Back in 2000, the Show Me SciFi website went the way of many an ambitious dot-com era dream as the tech bubble collapsed -- and time and resources became scarce. Undaunted, Show Me SciFi was resurrected as a blog six years later by Michael (who prefers not to disclose his last name) as his take on "what's good, what's bad, what sucks and what's awesome" in the world of scifi. "From a personal point of view, I no longer harbor dreams of irrational exuberance and being a dot-com maven of SciFidom," he says.
A scifi fan who was influenced early on by Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick, Michael spends a lot of time focusing on the Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Stargate franchises -- what he calls "pop scifi," all easily accessible and representing the largest groups of scifi fans. News last year of the Star Wars stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service and the tie-in R2-D2 mailboxes proved to be popular posts "because it was just such a cool thing and we wrote about it first," says Michael, who also happens to be a fan of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ("it's the best of all the Star Trek movies"), as well as The Last Starfighter ("a scifi fairy tale") and Dune ("it captures the essence of the book"). But he also enjoys looking for the "angle that others don't look for or see on any given topic or issue." Take his post from March 2007 on the relationship of Darth Krayt (from the Star Wars: Legacy comic books) to Jacen Solo (from the Star Wars: Legacy of the Force books). It generated over 465 comments and 30,000 page views and appeared at a time when "no one knew who Darth Krayt was or what direction Star Wars: Legacy would take," Michael explains.
Michael does not mince words when it comes to his likes and dislikes, which is especially appropriate for someone who wants to help others "figure out what they want to watch or read." His favorite scifi offering of the recent past? Firefly: "The unique Joss Whedon style makes Firefly/Serenity a unique kind of offering and it's a darn shame there aren't more TV shows or movies planned." And his least favorite? SciFi Channel's Flash Gordon: "Easily the worst scifi show of the last 10 years. We applauded its demise because it was the antithesis of everything that good scifi TV should be about -- namely speculative fiction, decent effects and excellent characters."
