I think that most of us here are lucky enough to have missed out on social networks documenting our every teenage mistake. (At least, I count myself lucky that the old IRC chats aren’t transcribed on my FB page for everyone to see: I can’t speak for all of you.) But I don’t think that social networks are ruining the fabric of social contracts or ridiculous things like that – I think I’m obviously too old and cranky for some of them (Snapchat: I’m looking […]
An indie action-comedy-thriller starring Ram McJohnbo
Last weekend brought prime pleasure reading weather. It was rainy and chilly, and I was spending a long weekend on a ranch. In between watching San Andreas and Fury Road, I read Bryn Schurman’s Further Complications. It was the right choice for an enjoyable “beach” read. Further Complications bends genres at will. It’s funny, tense, and mysterious without taking itself too seriously. Think Pineapple Express, or pretty much any Tom Cruise movie from the 80s or 00s. Since it is has a lot of mystery […]
Fun sci-fi thriller up until it goes off the rails.
For about the first 75% of this book, I was totally on board. It was thrillery. It was sciencey. It was sciencey-thrillery. There was banter, and mystery, and some stealthy nerd references. There was a hero with an eidetic memory, and some scientists acting super secretive. There was an escalating problem and some freaky-deaky shenanigans involving folding space. And then it all got kind of weird and sort of imploded on itself. The basic plot of The Fold is your standard sci-fi thriller. Hero is […]
All Aboard the Noah!…and then Someone Dies
Holy babjeebus of holy smokes this book was wild. Intense, mysterious, sci-fi-y and inventive. Welcome to the sci-fi murder-mystery. We dive right in as Hana Dempsey is getting released from breeding duty. She lives on a ship, the Noah, that’s on its way from Earth to a new planet thousands of years away. Breeding duty is exactly what it sounds like; it involves sleeping for 9-ish months while you gestate and birth a child, then get administered a bunch of drugs and back to work. […]
“A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.”
I accidentally ended up reading Gillian Flynn backwards, starting with Gone Girl, moving onto Dark Places, and finishing with Sharp Objects. I can’t help but feel like this reading order taught me a little something about Gillian Flynn, at least as a writer: her most recent (GG) has, to my memory, some of the least graphically disturbing violence compared to the other two, but the most monstrous female protagonist. This book’s protagonist is psychologically damaged, to be sure, but at her heart she yearns to […]
An exorcist, a vampire and a mermaid walk into a bar…
The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross ! Sure, the end is nigh… but first, meet Superman !! (read the rest of the review on my blog.)
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- …
- 74
- Next Page »