Along with the other festivities for my birthday weekend last week, Tom and I finally saw “Interstellar.” It was enjoyable, Shakespearean even, but not nearly as original, complex, exciting, and thought—provoking as “Inception.” I found myself taking out my editor’s scissors and clipping minutes from numerous scenes—it was way too long and ponderous. The interposed storylines didn’t always mesh well. It’s as if the Nolan brothers wanted to create such a serious space movie without any hint of Marvel Comics that the touches of wit that make “Momento” so enjoyable were totally lacking. By the end, I wasn’t sure what had been accomplished or resolved. The film felt like an exercise in futility, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.

But we’ll surely wait to see what the Nolans will do for their next trick.

We paired “Interstellar” with “Lucy,” about a woman who accidentally ingests a huge amount of a synthetic hormone which pregnant woman produce in very tiny amounts in order to ensure that the fetus develops fully. I liked the stylistic quirks. I’m not sure I’d extrapolate the same sort of plot developments the screenwriter did from the premise or whether some of those made any sense but, hey, it’s not my story.

Science fiction writers are always wracking their brains to figure out how to convey the technical details of the premise they’re attempting to dramatize. The sage advice is “Show, don’t tell.” Avoid the dreaded “narrative lump.”

As multiple award-winning Ann Leckie points out in her recent blog http://www.annleckie.com/blog/, though, sometimes this isn’t the best advice. Sometimes a snappy, entertaining exposition that lays out the concept or background puts the reader on the same page as the writer, so the reader may proceed to enjoy the story with full comprehension.

The screenwriter of “Lucy” did exactly that. The tech background is delivered in a lecture by a professor. Since the professor is Morgan Freeman, how snappy and entertaining is that? The professor plays a secondary role later in the story, so it worked for me.

So there you have it, my friends. We had a great time with “Lucy,” which was fresh and exciting. Scarlett Johannsen was terrific.

From the author of Summer Of Love, A Time Travel (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, and Kobo.
Summer of Love, A Time Travel is also on Amazon.com in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Australia.

The Gilded Age, A Time Travel on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords.
The Gilded Age, A Time Travel is also on Amazon.com in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and India.

The Garden of Abracadabra, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, “Fun and enjoyable urban fantasy,” on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords.
The Garden of Abracadabra, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, is also on Amazon.com in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and India.

Celestial Girl, The Omnibus Edition (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) includes all four books. On Nook, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, and Kobo;
Celestial Girl, The Omnibus Edition (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is also on Amazon.com in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and India.

Strange Ladies: 7 Stories, five-star rated, “A fantastic collection,” on Nook, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, Kobo, and Sony.
Strange Ladies: 7 Stories is also on Amazon.com in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and India.

My Charlotte: Patty’s Story on Barnes and Noble, US Kindle, UK Kindle, Canada Kindle, Australia Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, and Kobo;
My Charlotte: Patty’s Story is also on Amazon.com worldwide in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and Mexico.

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