Hello from London,

When I wrote last week that I was expecting Covid-19 test results, I was almost certain they'd come back negative. As it turns out, that was just wishful thinking. Less than 24 hours after I'd written those words, I'd received a positive test result and my symptoms were getting worse.

TL;DR. My family and I are fine, after a week of fairly unpleasant symptoms and mounting cabin fever. According to the typical infection timeline we should be getting over the virus in the next couple of days, and hopefully my brain will begin functioning normally shortly thereafter.

I've written nothing, because being sick poisons the creative wellspring, and I couldn't concentrate for more than ten minutes anyway. It's been a very dry week from a productivity point of view.

Given that I couldn't spend the week writing, because my head wasn't in the game, I spent it watching random science fiction movies instead. Most of them were, unfortunately, dreadful. A quick summary below so you can avoid my pain...

Covid-19-Watch-Party Science Fiction Movie Roundup

Let's start with the better stuff...

Love and Monsters (on Amazon)

While certainly not winning any awards for best original screenplay, Love and Monsters is a well-executed, fun and lighthearted take on the apocalypse, with a sense of humour and some decent scenes. It's lack of originality is made up for with good execution, and while it doesn't reinvent the genre, the finished product is entertaining and satisfying.

I enjoyed watching this movie and it effectively sucked up a couple of hours of my time over the week. I can comfortably recommend it for leisurely watching. That may be because my expectations were set so low by the rest of what I watched, but hey... I thought this was fun.

Now, let's move on to the movies I'd never have watched if I hadn't been sick...

Skyfire (on Amazon)

Take Jurassic Park, replace the dinosaurs with an exploding volcano and the A-list actors and stellar script with less experienced actors and a lacklustre script, and you get Skyfire.

An entrepreneur decides it's a good idea to build a theme park on an active volcano because... um... people think it's cool to be close to danger (!). A young vulcanologist whose mother was killed on exactly that volcano is the security consultant (!). Her dad says "this is dangerous", which makes her grumpy and offended in typical two-dimensional-character style. Volcano blows up and everything goes to hell. You can get all that from the trailer. Unfortunately, there's not much more to it.

Filmography is not poor, special effects are passable. Acting isn't wooden and dialogue is not awful. It just doesn't do anything particularly interesting between the title sequence and the credits.

Guardians (on Amazon)

Who doesn't want to see some soviet superheroes? I quite liked the premise of this film. Then I pressed play and things went downhill from there.

Amazon Prime doesn't offer subtitles, so I got some of the most wooden dialogue and poor dubbing ever seen on planet earth, in partnership with a plot and special effects so bad I had a hard time not switching off after the first few scenes. The villain is so ludicrous, in terms of his origin story and the way he looks, that it's really hard to take him seriously. The story utterly dull/predictable, and the execution catastrophic.

Frankly, I was super, super disappointed. The trailer looked good, the poster promised superheroes, and sometimes non-Hollywood movies really pull together something worth seeing. This was just dreadful.

Cosmoball

Another Soviet effort, Cosmoball is also a very, very, very strange story. Except in this case the strangeness of the story gets a bit of a pass because the film's presentation and the nature of its special effects indicates two things. One: It doesn't expect to be taken seriously in the first place. Two: It's for kids.

Since it's for kids, I had a hard time getting into it. The premise is a little too child's-comic-book for me, and the plot depends too much on the kind of stupidity that only a young teenager can reliably pull off. Also, the final furry bad guy is just a little too much.

That said, the visual effects are fun (think "The Fifth Element" taking place in a comic strip the colour of a candy store, stealing visual elements from the Neverending Story) and the filmography is sufficiently good that you can enjoy the scenes even if the story leaves you cold. you can see the huge variety of reviews it gathered on IMDB.

I wouldn't have watched it if I'd not been sick, but it didn't make me want to dent a wall with my head the same way "Guardians" did.

What else?

Not everything I watched was science fiction. I made it through the entire four seasons of La Casa De Papel (also known as Money Heist) on Netflix. La Casa De Papel is absolutely excellent and I can only recommend it wholeheartedly.

I offer two warnings. First: You will lose over a week of your life as you binge the whole thing. You have been warned. Second: It finishes on a cliffhanger and the fifth and final season doesn't come out until the last quarter of the year.

I also tried to watch a couple of episodes of The Stand on Amazon. I really couldn't get into it, for some reason the pacing of the series is completely off for me and I find myself itching to fast forward all the time. I also can't really get into stories where 'good' and 'evil' are forces unto themselves.

Author Spotlight

Back to literature, and here are some authors whose work I'm promoting this week. Feel free to take a closer look at their novels if they're your kind of thing.

Speed Dating with Authors is a collection of 11 fantasy novellas, for a very low price, giving you the opportunity to discover a variety of new styles across a number of sub-genres, including magic, shifters and dragons. Among the authors are a New York Times bestseller, a USA Today bestseller and various award winners.

Get 'Speed Dating with Authors'

Project Chimera by S.H. Steele covers all episodes of this series. An elite team of intelligence operatives with special gifts faces off against an organization bent on their destruction. Each novel is told from the perspective of one of the team members.

Get 'Project Chimera'

Star Wolf by L.A.Frederick is a space opera fantasy in which a 'universal beacon' granted sentience to many species, each of which now inhabits a planet of their own. A story of succession, inter-species rivalry and a battle for domination. This book is free for the next few days, and books 2 and 3 in the series are discounted.

Get 'Star Wolf' Free

Khaos by Cynthia Vespia is a superhero novel in a world where the villains are names for the cardinal sins. This is the final chapter in the Silke's Strike Force series, but the first episode can be found here.

Get 'Khaos'

Fire Whispers Among the Shadows by R. A. Cooper is another story where the main characters are sentiens animal-like species. Aiesha desires a life of peace with her beloved fellow creatures. But when a dark presence from portals beyond the lands starts to consume lives, including those most dear to her, Aiesha’s destiny as Guardian leaves her unable to follow her dreams of a normal life. As Aiesha fulfills her calling, she discovers that she has powers never before imagined—powers that may be the key to saving the lands, as well as her lifelong best friend.

Get 'Fire Whispers Among the Shadows'

Free Science Fiction and Fantasy for February

From sorcery to science fiction, space to superheroes, the free stories in this collection of giveaways provide an introduction to a variety of new worlds and new authors. Dip in and see if there's anything here that tempts to to take a closer look at the authors who are giving these novels and short stories away.

Click to Access the Giveaway

I should be Covid-free and back on my feet by this time next week, and hopefully making progress on my stories once more. Until then, I hope you're well and taking care of yourselves...

Nick.

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