Category Archives: Book and film reviews

The comments from The Mookse and the Gripes are spot on. I read the story last night, and at the end just put the magazine down, muttering, “Treisman….really?” I’m a fan of Lanchester, both his novels and his essays (I … Continue reading →

Read this a couple of months ago.  Do not have much to say. It won the Hugo. Characters were well-drawn.  In general, I do not like fantasy-sci fi “mixes” where magic and science co-exist.  The underlying premise, that the scientists … Continue reading →

The Greatship by Robert Reed is a collection of twelve stories or novellas set in or on the Greatship, a Uranus-sized ship making its way through the Milky Way.  Humans were first to find the ship, and so by the … Continue reading →

Well, it is too long. But Andreas Eschbach’s science fiction novel, Lord of All Things, is nevertheless a good read.  The basic premise is pretty standard: What if someone could discover a technology that would end the need for technology.  … Continue reading →

I enjoyed it. A time-loop movie that is fairly clever about the loop and how to end the film.

Went with S. to see this Israeli movie.  Quite a good drama (OK verging on melodrama).  But since it is about holocaust survivors and their secrets, the melodramatic is actually real.  Some really awful things happened.  The film is self-conscious … Continue reading →

I was reading The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach, and realized is is a good example of the concept of persistence in economic development.  In this case, the emperor sets thousands of worlds on a persistent path of economic activity … Continue reading →