Xepherus Reads

Hello, Fellow Book Worms and Book Dragons,   In space no one can see you read......   If you are a science fiction fan you cannot be alive without knowing about the Alien franchise of the past thirty-plus years. When Sigourney Weaver first appeared on screen as Ellen Ripley, we knew that one of the most courageous heroines was just introduced to audiences. Ripley would go on to star in four Alien films. But the franchise (sans Ripley) began to fizzle out after two Aliens vs Predator adventures. Soon the Xenomorph disappeared from the big screen.    In 2012 Ridley Scott returned to the Alien universe with Prometheus, the first of three Alien prequels that re-introduced the Engineers to movie-goers. We remembered in Alien an Engineer starship was found infested with Xenomorph eggs. In 1979 the driver of the ship was dubbed  "Space Jockey", and that was all we knew about them. As Scott fleshed out the story of the Engineers, we were introduced to the Trilobite (Gi

Hello, Fellow Book Worms and Book Dragons !   Wednesday, new comics day. No other day in the life of a comic book fan is more important (other than Comic Con) than staking out your local comic shop and getting the newest releases. I have been a patron of comic book shops for over twenty five years, and I admit that I never grow tired of snatching up the latest releases. But lately there has been a debate within the comic book industry about digital codes.    Recently Marvel Comics received a lot of bad publicity when they changed what digital content wa s available with the code included with their comics. Up until the beginning of April 2017, you could download the digital version of the print book you had purchased to your Comixology account. But Marvel decided to change th e digital content to three random books. Yes three books are better than one, but they were books chosen by Marvel. This left digital collectors up-in-arms over the decision because the y wanted to

Hello, Fellow Book Worms and Book Dragons,   I am on a Star Wars high lately. Star Wars Celebration has shattered my expectations as to what they would reveal thus far. Trailers, tributes, and new books and comics have had me so excited for what is to come. With that being said,  I wanted to sit down and reflect on the first time I ever saw a Star Wars film.      It was 1980, and I was eight years old. I had been a fan of Star Wars prior to that, but I had never had the chance to see A New Hope on the big screen. My love of Star Wars came from the toys, coloring books, read-along-books, and other merchandising. Finally Empire Strikes Back was released, and I was about to see this amazing new movie that all my friends and the world had been raving about. But we got to the theater late. We came in on the Battle of Hoth just as the AT-AT Walkers began to descend onto Echo Base.   I was very sad that I had missed the beginning. I had no idea what was happening, but my mother said t