Amazon bullies Print On Demand publishers. There’s also a Wall Street Journal and a Publishers Weekly article on the subject.

Grand River Coffee, which was previously a Cornerstone Coffee, feels like a hotel lobby. They even have a waterfall running down a pane of glass.

Stargate: Ark of Truth is the perfect wrap-up for season 10. If it had been cut in half, at a cliffhanger, it would have served as the season 10 finale and the season 11 starter. It has replicators, a banished Morgan LaFey, the ascended Orusai, and plot tie-ups. It has everything that was missing in Season 10.

While playing like a double-length episode, it still takes advantage of feaure-film special effects, soundtrack, and camera work. Unlike 99% of the movies that the SciFi channel puts out (craaaaaap), this straight-to-DVD release was quality.

Also, Teal’c is a badass. Five stars.

Heroes: Season 2 was not as cohesive or a-to-b as Season 1 was, but I didn’t see that as much of a drawback. We learn a lot more about the previous generation, and that this super power thing has likely been going on for a very long time. Nearly every character gains depth, save Syler. That jerk. There is definitely an end-of-the world plot going on, like in the first season, but it’s implied that this is the normal course of events for people with these powers, and always has been. Very MiB in that regard.

On a technical note, I streamed this from Netflix’s servers. While the quality was good, the wait time was high (direct correlation, methinks). I’m still miffed that I’m forced to use IE to view streamed content, and that it uses Windows Media Player for its “viewing rights verification process” or whatever. But overall, it was a pleasant experience.

Five stars.

This is supposed to be the last season, right? The show was canceled, yes? Well, yes and no. Instead of tying up, or even really making any sort of climactic progress against the armies of the Ori, this is just another season of Stargate SG-1. They’ve got just as many retrospective episodes, character history episodes, Jaffa infighting, Baal (GOD! JUST SHUT UP YOU CLONED JERK), the NID, actual Goa’uld implantations, and Tok’ra bailouts as past seasons. What it doesn’t have is a conclusion. In fact, it has the opposite of a conclusion. Hell, it didn’t have a buildup or climax, so why would it have a conclusion?

I enjoyed nearly every episode, on its own. But even if it hadn’t been the last season, there would have been a cliffhanger at the end. It feels like I was in the passenger seat of a car that was being driven off a cliff.

Because of the strength of the individual episodes, the small amounts of Ori plot advancement that did happen, the twist involving Baal and Vala’s daughter, I gave this one four stars. Let’s hope that the movie ties up -something- besides a rushed and forced bow-out of the Asgard. I mean, REALLY.

General Jack O’Neill (two L’s) has left for another assignment, General Hammond is long-promoted out of anything but cameos, so we get yet another new leader for Stargate Command. I liked Weir (though the second actress beats the first, I think) as a civilian commander, and now we have General Landry. His biggest pet peeve is that he doesn’t get to yell at anyone. Okay, I liked this character right out of the gate, I have to admit.

We also have Cam Mitchell, a fighter pilot who aided SG-1 in the Antarctica mission, and risked his neck so that they could activate the drone weapon. That particular mission gets darker than it was by looking at some of the sideline death that happened to protect SG-1. In fact, that’s a continuing theme for this season. Anyway, Teal’c is off on Dakarta trying to help form a Jaffa government, Daniel Jackson is finally going to Atlantis to decode all of the Ancient goodness that’s there, and Samantha Carter is at Area 51, busting up some scientist heads. Mitchell arrives, expecting to lead the old SG-1, and is told to pick his new crew.

Blues Brothers references about putting the band back together have never been so funny to me.

This season is -good-. It takes a while for it to get its rhythm after the abrupt change in casting ( /bin/import –partial_cast –main_characters Farscape.castlist ) and that’s the reason it got four stars, instead of five. I definitely recommend it.

Oh. Wow.

Let me say that again. Oh, WOW.

You know, if comic book superheroes were this human, in all the good ways and the bad, I’d be way more of a comic book fan than I already am.

This is the kind of series that you can’t really talk about without giving away spoilers. This is why I’m debating streaming the second season (first five episodes are available from NBC’s site for free, and Netflix offers the whole season) as opposed to waiting for it to come out on DVD. Then I can talk to people about it. :)

Did you know there’s a novel? There is! It’s called Heroes: Saving Charlie. I just picked my copy up from Everybody Reads. Oh, and did you know there’s also a graphic novel comprised of the online comic book content, covering stories and bits of the world that didn’t show up in the seires? There is!

The story in this show is great. The writing is top notch. The jerks are masters at cliffhangers, for which I shake my fist. That being said, I gave it 5 stars, and I can’t wait for the second season.

I had a really hard time deciding between three stars (Liked It) and four stars (Really Liked It) on this one.

There were some seriously funny moments and lines, and there were some seriously emotional moments. Since it had been billed as a comedy, and a laugh riot, I was pretty surprised at the actual heart-string moments. Either that or they were some sort of humor that flew right over my head. Because that never happens. My favorite moment had to be when the main character was studiously ignoring the zombie apocalypse all around him (don’t use that word!), and slipped in the puddle of *something*.

The movie, the company, and the popcorn gets four stars. The movie by itself gets three.