This week, we tackle a book that promises a lot more Joanna McCoy than it delivers. Plus: malfunctioning computers, antimatter holocaust, Uhura at the conn, and enough product placement to make an Adam Sandler film look like a paragon of subtlety. It’s Crisis on Centaurus, or, Mission to the Planet That’s Basically Earth But the Title Crisis on Earth Isn’t As Catchy or Compelling or Alliterative.
I’ve wanted a Switch since they launched, and while I haven’t yet reached a place to where I can justify getting one for myself, I do get to take care of someone else’s for almost two months. My brother is moving, and since it’s going to be a protracted transition, he let me borrow it. Now I finally get to catch up on some of the great stuff everyone was hyped about six months to a year ago.
Things I’ve realized after playing for one day:
1) Hunting moons in Super Mario Odyssey is the craziest time sink I’ve let myself indulge in in a long time. I’d think to myself, Okay, that’s good for now, just another minute and I’ll turn it off and go do some other stuff, and then the next time I looked at the clock, thirty minutes had gone by. This happened four times. As of this writing, I have 51 moons, and I hope to have roughly half the moons in the game by the next Shore Leave.
2) I still don’t like Sonic Mania. I’m sorry, I don’t. There aren’t enough original zones, there are still too many cheap shots, I still feel like I’m missing 90 percent of any given level, and I HATE the Blue Sphere stages. I wasn’t good at them in 1994 and I’m no better at them now. It’s flippin’ gorgeous though, and the Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine boss battle is great.
I predict my brother’s Switch will have Stardew Valley and Golf Story on it by the time he gets it back.
When I’m in the mood to watch an anime, I’m typically very fussy about my choice, and it takes me a long time to make the leap on one even when I’m confident I want to watch it. That said, I’m tentatively checking out My Hero Academia. I don’t have much to say about it yet, as I’ve only seen the first episode, but I’ll get further into my feelings about it if I watch any more.
Also, I’m not sure how I’m going to fit this in between the aforementioned anime and of course brushing up on all the Star Treks, but NYPD Blue was recently added to Hulu. (NYPD Blulu? NYPD Hublue?) My interest in NYPD Blue began when I was a teenager for what I confess are prurient reasons—if you didn’t have cable or an internet connection in the late 90s, it was a reliable place to see an unscrambled butt—but I found myself frequently getting sucked into the non-naked bits too, and until now there haven’t been many easy ways to watch it (unless you want to hunt down the Audience channel on DirecTV). Time to see if it still holds up.
Shore Leave was made possible by donations to the Deep Space Spines Patreon. If you like the site and you’d like to see a wider range of features on it, please consider pledging a dollar a month. Even that small amount is super-helpful and will go toward buying the books and keeping the site going. Thanks for reading (and also pledging, if you do that)!
All ashore that’s going ashore: Deep Space Spines has reached its first Patreon goal! After six months of non-canonical voyages, we’re getting some much-needed shore leave. Or, more accurately, Shore Leave. That’s the name I decided on for the site’s first extracurricular feature, where I talk about some of the non-Trek pop culture I’m enjoying at the moment and attempt (probably in vain) to prove that I have a life beyond Star Trek mass market paperbacks.
Shore Leave will run biweekly on Tuesdays. That seems to me a good halfway point between Fridays, and I don’t exactly take in new things at a breakneck pace, so I think that will suit me and the site just fine for the time being. The first Shore Leave will go up Tuesday, April 24, and then we’ll keep on trekkin’ from there.
I extend my most heartfelt thanks to everyone who has made this possible so far. I’ve had the good fortune to receive the love of some very generous donors, but if you’d like to help, I assure you that just one dollar a month really and truly makes a big difference toward what I’m able to do for this site—and best of all, your donation shows that you support online longform writing, because as long as people need something to read on the toilet (sonic or otherwise), online longform writing won’t be a dead art form. Again, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
And of course: live long and prosper, friends.
Today, Spock sings “Where Is My Mind?” while Kirk and Bones butt heads as they vie for the privilege of paging Doctor Love. Meanwhile, Kirk’s desire to help people in need proves at odds with the Aritanians’ desire for everyone to go away and leave them alone. Will Spock’s mental faculties come back in time to fill in the blanks for his befuddled, love-addled captain, or will he live out the rest of his days as a vegetable in his parents’ basement? This week, we shine a light on Mindshadow, or, How to Win Friends and Influence High-Ranking Starfleet Officers.
Another week, another novel focusing on a new and never-before-seen character. Jean Czerny, an agricultural scientist, is captured by Klingons and forcibly recruited to solve their famine crisis. It’s the job she was born and bread for, but she can’t afford to loaf around. Will she ac-wheat-esce to the Klingons’ demands or go against the grain? This week, it’s Pawns and Symbols, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Klingons.
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