Over the past few weeks I’ve read a number of books. Below are a few reviews to get caught up a little bit. If you want the full list of what I’ve been reading, feel free to “friend” me on Goodreads or comment down below. Always happy to have some good book discussions. Continue reading “Review: A collection of short book reviews”
(this is the first of three parts and very long – just giving you fair warning)Last January, 2014, I was visiting the US for my niece Riley’s bat mitzvah. This was my second time returning to the motherland since I’d left and as with the time before, I took the opportunity to visit friends in LA and San Francisco. While I was in LA I met up with my good friend, brilliant actor and former roommate JR. A few weeks earlier, JR had gotten engaged to the beautiful and charming Natasha, whom I’d heard about but this trip was my first time meeting her. It was great! Then at one point, JR and I were just shooting the breeze and he said “Listen… If you say ‘no,’ I’m screwed because I don’t know who else fits so will you be my Best Man.” I man enough to admit there were tears and hugging and of course I said “yes!” Continue reading “Weddings and the West Coast – USA summer 2015 – Week 1”
The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll’s Best-Kept Secret by Kent Hartman
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
I like classic rock. I like the stuff with a good beat, fun lyrics and makes me want to move. I also like the stuff with a deeper message which reflects the turbulent sixties. It’s all great. And the bands whose names are attached to these songs are all well known, or at least passingly familiar, and never fail to bring a wave of nostalgia whenever one of the tunes shows up on the radio or in my iTunes shuffle. Continue reading “Review: The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll’s Best-Kept Secret”
How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back by Diana Rowland
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Well here we are again, our fourth go around with zombie Angel Crawford and various misadventures. Except… it’s not really our fourth time, it’s more like part four of a single adventure and that’s part of my problem with the book. This time, author Diana Rowland picks up the action a few months past where the last book left off, but the only advantage that gives us we get the off-screen resolutions of some of the events of last time, but a lot of the major events which were unresolved then start off now, still unresolved. Continue reading “Review: How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back”
Tomorrowland channels the pop cultural idea of Walt Disney and wears its heart on its sleeve… and while that’s okay, I expected more from Brad Bird.
Opening with the “gosh, gee willikers” approach of young Frank Walker to the 1964 World’s Fair in New York (side note, someone should do a piece on the cultural impact that particular world’s fair has had on popular culture) to show off his home built jet pack to Nix (Hugh Laurie). Their dialogue basically sets up the rest of the film: Continue reading “Review: Tomorrowland”
Colors of Space, The by Marion Zimmer Bradley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
One of the things I’ve been doing recently is seeking out older works by well known writers, checking in on roots and seeing where they came from. Latest in the effort is one of Marion Zimmer Bradley‘s early works (her fourth novel). Continue reading “Review: The Colors of Space”
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan BradleyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is an interesting book. I came into it not knowing anything about it other than it had been recomended on some Internet list of “mysteries you should read” and it sounded interesting. When I went to put it on my Amazon wish list (which is an easy way to keep track of things I want to read) it turned out it was on sale so I clicked down my $2.99 or whatever it was and there it sat in my Kindle, awaiting a closer perusal. Continue reading “Review: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie”
Chasing the Moon by A. Lee Martinez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
One of the great things about the work of A. Lee Martinez, especially in today’s genre literary world, is that the only thing which connects book to book is that they are all by A. Lee Martinez. This is incredibly unique in a landscape filled with countless series and sequels and prequels and interlocking, shared-universe storytelling which also means two other things: 1) every book requires understanding the particular set of rules inherent and 2) it’s going to be a bit more hit and miss. Continue reading “Review: Chasing the Moon”
Avengers: Age of Ultron, as far as I’m concerned, works. Now, to be fair, I’m a fanboy. I’m predisposed to like it and be far more forgiving than others who don’t know Marvel from marvel. This doesn’t mean I can’t find fault with certain elements (I do) but it does mean I’m more willing to give it a bit of lead. I’m also not so tied to the source material that I’m going to freak out becuase something happened on screen differently than the way it happend in issue #183 of the comic. Intention and execution count for a lot with me, as do target audiences and the desire of the writer/director (not to mention the studio) to please as many people as possible. Continue reading “Review: Avengers: Age of Ultron”
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
There’s a short story by Arthur C. Clarke called “The Nine Billion Names of God” which postulates that if you use computers to solve the mysteries of religion, things will go poorly for humanity. Kind of. In Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, author Robin Sloane has updated that idea into a full novel. This time, it’s a secret society of puzzle solvers looking for the code to decipher an ancient text which will lead to immortality. But the idea is basically the same, even if the ending is not. Continue reading “Review: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore”
The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight by Winston Groom
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Oh the things you thought you knew…
Winston Groom let’s you know in this incredibly well-researched book looking at the lives of three of aviation’s greatest heroes: Eddie Rickenbacker, Charles Lindbergh and Jimmy Doolittle. Continue reading “Review: The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight”
What makes us human?
This is a question long posed by science fiction literature and films and Ex Machina is the latest to take a stab at answering the unanswerable. The plot itself is simple. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a programmer working for a Google-like search engine company called BlueBook. He wins a company wide lottery to spend a week at the home of company founder Nathan (Oscar Isaac). While there, he discovers he’s been set-up and the real purpose of his visit is to “test” an android, Ava (Alicia Vikander) to see if she truly possesses artificial intelligence. This is done through a series of interviews, where Caleb and Ava exchange nuance-heavy dialogue. Continue reading “Review: Ex Machina”
Undrastormur by Roger Eschbacher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
With Undrastormur
Recently, while discussing the new Wachowski film Jupiter Ascending, my friend Gregory said “I sometimes don't know what people expect from movies anymore.” This got me thinking about what I expect from movies. The answer is more complicated than I thought.
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 