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Sunshine Challenge: Day Three:
Prompt 3: Canon Recommendations:
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sunshine_challenge, click on the link.
I tried to give a few examples for each of the categories suggested on the main post. I stopped myself once this hit over 1000 words – believe me, I could go on.
Sorry for the lack of links, but all of these things are fairly easily Googled. I might break down and go back and add in links later.
Movies:
- Streets of Fire is an alternate universe science fictionish movie with a kick-ass rock sound track. It’s a 1980s flick and it’s definitely worth checking out.
- Red Dawn, the 1984 movie and ONLY the 1984 movie, is worth checking out. It’s not as jingoistic as you’d think – I mean, it’s jingoistic, but the invading Russians and their allies aren’t portrayed as entirely unsympathetic. You can read more of my thoughts on both movies here: Red Dawn (1984) and Red Dawn (2012) -- There will be Spoiler
Books:
If you like time travel, you should definitely check out the Chronicles of St. Mary’s by Jodi Taylor. They have a great take on time travel studying history in contemporary time (they have a costume department that makes period clothes!), plus an engaging cast of characters.
For military fantasy/science fiction/horror, the Joe Ledger series by Jonathan Maberry comes up with plausibly ‘real world’ explanations for things like zombies, vampires, aliens, etc. What drew me to the books was the fact that the main character, Joe Ledger, is a total bad ass who is in therapy because of the violent things that have happened in his past (and present). The audiobooks are read by Ray Porter, who actually was the reason I got interested in the series and have stuck with it all the way through. For stories set in the actual military that allow the supernatural to actually be supernatural, check out Seal Team 666 books by William Ochoa.
Also! The President’s Vampire series by Christopher Farnsworth – the premise takes its premise from a historical footnote and turns it into something amazingly awesome. If you enjoy audiobooks, these were narrated by Bronson Pinchot who is one of those voice actors who does all the voices and does them well.
If you like Cthulu and spies with a healthy dash of computer sciences, the Laundry Files by Charles Stross are super-good.
For a humorous romance series that blends historical fiction and present day, the Secret History of the Pink Carnation series by Laura Willig. Added bonus: it’s essentially a Scarlet Pimpernel fanfic, in the sense that it takes place in a world where the Pimpernel was an historical figure and inspired other Regency era flower themed adventurers/spies. And while you don’t have to have read the Scarlet Pimpernel before you read the SHotPC books, I highly recommend reading it at some point. It’s really, really good!
Cozy mystery fan? The Meg Langford series of books combines a large and eccentric cast of characters along with a plausible amateur sleuth and periodically punny bird titles.
TV Series:
- Midsommer Murders is a British series that takes place in a county in England that, were it a real place, would have a murder rate that would make most war zones go “wow, that’s a dangerous place!” The series is about 20 seasons long but since it’s British, that means you’re looking at about 6-8 episodes per season. It’s one of the few shows out there that stands up even after cast changes.
- Final Space is funny and goofy; if you like Futurama or Rick and Morty, you should give this a go.
- DC Super Hero Girls This is kind of a high school AU featuring Supergirl, Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Bumblebee, Zatana and Green Lantern as students at Metropolis high school. It’s got very strong “Girl Power!” and the power of friendship vibes to it – which is a feature, not a bug.
Comic Books: Ok, here’s where I’m gonna let my Transformers fan freak flag fly furiously:
Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, Transformers: Lost Light, Transformers: Robots in Disguise, and Transformers: Till All Are One – are really good jumping on points if you want to start reading Transformers comics. They’re based in a G1 universe (which means they are based, loosely, in the Transformers universe created back in the 1980s) that does a good job of balancing that which has come before and making the story accessible to new fans.
MTMTE and RID are set at the same time, after the Autobot/Decepticon war has ended, Cybertron has been reborn and everybody’s trying to figure out what the heck to do now that the war that has been their collective raison d'etre has ended. Each series follows different groups of characters through different types of adventures.
Transformers: MTMTE follows the adventures of Rodimus Prime and the crew of the Lost Light as they search for the Knights of Cybertron. (Transformers: Lost Light takes up after More Than Meets the Eye ends). If you like a kind of rambling, “the journey is what matters!” story that is heavily character driven, you’re gonna like MTMTE/Lost Light.
Transformers: RID takes place on Cybertron and follows the efforts of Bumblebee, Starscream and others as they try to cope with the end of the war and rebuilding a society. This series is particularly interesting because it features “NAILs” (“Non-Aligned Indigenous Lifeforms”) who are Transformers who left Cybertron and have only recently returned to Cybertron. The majority of the NAILs are not particularly fond of either the Autobots or the Decepticons. If you like stories that feature politics and stories that focus on a larger mystery, check out RID.
Transformers: Till All Are One continues with the theme of trying to maintain an uneasy peace on post-war Cybertron – and features Starscream as the ruler of Cybertron. It also heavily features the Combaticons which is part of what endears it to me, especially since they’re being used as something other than a Bruticus delivery service.
One nice feature of these series is that they’ve all ended, so there’s a coherent beginning, middle and end. The downside to these series is that they’ve ended – but, good news again: IDW has rebooted their Transformers comic as of 2018. The new series takes place prior to the start of the Autobot/Decepticon war, which gives us a chance to follow along and see how things are going to go wrong. The series is being put out monthly with a graphic novel scheduled for October, I think. Definitely worth checking out.
