

Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis

(Blu-ray Steelbook)

 

In The Mail

Not Rated; 98 minutes; Amazon

Blood, Sweat and Terrors arrived on DVD from RLJ Entertainment last week. Based on the art cover and the synopsis (which you can read in the next paragraph), I believed the movie would be a fun, low-budget, 90's-like action film.

There's no running from this fight. A lethal dose of gangsters, hit men, crooked cops and guerilla fighters are headed for the ultimate showdown...with more non-stop, bare-fisted action than one movie can handle. The hardcore double crosses, desperate missions and cold-blooded revenge are loaded into every minute won't end until the last bullet is fired. It will take more than courage to survive, and even the best will fall.

I have no idea who wrote the the synopsis for the DVD, but it has almost nothing to do with the movie.  Actually, calling this a movie is a big stretch. The film is nothing more than 9 random short films edited into one movie.

The short films are:

Empire of Dirt 

Directed by Adam Mason, this is the weirdest short in the collection. It's less action and more of a Clive Barker horror tale featuring graphic nudity.

Awesome Runaway

Directed by Benjamin De Los Santos, an over the top action tale about a kidnapped victim hallucinating his escape.

Jacob's Wrath 

Directed by Alexandre Carriere, this tale involves a man's quest to kill his daughter's killer. The short switches back and forth from our world (reality) to a hallucinated apocalyptic world.

Flow

Directed by Shelagh Rowan-Legg, this happens to be dumbest tale of the bunch. It involves two female guerilla fighters bickering over the last Tampax. Yes, this is the real plot of the short!

Express Delivery

Directed by Beau Fowler, all this short is is one long fight scene between "The Postman" and a guy named "Swifty" (played by Beau Flower). Fun to watch, but pointless.

Turncoat

Directed by Will Gilbey, "Turncoat" is about two crooked cops who invade a man's home. It's very boring!

Get Some

Directed by Adam Horton and Joe Horton, this tale is set in a zombie-infested world, where Hunter Smith (played by Warren Brown) hunts down the "outsiders" during his reality series "Get Some." For this episode, Hunter has brought along Dr. James Borans (played by John Hannah), an "outsider" activist, to go hunting with him in an English forest.

Olga

Directed by Olaf Svenson, this subtitled foreign short tells the story of a young woman's quest to avenge her parents' death by the hands of a mob boss.

Fetch

Directed by Daniel Bernhardt, "Fetch" is a boring tale about a private detective's journey to retrieve a missing dog.

Final Thoughts

Mill Creek Entertainment * Amazon

Now available on a Blu-ray + DVD Steelbook from Mill Creek Entertainment is the 2001 anime classic Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis (PG-13; 108 minutes; $34.98).

Based on the 1949 manga by the late Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy) and loosely inspired by the 1927 German silent film "Metropolis," the anime film is set in a futuristic city where humans and robots, but not in harmony. Robots are classified by levels and if they leave their levels, then they'll be destroyed.

A powerful industrial leader, Duke Red, is creating an oversized skyscraper called the Ziggurat, which is supposed to give off a massive amount of power across the entire planet. Duke had hired a mad scientist, Dr. Laughton, to create a super human robot in the likeness of his deceased daughter, Tima. He wants Tima to be the leader of the Ziggurat.

Duke's adopted son, Rock, is the leader of the Marduk Party, a anti-robot group who will do anything to destroy all robots. Rock believes that Tima will lead to the death of his father and he vowed to kill her, along with any humans or robots that gets in his way.

A private detective Shunsaku Ban travels to Metropolis with his nephew Kenich. He's there to arrest Dr. Laughton, who is wanted for organ trafficking. Unfortunately, by the time Shunsaku locates Dr. Laughton, Rock had already left the doctor mortally wounded. The attack upon the the doctor's lab leads to Tima being activated. Eventually, Kenich befriends Tima, who doesn't know she's a robot, and becomes sort of a father figure for her.

Lost in the city, Kenich takes the responsibility of protecting Timam from Rock's wrath.

 

Special Features include:

• Amazing High-Definition Prestation
• English DTS-HD Master Audio and uncompressed Japanese audio
• English SDH subtitles
• The Making of Metropolis featurette
• Filmmaker Interviews
• Animation Comparisons
• Concept Art Gallery

Final Thoughts

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader.
Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it).
Post it.
 Add your (url) post below in the Linky at: www.fredasvoice.com
Add the post url, not your blog url.

They couldn't pare down the tucks, which had their own electronic and computer systems, but they could limit the complexity of interacting with the human elements.

18 Wheels Of Science Fiction, page 56 - "Q-Bits" by Lucio Rodriguez

  My Thoughts

Lionsgate; 35 hours 56 minutes; Not Rated; Amazon

There are way too many television series I have wanted to watch, but I never got around to watching them during their original runs. Black Sails happens to be one of these series.

Black Sails: The Complete Collection was recently released to Blu-ray from STARZ and Lionsgate Home Entertainment.

Created by by Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine, Black Sails aired on STARZ for four seasons. The series starred Toby Stephens, Hannah New, Luke Arnold, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Tom Hopper, Zach McGowan, Toby Schmitz, Clara Paget, Mark Ryan, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Sean Cameron Michael, Louise Barnes, Rupert Penry-Jones, Luke Roberts, Ray Stevenson, David Wilmot, and Harriet Walter.

Black Sails is a prequel to the classic novel Treasure Island written by Robert Louis Stevenson. Set in 1715 (roughly twenty years before the novel), the series mostly focuses on Captain Flint (played by Toby Stephens), a former British officer turned pirate who finds himself on the New Providence island with an eager crew, but without an actual ship to sail.

New Providence is lead by Eleanor Guthrie (played by Hannah New), a young woman who has taken control of her father's operations across the island. She has taken ownership of the local brothel and wants to control of all the pirates; except for Captain Flint, who has a personal vendetta against the British Navy, and Captain Charles Vane (played by Zach McGowan), a brutal pirate who takes possession of the island, as well as Hannah's heart.

All three characters collide after "Long" John Silver (played by Luke Arnold), arrives on the island with several schemes up his sleeves, including stealing a "schedule" page from Captain Flint. With a lot of backstabbing, Captain Flint acquires a ship and gathers his crew (which includes Silver), so they can steal a treasure of gold.

Let's just say things don't go as planned!

Special Features include:

• Season 1
• "Black Sails": An Inside Look
• Dressed to Kill
• Pirate Camp
• Folklore Is Finished
• A Place in History
• Building the Behemoth
• Season 2
• Inside the World of "Black Sails"
• Man O'War
• Expanding Worlds
• High Sea Action
• History's Influence
• Season 3
• Season Two Recap
• Blackbeard: An 18-Century Pirate
• The Storm
• A Pirate's Last Words
• Woodes Rogers
• Inside the World of "Black Sails"
• Season 4
• Inside the World of "Black Sails"
• Creating the World
• Roundtable: Women in Piracy
• Roundtable: The Legends of Treasure Island
• Roundtable: Fearless Fans

Final Thoughts