Sci-Fi Watch: Project Hail Mary (2026)

Watched:  03/21/2026

Format:  Regal

Viewing:  First

Director:  Phil Lord & Christopher Miller

Not so long ago, we read the novel of Project Hail Mary, which we discussed here at the ol' interweb log.

I enjoyed the book a great deal - just as I'd enjoyed Weir's first book, The Martian.  And like that book, it received the big screen treatment, which I thoroughly enjoyed and have rewatched in part and in whole.

First:  Go see this in the theater.  It will be fine on your TV or laptop, it is - however - a movie designed for the big screen and benefits from the image size and quality, plus the audio experience.  And maybe even the audience reaction.

Like the novel, the book is told in the present as an amnesiac awakens in a spacecraft with the other two crewmates deceased and, as he discovers, light years from Earth as the craft he's in approaches a nearby star.  Grace recovers his memories in flashbacks that fill in the gaps for himself and the viewer as he progresses, eventually realizing things about himself.

The impetus for the trip is that the sun has seen something called The Petrova Line form between Earth and Venus, and something about that effect means the sun is starting to dim - the predictable effects meaning Earth will become a frozen wasteland within 3 decades.  The star he's heading toward is not fading, and Earth needs to know why.

Australian Neo-Noir Watch: The Dry (2020)

Watched:  03/05/2026

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Connolly

A while back, for various reasons, Jamie and I both read the novel The Dry. It was a big seller in Australia, where it was written and takes place.  And made its way here where I think it's done well.  

I asked for some downtime before I watched the inevitable movie adaptation so I could try to see it with fresh eyes, and hadn't honestly, thought about the book much since I read it.  It's fine!  Go read it.  But I think Jamie saw it starred Eric Bana and was happy to watch - and, anyhoo... here we are.

In the way of movies adapting popular books - the movie is largely a straight adaptation with some extraneous bits knocked off and some efficiencies found in storytelling.  But the film really does capture the mood of the novel, and as Jamie and I agreed, it looks more or less exactly how I saw it in my mind's eye.  Bleak, oppressive - a murder mystery in sun-scorched rural Australia.  

Signal Watch Reads: 1960's Austin Gangsters - Organized Crime That Rocked the Capital

Not too long ago, I read Jesse Sublett's follow up to this book, Last Gangster in Austin.  I enjoyed the book and determined to check out his first installment, 1960's Austin Gangsters: Organized Crime That Rocked the Capital.  

There's less of a clear narrative to this book than the follow-up.  That's not a product of poor writing or research with this first book - instead, there's a wider scope, more folks involved, and it takes place over a longer timeline.  All of that territory means you have to think in bullet points while adding some color.

In 1960's Austin Gangsters, Sublett charts the rise and fall of regional criminals in what was then the sleepy college and State Capital town of Austin, Texas.  

I listened to the audiobook version, which ran less than five hours.  Much to my delight, it was narrated by former Superman voice actor, George Newbern, who gets almost all of the Texas locations correct, minus one or two.*

New Parker Movie Trailer: Play Dirty

One of the only book series I've read in its entirety, and re-read multiple volumes, has been the Parker series of books by Richard Stark (aka: Donald Westlake).  I tend to think of Parker as a criminal project manager, and that works for me in my world.

A while back I'd read of the casting of Robert Downy Jr. for the role of Parker in the Shane Black helmed film, but that seems to have gone away with Avengers stuff back on RDJ's slate.  To my surprise, the role here is occupied by Mark Wahlberg.  I'm not anti-Wahlberg, but after spending 20-something books with Parker, I was of the opinion that RDJ could do it, but he wasn't my first choice.  Look, Parker is supposed to be a towering figure and RDJ Is like 5'9".  I am a bit baffled by the casting of Wahlberg, but no one asked me. We have a whole Dave Bautista out there.

There have been many adaptations of Parker books to film, and all of them make the mistake of wanting Parker to have... feelings.  He does have feelings, like anger, mild-irritation, general crankiness...   but he's not a joker or hugger.  He does not quip.  And that's hard for folks writing him or playing him, and why Lee Marvin's take in Point Blank was probably closest.  He's largely amoral, and will put a bullet in you if you cross him, even if he's known you for years as a colleague.  He *does* have unspoken feelings and maybe even what he considers friendships, if Butcher's Moon is any indication.  

So, long story long, the trailer doesn't reflect the novels.  

Nor is it, exactly, one of the books.  It seems to be melding elements from The Handle and another book or two. But it's its own thing, in the end.

But what I have heard twice now is that the movie is not the Ocean's 11-vibe that I'm getting from the video above.   In my humble opinion, the closest to the vibe of the books is probably Payback with Mel Gibson, or the aforementioned Point Blank.  

If I may... Amazon is doing the wrong thing here in general, and should just make 3 Parker movies per year for maybe 3 years, and just stick to the books, setting the movies in the era in which the novels were released.  Stop at The Rare Coin Score, I think.  Bring in Claire and then decide if it's worth continuing.

Signal Watch Reads: The Midnight Assassin - The Hunt For America's First Serial Killer (2017)

Author:  Skip Hollandsworth

Narrator:  Clint Jordan

Some time around the turn of the century, I was an avid reader of Texas Monthly, a periodical covering a wide range of topics which I considered to have some of the finest writing one could come by in that era.  And in one issue appeared the odd story of a serial killer, pre-dating Jack the Ripper, who had lurked in my own backyard - killing women and girls in Austin the mid-1880's, when Austin was the capital, but still just sprouting up as a municipality.

I was stunned.  

Like a lot of young folks with too much time on their hands, I was aware of details around particularly famous serial killers, having read up on Jack the Ripper as far back as middle school.  And I recall being aware of Henry Lee Lucas, Ted Bundy, and a handful of other killers by the time I graduated high school, back when all of it was sort of an abstraction.  So to find out that Austin had it's own Victorian-era killer, and that we had our famed Moontowers because of the killer?  That was mind-boggling.  

Since that article, the general knowledge that Austin had a 19th-century serial killer has become more pronounced.  And, these days, if you want to go on one of those Ghost Tours of Austin, I believe there's some that cater to hitting up the spots where folks were killed.  

But I'd never read Skip Hollandsworth's follow up to the article, his 2017 book The Midnight Assassin: The Hunt for America's First Serial Killer.  I'd planned to read it in October as my Hallow-read, but... I get excited and jump the gun sometimes.  And here we are.   And, yes, I took the book in as an audiobook read by Clint Jordan.

Signal Watch Reads: Project Hail Mary

Author:  Andy Weir

Audiobook read by:  Ray Porter

I read The Martian by Andy Weir a bit before the movie was released, and thoroughly enjoyed the Ridley Scott/ Matt Damon film that followed.  I skipped Artemis, and somehow just sort of missed that Project Hail Mary had been released until the movie trailer dropped and saw that the film was based on a book by Andy Weir.  

Jamie, who loved the The Martian, picked up Project Hail Mary, and plowed through it in a couple of days, recommending the novel.  Also, I am now listening to audiobooks in one ear while I walk Emmylou in the mornings before work, and this seemed like a good one to listen to after The Godfather.

There's a certain sameness to Project Hail Mary that you'll feel if you read The Martian, and while that's certainly the author's voice coming in strong, it almost feels like the same character from The Martian at times.  And I suspect that was a return to form after Artemis, which had a female lead and was a bit more space-adventurey from what I heard, didn't get the same good notices as Weir's freshman effort.  

But, like a band whose first record you liked, it's not all bad to get that third album and hear that the band was just finding their way on the sophomore effort, and now they're back in their groove.  

An astronaut awakens on a craft headed to a nearby star - his memory is wiped and the other two crew members are dead.  As he stumbles about, pieces of memory come back to him.

Earth had a problem - the sun was fading.  If a solution isn't found, the planet will drop into an ice age that will kill a whole lot of life on Earth.  

SPOILERS

I really liked Project Hail Mary.  I don't know that it will be taken for great literature, but it certainly makes for an interesting page turner of a read.  Slowly revealing what happened on Earth, how middle-school science teacher Ryland Grace winds up as one of three astronauts sent to save the Sun/ our Solar System is a great engine to propel the story, pushing forward the sturdy chassis of the story of the actual work done to save the planet and teamwork needed to get there.

Signal Watch Reads: The Godfather

Memory is a tricky thing.  I was positive I'd read Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather back in high school, but since it's been way too many decades since I would have read the book, I decided to pick it up again.  This time I picked it up as an audiobook read by Joe Montegna.  Not a bad choice of readers, right?

Well...  at some point I realized:  I don't think I ever finished the book back in the early 90's.  I'm glad I finally got to it, I've finished it.  All is well.  

I'm assuming that the book was so much like the movie, I kind of didn't see the point and moved on.  And yet, I figured out why I thought I'd made up a scene from the movie in my head because there it was in the book.  So... not exactly a 1:1, but pretty close.  Until...

Once you get to a certain point in the novel, it diverges mostly in how much additional content is there.  Like, Johnny Fontane is a major character, as is Lucy Mancini, and there's a whole storyline in Hollywood and Las Vegas that is interesting but was easily cut out to keep the movie focused on Don Vito and Michael's more compelling stories.  The reason the Fontane stuff is there seems to be two-fold.  (1) It's a reminder of the Don's far-seeing view and his ability to manage and manipulate things with a single move, and (2) pretty clearly Puzo was no fan of Hollywood and he wanted to do it dirt.  

SW Reads: Norse Mythology (Neil Gaiman)

The past few years, I've been digging a bit into Norse myths and whatnot, somewhat spawned by what I saw in the Ring Cycle operas and my absolute certainty that Marvel's Thor is probably not accurate.

Let me be clear before someone with a PhD in Norse mythology shows up in the comments to correct me:  I am just scraping the surface, looking into this on my own, and moving slowly/ piecemeal.  Feel free to leave helpful information in the comments, but trust I'm no expert.* 

If you read any Sandman, you've known since the 90's that Neil Gaiman has some particular ideas about myth, and some pretty solid knowledge pulled from traditional sources.  

Recently, I finished the Prose Edda, which I probably should have written up, but I didn't.  It's a transcription by a 13th century monk of what were the oral traditions of the Scandavian and Germanic folklores, touching cultures stretching from Germany to Iceland.  Previously, I'd read Beowulf and Saga of the Volsungs.  I'll be making my way to the Poetic Edda, but...  that feels so much more challenging.  Me and poetry have a difficult relationship.  There's plenty more I need to dig into in the way of Germanic epics and legends, but it's going to be slow going.

Mars Read: The Chessmen of Mars (1922)

One thing I know about Edgar Rice Burroughs - he is very certain women get kidnapped every 20 minutes.  

We're here in the Fifth of the Barsoom novels.  The Chessmen of Mars (1922) takes place a few years after Thuvia, Maid of Mars.  For the first time in a few books, John Carter returns to Earth - but now appearing ageless and in his Martian harness and weaponry.  He sits to share a story with ERB, this time about his daughter, Tara of Helium.

This book feels better constructed than Thuvia, which had a sort of improvisational quality to it, like ERB was just stitching ideas together.  The Chessmen of Mars reads less like combined installments reprinted into a single volume.  Instead, the book seems to have better considered foreshadowing, laying foundations for later actions, etc... in a way that shows growth in ERB's writing.  

This book essentially breaks into a few sections.  There's some business in Helium at the beginning where we first meet John Carter's daughter, Tara, who seems to be described as astoundingly beautiful - just not as beautiful as Dejah Thoris (I appreciate ERB's own loyalty to Dejah Thoris).  She's got the fire of her parents, but is never described to have inherited her father's great strength the way her brother, Carthoris, did. 

When the story opens, she's understood to be betrothed to a young man of Helium - but the two aren't clicking.  At a party, she meets Gahan of Gathol, who she sees in the finery of his people, and decides he's a showy fancy-lad.  

Mars Read: Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)

kitty..?

So, I'm back on my Mars thing.  

I'm picking up here with the 4th book in the John Carter of Mars cycle, Thuvia, Maid of Mars.  

I also just found out that there are not 9 books, there's 11.  That's okay.  I can do this.

One does not come to these books for complex characters and deep introspection.  We are here to kick ass on Mars.  We're going to wear BDSM gear and use swords and, when someone crosses our path, we are either going to fight to the death or swear a blood oath of eternal friendship.  And, on Barsoom, all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.  Or would be, if they didn't hatch from an egg in their teens.*

It had been a while since I last read a Barsoom novel (the good people of what we call Mars call their planet Barsoom).  And I'm always kinda sorta embarrassed to read them.  They're the nutrional equivalent of slamming a 2-Liter of Coke while gnawing on Lik-M-Aid and Pixie Sticks.  

But, boy howdy, once you've finished that first bottle and have a face smeared in Lik-M-Aid, you're going to reach for the Pixie Sticks and pop open another bottle  (ie:  I am immediately going into the next book).

Dashiell Hammett at 130

Today, according to the internet and the granddaughter of the author, is the 130th Birthday of American writer, Samuel Dashiell Hammett.  

Hammett is probably best remembered as the author of The Thin Man and The Maltese Falcon, and - - among crime and mystery fiction fans - put down the foundations for what became the modern idea of a pulp/ noir detective.  Hammett's creations, Sam Spade (Maltese Falcon) and The Continental Op (short stories, Red Harvest, etc...), would be refined into Lew Archer by Ross McDonald and Philip Marlowe by Chandler.  The winding, complex stories would become standard issue for detective fiction, and Hammett's international impact can be felt in places as unlikely as Kurosawa and Leone movies.  

In many ways, we're still chasing Hammett.  

The leg up Hammett had, aside from an astoundingly punchy and economical prose, was his background as a Pinkerton Detective* and his first hand experience.  As well as his time swapping stories with his fellow private eyes.  

Hammett himself was as interesting a cat as they come.  He left his family, was an ardent leftist and anti-fascist, served in WWI and again in his late 40's in WWII in Alaska - despite a lifetime of health issues, and spent most of his middle-age and to his death as the lover of renowned playwright Lillian Hellman.    He served time for his political convictions,  and didn't publish any new original fiction for the last 25 of his life.

I've read all of Hammett's novels and a lot of his short fiction.  My bookshelf at home is kind of a mess of Hammett and Chandler, somewhat to the neglect of other writers.

I'm maybe a little quick to point to Hammett as the source of everything that came after, but that's okay.  I'll be that guy.  In my personal pantheon, he's about as important as it gets.  And I still very much reading my first Hammett, purchased in a used book store - a 1980's hardback collection of his books, starting with Red Harvest.  And it was one of those instances of feeling like you're both entering a whole new world and, also, this is what you've been looking for all along.  

Anyway - pick up some Hammett some time.  And if not that, put on The Thin Man or Maltese Falcon this week, and have a cocktail for Dash.  

*yes, I know the Pinkerton's legacy is complex to say the least

180th Anniversary of "A Christmas Carol"

Turns out today, Dec. 19th, 2023, is the 180th anniversary of the publication of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, arguably one of the most important works of English-language fiction.  Thanks to writer Neil Gaiman who pointed this out on social media, and who is currently doing his bit where he dresses up and reads the book, cover to cover, to a live audience.  

I'd love to see someone film that sometime.  The only audio book I've ever listened to was performed by Patrick Stewart, and, pals, I cannot recommend it enough.  I also recommend the film version he did.  

And that's really the thing.  Most of us come to A Christmas Carol through a movie or TV special, cartoon adaptation, puppet show or what-have-you.  And that's actually great.  I know mine was the Disney version with Scrooge McDuck and Mickey in key roles.  But I also grew up in the wake of the George C. Scott version.  And hit Scrooged at a key point in my teen-hood where it really landed, and not just because Karen Allen.*

I think I finally read the book in 8th or 9th grade.  What I really remember is that I was supposed to read bits at a time, and I did not.  It's short - Neil Gaiman can read it all in one shot, and Patrick Stewart's Audible version is like an hour and forty-five minutes - a fraction of your average Marvel film.

And, you know what?  The book is great.  I re-read it every decade or so. 

I don't need to explain it to you, which is a nice time-saver in writing about the thing.  You know there's a first ghost who warns about the other three.  You know there's some light time-travel and walking around as a phantom.  There's love lost and bitter childhood memories.  And there's social commentary aplenty, which has remained relevant year-over-year for the past 180 years.

In many ways, recognizing the echoes of the pre-reformed Ebenezer Scrooge's dialog is a shockingly easy way to spot a terrible human.  And yet, no matter how many times people see the movies or read passages or see plays, and, or. etc...  here we are.  

And so, the book remains endlessly relevant.

Movies may change things up - cosmetic bits like changing the look of a ghost.  Or minimizing or eliminating bits.  And the book's core remains intact.  Because it's a fantasy that those with no motivation to change their ways will somehow, through the hand of God where their own conscience failed them, be moved by humanity to be human, and not just an engine for generating wealth.  At the end of the day, how you'll be thought of in this life will be multiplied the moment you pass.  

Here's to another 180 years more.

*but also not not because of Karen Allen

  

SW Reads! Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock

Author:  Dr. Christina Lane

Year Released:  2020

Format:  Audio Book and Book

A while back I learned of Dr. Christina Lane's book, Phantom Lady:  Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock, which ticked a lot of boxes.  Lane's subject matter covered an area with which I had some familiarity - 1940's and 50's Hollywood (I don't claim an encyclopedic knowledge, natch).  The focus of her exploration was a person I didn't know anything about, but whose work I actually knew.

A biography of British-born film writer and producer Joan Harrison, it turned out that I had seen - and very much enjoyed - films produced by Harrison, not least of which was the eponymous Phantom Lady.  As one would guess, Hollywood was not overrun by women in positions of management or executive decision making in the 1940's and 1950's, and so I was curious enough, but then Lane was also featured on TCM's Noir Alley series as a guest, discussing Harrison in conjunction with some of her films.  I was sold.

PODCAST: "Foundation" Sci-Fi TV discussion w/ JuanD and Ryan

Watched:  09 and 10/2021

Format:  Television Apple+

Viewing: First

Decade: 2020's

Director:  various

For more ways to listen

Juan and Ryan ponder what has come before to consider what is happening now and what will happen next as they take on the famously unfilmable series of books from one of the greats of American sci-fi. Join us as we run the numbers on a show that's epic in scale, and maybe dropping a space elevator on the fans of the books.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 168: "Foundation" television series 2021 - a Sci-Fi PodCast w/ JuanD and Ryan

Music:

Foundation Main Theme - Bear McCreary

Sci-Fi Playlist

The Signal Watch PodCast · Science Fiction Nerdery!

Muad'Dib Watch: Dune (2021)

Watched:  10/24/2021

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2020's

Director:  Denis Villeneuve

Well, whatever opinion I have will be wrong, by everyone who watched this movie.  And, especially, if you read the book.

I've only read Dune once, years ago, at the recommendation of RHPT and StevenH (and probably Lauren, if Steven was pitching it).  That said, I thought it was a singular reading experience.  My inability to return to the book has much more to do with life being short and me doing other things rather than my lack of love for what I read.

I think people who read and grok Dune are changed a little after, maybe in tiny ways, but a bit.  I cannot imagine approaching a Dune movie without having read the book - I know watching Lynch's version without having read the book led to me giving up 20 minutes in.  But after reading it, I was like "oh, yeah, this is maybe not the best way to do this, but ok."  Similarly, before reading the book, I could only follow the SyFy Channel TV mini-series version of Dune so far before I was like "y'all are on your own".

So - I have no idea what those who didn't read the book took away from the movie currently in theaters and running on HBOmax.  

Halloween Read: Carmilla (1872) - Audiobook

Finished:  10/03/2019
Author:  Joseph Sheridan LeFanu
Reader:  Tracey Childes
Format:  Audiobook
Decade:  1870's
Recording:  2009

Growing up, I'd read that the book that had pre-dated Dracula and which likely inspired Stoker was Varney the Vampire (or: The Feast of Blood), a mid-19th Century penny dreadful that I've still not got around to reading.  I think I'd heard of Carmilla 1872) by J.S. LeFanu in passing, but it wasn't until I was reading up on the Hammer horror film The Vampire Lovers (based loosely on the book) that I did the Googling necessary to spark real interest in Carmilla -at least enough to get me to intend to read the book. 

As I am no longer working from home and once again enjoy a commute, I went ahead and got the audiobook of Carmilla for what will be one of my Halloween reads.

A Picture Tour of Locations from "Anatomy of a Murder" - my vacation pics from the U.P. - Part 1

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the release of Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder.  If you've never seen it, it's a terrific film and holds up far better than you'd expect considering the changing mores, attitudes, laws and and more since 1959.  In some ways, it's covering territory we seem to cover over and over as a society and may be more relevant now than ever.  A legal drama, it should be a bit out of my wheelhouse, but instead it's been one of my favorite films since college.

Starring Jimmy Stewart, it has a terrific cast of well-known and lesser known actors.  Eve Arden, a very young George C. Scott, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzarra, Arthur O'Connell, and Kathryn Grant (a University of Texas alumnus and, at the time, just married to Bing Crosby).  And, a bit bizarre for the time and place, Duke Ellington.

The movie, however, was based on a novel written by Robert Traver.  Traver was the pen name for attorney John Voelker, who lived in Ishpeming, Michigan and served as the city prosecutor, ran for other public office and was generally highly involved in public life in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Signal Watch Reads: "The Long Goodbye" (1953) and "Playback" (1958)

At long last, I read both The Long Goodbye (1953) and Playback (1958), the last of Raymond Chandler's novels centered upon detective Philip Marlowe.

You'll note a lengthy dry spell between books here, and there's a precipitous drop-off between the two in depth and strength.  It's curious as The Long Goodbye feels less like a detective novel and more like an author wrestling with himself, working through the point in his life where he'd enjoyed success and some fame and found neither amounted to much as he was still living with himself as an alcoholic, a writer of genre fiction, and now a widower.*

PODCAST: Noir Watch: "The Long Goodbye" (1973) - w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  02/01/2019
Format:  Kino Lorber BluRay
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1970's

Simon and Ryan delve into Film Noir via Neo-Noir, Altman-directed entry "The Long Goodbye" (1973), an oddball of a film with a lot to offer. We explore the role of Philip Marlowe in the world of fiction, some of the mechanics of noir, and whether or not any of this actually works as a movie.




Music:

The Long Goodbye - Music by John Williams/ Lyrics by Johnny Mercer/ performed by Jack Sheldon

Links:

For more about The Signal Watch PodCast
The Signal Watch Patreon

RiffTrax-Watch: Ready Player One (2018)

Watched:  12/25/2018
Format:  Rifftrax
Viewing: First
Decade:  2010's

I am not a gamer.  The only console I own is one of those 2600 emulator boxes and it hasn't been out of the closet in a year.  I get that people spend a lot of time on video games, and that I have no stones to throw about people wasting their time and money on non-real-things.  I write on a blog that needlessly analyzes movies and occasionally comics and talks a lot about comic-based movies.  Take all of the below with the necessary grain of salt.