I don’t travel much anymore. Occasionally, we drive home to Toledo to see our families. We might go 50-70 miles in any particular direction on the weekend. I’ve been fortunate in not having to fly for nearly three years now. So why do I need a GPS unit? If you have to answer that question, [...]
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This is the third Neal Asher book I’ve read in the past couple of months. My last review for The Line of Polity was mostly indifferent, and I had complained about Asher just dropping things into the story with no reference or background, leaving me to flounder. Well, I have to retract that part of [...]
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I got a chance over the weekend to watch Focus, finally. I’ve had the thing for almost a month now, and that isn’t the best way to optimize your Netflix utilization. I stuck this in my queue about a year ago, and I don’t really recall why I did. It stars William H. Macy, which [...]
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I read this as a recommendation from Chris Garrett, one of my ASL friends. Until now, I’ve never heard of Tim O’Brien. I’m glad I read it. O’Brien has written a ‘fictional’ account of his experiences in Viet Nam. I place fictional in quotes because while he notes the book as fiction, it undoubtably contains [...]
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This is the second Neal Asher book I’ve read so far, and so far I’ve been a bit dissapointed with both. From what I’ve read, Asher is reputed to be a new shining star in Science Fiction. I can’t say I agree, but at the same time, I can’t proclaim his work as poor by [...]
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I’ve been playing with a review of this book for a couple of weeks now. It isn’t easy to summarize my thoughts about this, and I’m not even sure I’m going to be able to do it right, even now. This was a Big Book. Stross bleeds more ideas on each page than most writers [...]
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I picked up the Charles Stross book, noted above, and read that Stross is British….go figure.
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It seems that most good science fiction, lately, is coming from the United Kingdom/Australia. Iain Banks, Richard Morgan, Peter F. Hamilton, Allaister Reynolds, Neal Asher and others seem to be churning out brilliant, imaginative work with surprising consistency. Lately, just knowing that an author is British is enough to get me to take a close [...]
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Many years ago, I was a stupid teenager. I knew everything. Ronald Reagan was a scary old guy who endangered the world. The Soviet Union were led by reasonable people. And I clung to a gloomy pessimism that suggested I was unlikely to see my thirtieth birthday before the world was incinerated in nuclear fire. [...]
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Old Man’s War is the first novel by John Scalzi. If you’ve spent any time on Blogs, you’ve probably ran into reviews and recommendations. Glenn Reynolds, Stephen Greene, and many others have plugged it, so I figured I’d give it a go. If you are familiar with Starship Troopers or The Forever War, then you’ll [...]
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Kitchen Confidential : Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. The second Bourdain book I’ve read, but the first non-fiction book he wrote (if I have this right). Not a lot to say about it other than I read it in 24 hours and couldn’t put it down. I don’t have a strong interest in the lifestyle [...]
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I’ve been plowing through a number of quick reads in the past couple of weeks, and they are worth taking the time to write a little about each one. Books like this are refreshing…short, to the point, and not overburdened by weak prose designed to fill out a word count. While Europe Slept: How Radical [...]
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Behold! After suffering two cats, two kids, and an anemic vacuum that produced more noise than cleanliness, the wife and I broke down and spent a small fortune on the Lord of All Vacuums, the Dyson DC14 Animal. You’ve seen the commercials. The snooty Brit harrumphing about ‘things working properly’. I don’t know about you, [...]
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Last Saturday, I finally had to go buy a new USB flash drive, as my three year old 64 MB wiped itself out. Since I can’t trust it to carry data, it was time to replace it. The new Flash Drive (512 MB SanDisk) lasted six days before dying! It simply stopped working. Gidman blames [...]
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THE FOLLOWING POST IS BY CHRIS GIDMAN – he was my guest at the Serenity blogger screening some time back. Wasn’t there once a saying that science fiction was just western opera in space? Joss Whedon’s television series Firefly and its culminating movie Serenity has taken this literally. He introduced us to a universe where [...]
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Dan Simmons should have a granite temple erected around his person. It should move with him, marking his location so lesser mortals understand in whose presence they may find themselves. From Hyperion to Carrion Comfort to Ilium and now Olympos, Simmons writes engaging, fascinating and emotional works that dwarf most other things at the store [...]
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As I gather the enthusiasm to blog again, I thought I’d at least post my latest reading material. After Haldeman’s Forever Free, I swore I’d never read him again. Guess I’m a sucker. Not much to say so far about this one. Still early.
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I can’t write a full review right now, mostly because I’m still stunned. I’ve never had a movie so effectively play with my emotions. I’m still sorting out my feelings about it. Ont thing though – if you know me you are probably aware of the primary reason I’ve been down on LOTR as really [...]
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Since I’m going to see Serenity tomorrow, I thought I’d get the Firefly DVD set as an early birthday present and brush back up on the series before hand. Of course, this means writing about it. In all the history of of television, the cancellation of Firefly is one of the most inexplicable, heartless things [...]
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Serenity Joss Whedon, the Oscar® – and Emmy – nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain [...]
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