Journey to Wonder

After an 18 month hiatus, we are back! In an effort to not go offline for over a year, we're changing up our format at bit. Instead of a book review and a movie compare an contrast, we're going to go a bit more casual and just shoot the breeze about things we like. We'll keep our focus on genre items but remove some of the toil because, as we say in the show, we just have fun talking to each other...

In this episode of Journey to Wonder, we harken back all the way to 1870 with the classic submarine adventure, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (or Seas depending on where you look) by Jules Verne. As always, we discuss our experience with the english translation of the novel and whether or not this 150 plus year old story holds up.  We then dig into the 1954 Disney movie of the same name, ho...

As a follow up to our interview of John Jackson Miller, we dive deep into his series tie in novel, The High Country. As lifelong Star Trek fans, Chris and Joe also dive into thier thoughts about the first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on the eve of the premeire of the show's second season. Of course, we meander off path into some talk of both NuTrek and Classic Trek and how they influenc...

A bit of a change of pace this time around! In preparation for our review of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The High Country, we are talking to that book's author, John Jackson Miller.  We have a great chat covering various topics such as the creative process, some of how the sauasge is made with these types of tie-in novels and of course we talk in general terms about The High Country and some of...

A change of pace and experiement this year moving out of our usual genre comfort zone! We devle into the world of 1980's south-west Texas with Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel, No Country for Old Men. As usual we also delve into the 2007 Cohen Brothers movie of the same name. We intertwine the discussion of both since the book was written with the intention of it beocming a screenplay for the movie. N...

This time on Journey to Wonder, we travel to Saturn (or is it Jupiter?) with Aurthur C. Clarke's 1968 sci fi novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Of course, you can't talk about 2001 the book without talking about the seminal Stanley Kubrick film that was developed alongside the novel and released the same year. In addition, we dive into the sequel novel, 2010: Odyssey Two and it's 1984 film adaptation s...

In what we originally intended to be our Haloween episode, we cover the first book in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series, 1976 novel, Interview with the Vampire. We go into Chris' long history with this book and series along with Joe's fresh take on his first reading of the book. We then dive deep into the 1994 Tom Cruise / Brad Pitt movie adaptation, how it differs and our usual other set of t...

On this very late edition of Journey to Wonder, Chris and Joe dive into one of the original Zombie...errr..Vampire...uhh...Zompire...stories with Richard Matheson's 1954 post apocalyptic novel I am Legend. We discuss the story, how it served as the origin for some of the more modern post apocalypic stories of today and more. We then dive into not one, not two but three movie adaptations of this st...

We are go for podcast! On this edition of Journey to Wonder, Chris and Joe dive deep into thier mutual love and fascination with the early US space program with a discussion of our first non fiction book, Failure is Not an Option by Gene Kranz. Gene is one of the most storied of NASA's flight directors and recounts his view on the history of the space program from the early days of Mercury up to t...

This time around on Journey to Wonder, Joe and Chris review the 1938 horror novella, "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell. For those of you who were not aware (as we were not) this novel was the inspiration for the cult classic 1982 John Carpenter film, "The Thing". We also discuss the 1951 Howard Hawks film "The Thing from Another World" and the 2011 prequel film to the 1982 film, also confusing...

In this edition of Journey to Wonder, we discuss the 1985 Carl Sagan novel, Contact. We also compare and contrast it to the 1997 Robert Zemekis film of the same name (starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey) Next time around, we will be discussing the 1938 novella "Who Goes There" by John W. Campbell, the story that inspired the 1982 John Carpenter film, "The Thing". If you'd like to send us...

A bit of a change of plans this time around, we decided to cover one of our personal favorites, the 1959 military sci fi novel, Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlien. As always, we review the book in depth, discussing both the portrayal of military life and the no-so-subtle political overtones of the story.  Of course, you can't talk about Starship Troopers without mentioning the 1997 cult-clas...

For our next journey, Chris and Joe take a stroll in the realm of the techo-thriller with Michael Chricton's 1969 novel, The Andromeda Strain. We give our thoughts on the book and the author in general and also intersperse our commentary on how to book compares to the 1971 Robert Wise film of the same name. Next time, we will continue through Asimov's Foundation series with book 2, Foundation and...

Fresh out of the theatre, we review the latest cinematic take on Dune by Denis Villeneuve. We discuss the run up to the movie, how we saw it and of course, our thoughts on the film. Not only do we talk about that, but of course we compare and contrast it to the book we very recently discussed. Next time, we'll get our science on with the 1969 Michael Crichton techno-thriller, The Andromeda Strain,...

This time around, Chris and Joe dive into Foundation by the incomparable Issac Asimov. This is the first book in the Foundation series, published as a single novel in 1951, but existing as a series of short stories over the previous 10 years.  We discuss the overall story and our thoughts about it, in addition to how it stacks against the new AppleTV+ series which has aired four episodes at the ti...

In our second edition, Joe and Chris review the 1965 Frank Herbert sci fi classic, Dune. As a long-time Dune fan, Chris takes us through a detailed discussion of the first Dune novel, with Joe coming at things as someone who has tried and failed to read the entire book until this time! We also talk about some movie projects, both released, unreleased and upcoming! In our next episode, we will be l...

Join Chris and Joe (of the Star Wars Stacks podcast) as we kick off a new podcast where we expand our scope from just Star Wars to the entire breadth of genre fiction.  In our first discussion, we review the first book in the Expanse series, Leviathan Wakes, by James S.A. Corey. Joe comes to the scene having read the book prior to watching the tv series, while Chris is a tv fan who has only recent...