How about Holmes and Watson as two African-American women? This is what is considered “High Concept.” Claire O’Dell presents a near-future United States that’s involved in a Second Civil War (the NRA and White Supremacy Groups are launching massive attacks). Janet Watson, a surgeon, loses her left arm in the Battle of Alton, Illinois. Watson’s given a crappy prosthetic arm and mustered out of the Army. She travels to Washington, D.C. to lobby the Veteran’s Administration for a high-tech arm that would allow her to return to the profession she loves. But, of course, the Veteran’s Administration gives Watson evasions and delays.

Watson is running out of money so she explores the possibility of a roommate. Watson meets Sara Holmes who is “difficult.” Despite the friction, Holmes and Watson move into a swanky apartment and Watson tries to adapt to civilian life. But, when a patient Watson is treating dies unexpectedly, both Watson and Holmes start investigating and discover a disturbing pattern of deaths.

Claire O’Dell’s gender-bender, race-changing, and quirky Sherlock Holmes pastiche “modifies” A. Conan Doyle’s characters in other ways. Janet Watson, with possible PTSD and drug issues, is emotional. Sara Holmes doesn’t play the violin, she prefers the piano. And this Holmes is more James Bond than the traditional Sherlock Holmes. But, if you’re looking for something different and innovative, I recommend A Study in Honor. GRADE: B+

When a crime spree in the 22nd Century baffles New Scotland Yard, Inspector Beth Lestrade decides on a radical approach: bring back Sherlock Holmes. Holmes’s body has been preserved in honey so a little genetic engineering and anti-aging technology brings the first consulting detective back to life. Beth’s robot, after reading the entire Canon, wants to be called “Watson.” Together, the three crime fighters take on a variety of criminals in the 22nd Century (I like the flying cars!). Each of the 26 episodes is “inspired” by one of A. Conan Doyle’s stories. I enjoyed these adaptations with their quirky characters and futuristic settings. GRADE: B+
First season (1999–2000)
Episode number Production number US airdate Episode title Sherlock Holmes story episode is based on
1 101 18 September 1999 “The Fall and Rise of Sherlock Holmes” “The Adventure of the Final Problem”
2 102 25 September 1999 “The Crime Machine” The Valley of Fear
3 103 2 October 1999 “The Hounds of the Baskervilles” The Hound of the Baskervilles
4 108 9 October 1999 “The Adventure of the Empty House” “The Adventure of the Empty House”
5 122 16 October 1999 “The Crooked Man” “The Adventure of the Crooked Man”
6 120 23 October 1999 “The Adventure of the Deranged Detective” “The Adventure of the Dying Detective”
7 111 30 October 1999 “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire Lot” “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire”
8 105 6 November 1999 “The Scales of Justice” “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”
9 104 13 November 1999 “The Resident Patient” “The Adventure of the Resident Patient”
10 121 20 November 1999 “The Sign of Four” The Sign of the Four
11 114 27 November 1999 “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” “The Adventure of the Dancing Men”
12 125 4 December 1999 “The Musgrave Ritual” “The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual”
13 112 11 December 1999 “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”
14 119 31 January 2000 “Silver Blaze” “The Adventure of Silver Blaze”
15 106 7 February 2000 “The Five Orange Pips” “The Five Orange Pips”
16 113 14 February 2000 “The Red-Headed League” “The Red-Headed League”
17 118 21 February 2000 “The Man with the Twisted Lip” “The Man with the Twisted Lip”
Second season (2001)
Episode number Production number US airdate Episode title Sherlock Holmes story episode is based on
18 109 31 March 2001 “The Secret Safe” “His Last Bow”
19 115 21 April 2001 “The Adventure of the Second Stain” “The Adventure of the Second Stain”
20 117 28 April 2001 “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb” “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb”
21 123 12 May 2001 “The Gloria Scott” “The Adventure of the Gloria Scott”
22 124 19 May 2001 “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons” “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons”
23 126 26 May 2001 “The Adventure of the Creeping Man” “The Adventure of the Creeping Man”
24 107 23 June 2001 “The Adventure of the Beryl Board” “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet”
25 110 30 June 2001 “The Adventure of the Mazarin Chip” “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone”
26 116 21 July 2001 “A Case of Identity” “A Case of Identity”

Surprise! It’s another Sherlock Holmes Week! This Summer Edition kicks off with Aliette de Bodard’s unconventional Sherlock Holmes pastiche, The Tea Master and The Detective (2018). Imagine Sherlock Holmes is a woman and Watson is a spaceship. Mysteries abound in the Scattered Pearls Belt, a collection of ring habitats and orbitals. A transport spaceship, The Shadow’s Child, ekes out an existence by formulating exotic teas for passengers. The Shadow’s Child has been discharged from military duty after sustaining a traumatic injury. Along comes a strange client, Long Chau, who wants to find a corpse in space. Reluctantly, The Shadow’s Child accepts Long Chau as a client (rent is due!) and together the spaceship and the detective discover a corpse and a twisted mystery. You won’t find another Sherlock Holmes pastiche as strange and delightful as The Tea Master and The Detective. GRADE: A-

Back in 1992, Disney’s animated feature became the year’s biggest Box Office winner by earning $502 million. The VHS version, released a few months later, earned over $500 million–a record at that time. In 2011, Aladdin, The Musical opened on Broadway. Now the touring company arrived in Buffalo. Aladdin, The Musical strips down the story of Aladdin, the roguish street hustler who falls in love with Princess Jasmine. Aladdin is manipulated by the Sultan’s evil Grand Visier, Jafar, into entering the Cave of Wonders to retrieve a magic lamp. Things go wrong and Aladdin is trapped in the cave–Jafar thinks he’s dead–and Aladdin rubs the lamp and meets The Genie. The Genie offers Aladdin three wishes, but of course things go wrong there, too.

Diane and I enjoyed the singing and dancing in Aladdin, The Musical. The spectacle in the Cave of Wonders is dazzling! We loved the Magic Carpet! Plenty of kids were in the audience during the performance we attended. As we were exiting the building, we overheard a young kid say to his parents, “The Genie was the best thing!” He’s right. GRADE: B
SONG LIST:
Act I
“Overture”
“Arabian Nights” (Ashman/Rice***) – Genie & Company
“One Jump Ahead” (Rice) – Aladdin & Ensemble
“One Jump Ahead (Reprise)” (Rice) – Aladdin
“Proud of Your Boy” (Ashman*) – Aladdin
“These Palace Walls” (Beguelin**) – Jasmine & Female Attendants
“Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim” (Ashman*) – Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim, Jasmine & Ensemble
“A Million Miles Away” (Beguelin**) – Aladdin & Jasmine
“Diamond in the Rough” (Beguelin**) – Jafar, Iago, & Aladdin
“Friend Like Me” (Ashman) – Genie, Aladdin and Ensemble
Act One Finale (Friend Like Me (Reprise) (Ashman)/Proud of Your Boy (Reprise I)) (Beguelin)** – Genie & Aladdin
Act II
“Prince Ali” (Ashman) – Genie, Babkak, Omar, Kassim, & Ensemble
“A Whole New World” (Rice) – Aladdin & Jasmine
“High Adventure” (Ashman*) – Babkak, Omar, Kassim, & Ensemble
“Somebody’s Got Your Back” (Beguelin**) – Aladdin, Genie, Babkak, Omar, & Kassim
“Proud of Your Boy (Reprise II)” (Ashman) – Aladdin
“Prince Ali (Sultan Reprise)” (Beguelin**) – Sultan & Company
“Prince Ali (Jafar Reprise)” (Rice) – Jafar
Finale Ultimo (“Arabian Nights (Reprise)” (Ashman/Beguelin*) / “A Whole New World (Reprise)” (Rice)) – Company
Bows (“Friend Like Me (Reprise II)”) (Ashman) – Company

This photo resembles my “Read Real Soon” stack. How many books do you have waiting to be read? What is the book you most want to read from your book stack?

Between 2010 and 2013, Jo Walton wrote a series of posts for Tor.com. Those posts have been collected in An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards, 1953-2000. Jo Walton reviews the Hugo finalists and winners from the Hugo’s inception up to the year 2000. Walton asserts that each year’s finalists gives us a clear picture about the state of science fiction during those years. I’m a fan of Jo Walton’s SF novels and I praised her What Makes This Book So Great. You can read my review here. An Informal History of the Hugos is clearly a labor of love. If you’re a science fiction fan, this is a must-buy! Highly recommended! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction 11
1953 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 17
Essay: “Telepaths, Murder, and Typographical Tricks: Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man” 21
1954 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 24
1955 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 25
1956 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 29
Essay: “Parliamentary Democracy with Martians: Robert A. Heinlein’s Double Star” 32
1957 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 35
1958 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 40
1959 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 44
Essay: “Every Outward, Robert A. Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit—Will Travel” 50
1960 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 56
Essay: “Over the Hump: Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers” 60
1961 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 64
Essay: “Dark Ages and Doubt: Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz” 69
Essay: “Really Good Fun: Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade” 72
1962 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 75
Essay: “Smug Messiah: Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land” 82
1963 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 87
Essay: “A Future That Never Came: Arthur C. Clarke’s A Fall of Moondust” 94
1964 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 98
Essay: “I Think I’ll Go for a Walk and Think About Aliens: Clifford Simak’s Way Station” 104
1965 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 106
Essay: “Telepathy and Healing: John Brunner’s The Whole Man (aka, Telepathists}” 112
1966 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 114
Essay: Wisecracking, Aliens, and Hot Places: Roger Zelazny’s This Immortal” 124
Essay: In League with the Future: Frank Herbert’s Dune” 125
1967 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 129
Essay: “A Self-Aware Computer and a Revolution on the Moon: Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” 138
1968 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 142
Essay: “Fantasy Disguised as Science Fiction Disguised as Fantasy: Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light” 152
1969 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 155
Essay: “Growing Up for Real: Alexei Panshin’s Rite of Passage” 165
1970 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 168
1971 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 176
1972 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 188
Essay: “Effective Dreaming: Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven” 198
1973 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 200
Essay: “Great Aliens, Rubber Humans: Isaac Asimov’s The Gods Themselves” 213
Essay: “Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg” 214
1974 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 217
Essay: “Menopause, Aliens, and Fun: Larry Niven’s Protector” 227
1975 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 230
Essay: “Clear-sighted Utopia: Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed” 242
1976 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 244
1977 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 256
1978 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 266
1979 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 278
1980 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 288
Essay: “Sunlit Clouds Beyond the Iron Grating: Thomas M. Disch’s On the Wings of Song” 298
1981 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 300
1982 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 312
1983 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 322
1984 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 332
Essay: The Tea, the Statue, the Dragon, and You: R. A. MacAvoy’s Tea With the Black Dragon” 342
1985 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 344
1986 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 357
Essay: “Who is Alien? C. J. Cherryh’s Cuckoo’s Egg” 369
1987 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 371
1988 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 382
1989 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 395
Essay: “Designing People and Societies: C. J. Cherryh’s Cyteen” 408
Essay: “The Most Expensive Plumbers in the Galaxy: Louis McMaster Bujold’s Falling Free” 411
1990 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 413
1991 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 426
1992 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 439
1993 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 452
Essay: “The Net of a Million Lies: Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep” 465
Essay: “Time Travel and the Black Death: Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book” 468
1994 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 475
1995 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 487
1996 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 499
1997 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 513
1998 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 525
Essay: “Transformative in This as Everything Else: Walter Jon Williams’s Metropolitan and City on Fire” 535
1999 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 538
2000 Hugo Award Winners and Nominees 552
Essay: “So High, So Low, So Many Things to Know: Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky” 565
Conclusion 571

After his harrowing adventures in The Elder Ice (you can read my review here), ex-boxer Harry Stubbs returns to economic hardship in 1925 England. Harry finds work as a “guide” to a man from Singapore named Yang. Yang is interested in the work of Roslyn D’Onston, a one-time journalist who turned into a sorcerer. D’Onston was a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders. Harry Stubbs finds himself in the grip of occult powers and necromancy. If you’re in the mood for a quirky adventure novel, Broken Meats delivers. GRADE: B+

Murderbot–a self-liberated Security robot–is trying to flee Human space. But, he has a way to go. Murderbot manages to find a place aboard a transport ship but suspects this could be a mistake when the human passengers bring a lot of armament with them. Rogue Protocol continues the story of an Artificial Intelligence who critiques humans and human activity on practically every page. Another corporate plot powers the novella (153 pages) as Murderbot meets Miki, a robot who presents hope and danger. Then all Hell breaks loose! If you’re in the mood for something Very Different, you might want to try Martha Wells’s Murderbot series. GRADE: B+

You can read my review of All Systems Red here and my review of Artificial Condition here. For a detailed interview with Martha Wells, just click here.

Elsie Fisher plays 13-year-old Kayla Day who is about to graduate from Eighth Grade. Director and screenwriter Bo Burnham captures the angst of Eighth Grade, both for Kayla and the other Eighth Graders. We see a group completely in the thrall of Social Media. Much of this movie consists of Kayla on her iPhone or laptop. All the the social interactions are herky-jerky.

Everyone, even the adults (and especially Kayla’s bumbling but good-hearted father played well by Josh Hamilton) constantly confronts the awkwardness of conversation. Texting is so much easier! Eighth Grade piles painful situation upon painful situation on poor Kayla and her father. But, High School beckons with its own troubling problems. You can see why teenage drug addiction and teen suicide are increasing given the anxiety and stresses young people have to deal with today. Kayla offers a measure of Hope. What are your memories of Eighth Grade? GRADE: B+

“By three methods may we learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second by imitation, which is easier;
and Third by experience with is the bitterest.” –Confucius

Around 1993, my 10-year-old son Patrick suggested, “Dad, I think you should buy some APPLE stock.” Patrick used APPLE computers at school and loved the design. In one of the those moments you’d like to have back, I ignored Patrick’s advice. APPLE stock at the time was just about a dollar per share and I could have easily bought a 1000 shares. Now, APPLE is a trillion dollar company and I could have had a couple more zeros to the right of my Net Worth number. I made a mistake…a Big Mistake.

Reading Michael Batnick’s Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments made me feel better because these investment geniuses also committed blunders. Warren Buffett bought Dexter Shoes (remember them?). He could have paid cash, but instead he paid for the company in Berkshire Hathaway stock. Dexter Shoes went bankrupt and those shares of Berkshire Hathaway would be worth $6 billion dollars today. Jack Bogle, who invented the Index Fund (a fund that mirrors the DOW, the NASDAQ, or the S&P 500)–a vast improvement over investing in Mutual Funds–lost millions with the first company he ran. John Maynard Keynes, the brilliant British economist, lost most of his money when the Stock Market crashed in 1929. All of these investors later went on to succeed in the Stock Market, but they all have scars from their failures…like I do. Have you made any Big Mistakes? GRADE: A-
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Benjamin Graham
There Are No Iron-Clad Laws
Chapter 2:Jesse Livermore
Manage Your Risk
Chapter 3: Mark Twain
Don’t Get Attached
Chapter 4: John Meriwether
Genius’s Limits
Chapter 5: Jack Bogle
Find What Works for You
Chapter 6: Michael Steinhardt
Stay in Your Lane
Chapter 7: Jerry Tsai
You’re Not As Smart As You Think
Chapter 8: Warren Buffett
Beware of Overconfidence
Chapter 9: Bill Ackman
Get Off Your Soapbox
Chapter 10: Stanley Druckenmiller
Hard Lessons Can Be Necessary
Chapter 11: Sequoia
The Risks of Concentrated Investing
Chapter 12: John Maynard Keynes
The Most Addictive Game
Chapter 13: John Paulson
You Only Need to Win Once
Chapter 14: Charlie Munger
Handling Big Losses
Chapter 15: Chris Sacca
Dealing With Regret
Chapter 16: Michael Batnick
Looking In the Mirror
About the Author
Index