Month: March 2024

The JK Rowling Mandela Effect

Somebody on Twitter told JK Rowling that nobody reads her books and since that is absolutely not the world I am familiar with, I must have fallen through into an alternate timeline. I just want to let you people know that in the timeline I’m originally from her books are HUGE, like you wouldn’t even believe it.

Rowling Mandela Effect incoming.

$7.7 billion in sales for a 7-book standard British boarding school series with fantasy added (in case you weren’t familiar), plus 11 movie adaptations for the original 7 books and a TV series on the way, the best selling video game of 2023, plus entire THEME PARKS.

Her books were so popular they dominated the New York Times Bestseller List to the point that they had to CREATE AN ENTIRELY NEW LIST to put them on just so other people would show up again. They are STILL—17 years after the last one dropped—dominating the bestseller lists on Amazon and Audible, and the merch sales are INSANE.

She’s a BILLIONAIRE, and only a billionaire instead of much, much more because she gave over $225 million to charity.

So obviously I’ve entered a world where none of that happened, and Rowling is just a small-time writer of modern-era Murder Mystery novels. Sad, you guys would have loved the Harry Potter books. They were really great.

So is this the timeline where Chick-fil-A won the Fast Food Wars, or am I completely screwed?

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The Oscars: The Good Parts Version

Look, I’ll admit I didn’t watch the Oscars broadcast, which was apparently last night. I hope this doesn’t shock or disappoint you.

What I DID do, however, is run across some moments from the show I can share. Think of this as the “Special Edition” of the broadcast, every good moment excised and displayed, so you don’t have to wade through three hours of sludge to find three moments of joy.

Admittedly, Arnie didn’t fight Michael, but this was still a genuinely funny moment.

Where would we be without the writers of Morbius, Madame Web, and Gods of Egypt? Also, thanks for ruing the punchline, Variety!

My thoughts seeing this for the first time: HOLY CRAP, THAT’S SLASH! I haven’t seen the movie, but this was entertaining.

So there you go folks. Other than Robert Downey Jr’s acceptance speech and Christoper Nolan’s bits, this is everything good from the Oscars*!

You’re welcome.

*And if it isn’t, I’m not watching 3 hours of TV to find out.

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Fallout Fall Down, Go Boom?

Amazon’s streaming service, home to shows both beloved and despised, has a new Fallout series releasing in April based on the long-running videogame series, but mostly Fallout 4 and Fallout ’76.

Now, this trailer looks pretty good, unlike the last one, and I would LOVE to have a great Fallout series, but Amazon’s track record is not one to give me confidence. They made Rings of Power, just to pick a random example, and the upcoming fourth season of The Boys, which is all about how Homelander is really (sigh) Trump.

I loved Fallout 3, played more hours than I will admit to without some form of torture being involved. (I was sick, I had the time.) And Fallout: New Vegas was so great, Bethesda staffers suffer from PTSD over it to this very day.

But this series, this trailer, has fingerprints of THE MESSAGE all over it, and that does not bode well. THE MESSAGE is ruining/has ruined comics, videogames, tv, movies, Fantasy & Science Fiction stories and novels, tabletop roleplaying games, music, and nearly everything else. It is POISON. And if the series is as filled with THE MESSAGE as the trailers and promo materials have suggested, it is poisoned too

I want this to be good. I WELCOME this being good. I would love to be proven wrong.

But my fear, despite this wonderful-seeming trailer, is that Fallout will be awful.

(The one hope is that Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan’s brother and writer of The Dark Knight, who is nominally in charge of this whole shebang has gone along with some purely superficial elements of THE MESSAGE but actually has solid characterization and storytelling underneath. Things like that have happened.)

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On the Galaxy Quest Tip!

Galaxy Quest, which a close friend of mine (now sadly passed) and I saw opening weekend was an amazing show. Fun, funny, touching, a love letter to Star Trek and Star Trek fans, it was a great experience.

And the fact that it was winter in Ogden, Utah, and we had to walk a mile downhill to get to the theater and a mile uphill in the post-midnight cold to get back to campus didn’t detract at all from our enjoyment.

This vid is a great behind the scenes and historical retrospective of the fun show that, like all Hollywood movies worth a damn, almost didn’t get made.

Never give up, never surrender!

Give it a watch!

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Brandon Sanderson Breaks the Internet. Twice.

Brandon Sanderson has decided to break the back of BackerKit, just like he broke KickStarter, and in a mere 4 hours he garnered $10 million. He hadn’t even made the official ANNOUNCEMENT yet.

Click the pic to go to the campaign.

One other bit of Sanderson news: Brandon Sanderson refused to put his new books on Audible until they offered EVERYBODY in Indie a better deal, and eventually they flew out to kiss his ring.

He did this not just for himself, but for EVERYBODY. So good on him.

We at Geek Gab wish him the best of luck in all his endeavors!

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