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Lifeforce
When alien vampires terrorize London, it’s up to a determined police inspector and an astronaut to stop them. American and British space travelers discover humanoids while exploring near Halley’s Comet. The astronauts bring three of these aliens aboard their spaceship and head back to earth. However, their guests turn out to be evil vampires who kill all but one of the astronauts — Carlsen. After the ship arrives in London, the monsters — led by a beautiful female — escape and wreak havoc throughout the city, transforming humans into zombies. Meanwhile, the surviving astronaut and Caine, a determined police inspector, frantically try to track down the creatures, and destroy them. But the “Space Girl” has a strange hold over Carlsen, and he has trouble fighting the urge to join her.
This movie used to play on TV all the time and I’m pretty sure I rented it at last once on video tape (yes video tape). The things I recall most about the movie are Patrick Stewart as the scientist and the naked “space girl” vampire.
What I did not know until tonight, this B-movie is based on a book, called you guessed it: The Space Vampires by Colin Wilson.
LOL! I had a tone of trouble trying to find a picture for this post that didn’t show off Mathilda May‘s breasts, or other more revealing lady bits…
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- Lifeforce (1985) [REVIEW] (thewolfmancometh.com)
- Transform Yourself with Vampire Makeup (anytimecostumes.com)
- Roundtable Review: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, “Space Vampire” (thiswastv.com)
Among Bright Stars… (Neo-human #2)
Humanity’s future, isn’t human…
Nadia Korelia, Falcanian queen, has spent the last three years assembling together her sibling Morningstars. Artificial people, who are in every way stronger, smarter and more beautiful. Among these Morningstars are Temujin Sardur, a Mongolian buccaneer, who raided pleasure boats in the Andaman Sea, Guillaume LaSalle, a Gascony spaceship Commander, who participated in bringing alien life to Earth, and Darius Noorani, the 12th Imam foretold by Islamic religion. Can Nadia unite her fellow Morningstars, even as the Falcanians use war, to broker for peace?
It’s finally here, Neo-human book 2!
A few thoughts. The book here is very different from the draft I began with, though the plot is largely the same, how it gets to where its going is somewhat different. Many of the changes came about because these first three Neo-human books were written as a single unit, not unlike LoTR, and the second book behaved too much like “the middle” of the novel than a story on its own. To be sure, the larger story arc needed to be, and is served here, though I made a point to connect the grander arc to the micro focus on Mornngstars and what they are. In fact doing so added another layer of meaning which I didn’t intend to touch on until further down the road in the series.
If “Starblade” was the story of Frederika learning about who, and what she is, then “Among Bright Stars…” is Nadia‘s story exploring she and Frederika‘s common Morningstar origins.
I’m going to forewarn you, there’s a little something for everyone to HATE in this book. It could be the whole Muslim messiah presented as both a Robot and a fierce Westernizer/reformer. After Benghazi, I made a special effort to tick up that plot a bit… Or, it could end up being Princess Sitara‘s life choice – Which will only seem radical depending upon your point of view on the matter – Though its sure to annoy some contingent who think science fiction‘s job is to support one particular party line. On that same note, I’m sure the whole Annunaki riff will grate a few people the wrong way as well. But, I don’t try to please everyone, or anyone but myself first and foremost when I write.
*A sharp eye will note, the Table of Contents (TOC) is different in the Amazon version compared to the Smashwords (aka all other retailers) TOC. That couldn’t be avoided. Kindle was being a pain and wouldn’t read the Table of Contents as it was formatted for Smashwords (which was odd as it had every other time) so I needed to build it a different way. Which is why the epigraph is displayed as it is on the Amazon book.
VX-7 Starcracker
From a garter holster, Nadia pulled out her own gold-plated VX-7 Starcracker. A gift from Sharr, the compact, sleek high-caliber pistol remained among the handful of firearms designed to make killing dents in a Morningstar. One of Grenadier Firearms rarest, and most expensive weapons, only twelve ever having officially been manufactured.
I was going to introduce this gun in book three, but I might as well set it up in book two, so when it does what it does, it has a lineage.
Only Superhuman — Christopher L. Bennett
I actually love this cover… And that phaser…
I was going to try to make my first post of 2013 about my own work, yet I found myself sucked into a book
Only Superhuman by Christopher L. Bennett
2107 AD: A generation ago, Earth and the cislunar colonies banned genetic and cybernetic modifications. But out in the Asteroid Belt, anything goes. Dozens of flourishing space habitats are spawning exotic new societies and strange new varieties of humans. It’s a volatile situation that threatens the peace and stability of the entire solar system.
Emerald Blair is a Troubleshooter. Inspired by the classic superhero comics of the twentieth century, she’s joined with other mods to try to police the unruly Asteroid Belt. But her loyalties are tested when she finds herself torn between rival factions of superhumans with very different agendas. Emerald wants to put her special abilities to good use, but what do you do when you can’t tell the heroes from the villains?
Only Superhuman is a rollicking hard-SF adventure set in a complex and fascinating future.
Now that you’ve gotten the blurb, I’ll tell you what I’m liking and what I’m not liking about this book as I read it. With the caveat that this is not intended to be a review as such…
Pros: I like the Transhumanism taking center stage, Emerald Blaze is a likeable, and sexy character, the writing is overall good as well as the universe which is being established.
Cons: I have the sneaking feeling I’m being lectured at… There are moments when Christopher L. Bennett‘s political views pop off the page and smack you in the nose, such as when we meet Emry’s mother – Who is presented to us as a Wiccan and it ends up wreaking of agenda. Though I will forgive him this somewhat since he doesn’t present her as a Laurie Cabot Dianic man-hater type. In fact her Wicca is presented as – Performance art? (There’s a whole different topic right there)
There are reviews on Amazon complaining about “all the sex” and so far I have not stumbled on anything all that umm explicit – If anything, I’d like it be far more spelled out, as you can still tell that Christopher L. Bennett is trying to disengage himself from his Star Trek writing in this regard.
Yet, overall I’m enjoying this read.
Remember, this is a none-review 
I provide no stars.
*PS this new WordPress interface blows… How do I put a post in a category?
Related articles
This Is Your Positronic Brain…
Morningstar Positronic Brain
A Moringstar brain, which is less about circuits and diodes than it is layers (in the same manner of a humans brain folded over into itself) of an “organic” spun-glass/crystal like substance. In fact, were you to dissect a Morningstar you’d find they have many of the same organs that a human does, but they are made of a different sort of substance than our own. Much more sterner stuff than that of a mere human, to be sure.
Related articles
- The Science of Heaven (thedailybeast.com)
Neo-human…
As many of you are aware, I’ve been rewriting/editing book two of what had been The Falcanian Legacy Series. In that process I began to reconsider the layout of my series, and what it was all about. Book two’s rewrite also made it clear I needed to go back into book 1 and make it more continues with the explanations I was providing for the Morningstars in the now retitled book 2 Among Bright Stars…
The series has been renamed Neo-human, given my revelation that the universe I created is not just about Falcanians, but in a large part, the Morningstars, who are to become the human species inheritors.
Book 1 has also been retitled to its original title of Starblade, no more colons, each book will have a title all to itself. Reason number one for this is it means I won’t be filling the cover full of words or at least only the words that need to be there.
Titles are as follows, subject to change.
1. Starblade
2. Among Bright Stars…
3. Stormangel
4. A Flag Full of Stars
5. Unification
6. Apotheosis
The relaunched series begins with Starblade, out now, and for a limited time, only 99 cents.
