Life and Book Update
Philippa Ballantine: Spectyr
Spectyr is the sequel to Ms. Ballantine's Geist, and is the second book in what's intended to be a series. It's a relatively direct continuation of Geist, both in time, place and characters. I really do like how Ms. Ballantine appears to be doing a series of connected books, each of which stands on its own and starts and concludes its main story. There are a few things that seem to be arcing through the storyline, and she takes no time to explain the setting, and only minimal introductions of some of the returning supporting characters. The main story, however, starts and ends within the book's covers.
For me, the second book in any series tends to be the easiest one for the author, in that the hard work has been done in the first book. I'm only reading the second volume if I liked the first, so off the bat the protagonist and cast of characters are viewed positively; I'm familiar with the world and yearning for more. Yet, there hasn't been enough exploration of the world or characters that boredom would have set in yet. And, indeed, I quite enjoyed Spectyr.
The plot has suspense, and seems far superior to your average fantasy-romance genre, perhaps due to the complexity or way in which personal tensions and issues are interwoven with world-affecting suspense. The element of romance does re-appear, as there's a plenty of romantic tension between two protagonists, aside from the symbolism of the strong female taming the raging beast in the man, but that aside the work is all about the plot and character development, Nalini Singh's advertising slogans notwithstanding.
Four out of five.
Julie Kagawa: Iron King
I believe I picked this up on Amazon's recommendation. It's a teen urban fantasy / paranormal romance genre book, but I've had good luck with some of those before. This time, meh. There's nothing wrong with the book as such, but I just could not get into it, and ended up not finishing it.
The concept is a teen from challenging circumstances, but with an innate worth to the Fae world, getting dragged into the machinations of the fantasy creatures, some her friends, some not so much. So far, then standard fare. The faerie setting is Shakesperian rather than plainly Celtic, which is a bit more original. The prose is competent, the protagonist is reasonably well fleshed out... but it's just missing that spark that makes me want to read, makes me laugh out loud, or generally care about what happens.
Two out of five.
Kennedy Space Center
When Elissa visited last year, we went to see the Kennedy Space Center, and I was told the annual pass would be good to view shuttle launches from the parking lot and Astronaut Hall of Fame, so I picked one up. The rules almost immediately changed to make it ineligible for launch viewing, and there hadn't been other visitors for me to accompany, so I hadn't been back. As the pass was about to expire, I took a half-day off work to pay the center another visit. I had also been sent a flyer about a Star Trek exhibit and some new Sci-Fi themed activities, and I was curious.
The Star Trek exhibit was interesting, but small. It had some special effects miniatures, wardrobe, props etc, but nothing amazing to make it worth a visit on its own.
There was also the advertised Star Trek Live experience, and I dutifully rode the line-ride to get in. Turns out, it is aimed at middle, or maybe high-schoolers; it is a semi-comedy skit on stage, where random audience members get pulled up to perform some task at various points. There is some smoke, some strobes and a way too treble-high and piercingly loud amplified sound system (which was one of my main reasons for leaving, as it was giving me a headache). There's a Star Fleet instructor and a Vulcan with headset mikes, and the idea is a clandestine first-contact scenario, where the Vulcan is hunting a time-traveling Romulan and tries to convince the human with science that she really is an alien. The concept is reasonable, and a woman with pointy ears in a tight Star Trek outfit is always a bonus, but somehow it ended pressing wrong buttons for me. I suspect it's that as you go along making science popular and cool, at some point you cross the line where the presented "science" becomes a cool special effects trick with no discernible educational value, and this production was well past that line. It's also elitist of me to think that everyone knows that Sun is a star and the center of our solar system, but really -- the people who don't already know this are unlikely to attend a semi-educational production at a space center, and the audience ends up bored to tears (or just walking out, as a lot of us did.)
There was also a raffle for an XCor trip to "space" (once they have a vehicle, I suppose), and a bunch of posters and ground paintings contrasting reality with science; for example showing various generations of the Enterprise in scale next to Saturn 5-rockets. Those, generally, I kind of appreciated. The raffle made you run through some half dozen of these to find answers to questions, and while some questions were silly, some were pretty useful and actually educational.
Aside from that, nothing really seems to have changed. It was kind of sad that the shuttle buses still played a video loop talking about the remaining Shuttle launches and the Constellation program. I was still cranky about the way they force you to stand through the same introductory content-poor multimedia shows, when you just want to get to the exhibits (or snack shop.) The gift shop had Shuttle t-shirts and commemorative fridge magnets, but no real collectibles, no parts of the shuttle, nothing real.
Astronaut Hall of Fame
As I was killing time after the KSC visitor center, waiting for potential dinner plans, I squeezed the last drop of value out of my pass and went to see the Astronaut Hall of Fame, which I hadn't been to before. Aside from the Hall of Fame, which only allows US Citizens to be commemorated, the facility actually houses a respectable number of items from the space program, and has a couple of hands-on experiments for the kids. The artifacts are professionally curated, with a good amount of explanatory information. It made me sad, because this forlorn sideshow, to me, was far more relevant and better than the main attraction — much the same way as the "Then & Now" bus tour was far more useful when it was run by retiree volunteers rather than the scripted, dumbed-down version it is now.
So, if you're coming to visit, or want to see space history, I actually rather recommend the Hall of Fame as worthwhile stop. It's air-conditioned, free of hordes of tourists and screaming kids, and even has a gift shop selling the same loot as the main one at the visitor center.