Category Archives: Book and film reviews

I have been slacking.  For Christmas I got several novels. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Excellent big sci-fi opera, with genetic engineering and big questions. The Peace War by Vernor Vinge. I started skeptical but got drawn in. By … Continue reading →

I saw the book in the library. I hesitated. I seemed to recall it had been received with coolness by reviewers? But I thought to myself, he is such a good writer, can it really be that bad? And so … Continue reading →

The Power, by Naomi Alderman. Thrilling in its conceit and execution. Stumbles towards the end (and what ambitious book doesn’t). Nice to see an interesting short frame device (the letters) in popular fiction. News of the World, by Paulette Jiles. … Continue reading →

I got this for daughter but ended up reading almost all of it before her… 1162 pages of sci-fi.  I was frankly surprised at how bad a lot (most of which I had not read) of the stories were: poor … Continue reading →

Unless you really enjoy conventional, comfortable story telling. I have lot of sympathy for Sean Penn since he was visiting a relative on the same floor of hospital in LA where my mother was for a time. But I can’t … Continue reading →

I finished Against a Dark Background earlier this week. A basic adventure space opera with a sympathetic android and a fairly obvious bad guy who is slowly revealed.  It moves quickly and occasionally the settings are interesting but quite often … Continue reading →

On the Air France flight I enjoyed (the standard on a 10 hour flight is low, but they were all better than Deadpool 2) several films (that incidentally I has never heard of): Les derniers Parisiens: A low-budget film about … Continue reading →