Ape House
{4.5/5} “He’d had a two-way conversation with great apes. He’d spoken to them in English, and they’d responded using American Sign Language… He’d looked into their eyes and recognized without a shadow of a doubt that sentient, intelligent beings were looking back.” Ape House by Sara Gruen, published in 2010 This novel tells the story […]
Redwall
I started reading Redwall by Brian Jacques because it was on the list. But I’m not going to finish it — it’s not doing it for me, so I’m moving on. There are a number of books marketed to younger readers on the fantasy list. Some of them, like The Golden Compass and Artemis Fowl, […]
The Aliens Among Us
{4.5/5} “Stephens had an idea fixed in his mind that the Earth was about to be invaded, and it was the kind of exciting idea that a young man of Stephens’ temperament would not give up easily.” The Aliens Among Us by James White, published in 1969 Robert J. Sawyer mentioned in his blog that […]
Moonwalking With Einstein
{4.5/5} “Our ability to find humor in the world, to make connections between previously unconnected notions, to create new ideas, to share in a common culture: All these essentially human acts depend on memory.” Moonwalking With Einstein by Josh Foer, published in 2011 The subtitle of this book is: The Art and Science of Remembering […]
Collecting autographs
There are two types of science fiction conventions, media and literary. Typically they’re separate, and I’ve been to several of each. In the good old days (10 to 20 years ago) at the media conventions (at the time they were called Star Trek conventions) you could get an autograph from your favourite science fiction TV […]
Replay
{5/5} “I’ve imagined just about every possible explanation for what’s happening to me… Time warps, black holes, God gone berserk… I once had myself convinced this was all some sort of experiment being conducted by an extraterrestrial race.” Replay by Ken Grimwood, published in 1987 Jeff died of a heart attack at 43 in 1988. […]
Star Wars
Star Wars is the third highest-grossing movie series ever. James Bond is second, but I haven’t seen many James Bond movies lately so I won’t comment on them at the moment. In the future when I watch Star Wars I will be watching the original trilogy and forgetting about the prequel trilogy. John Williams’ music […]
Harry Potter
What made Harry Potter such a phenomenon? A friend of mine suggested that the tipping point (read the book by Malcolm Gladwell if you haven’t already) was Rosie O’Donnell’s show. O’Donnell had her talk show at the time when the first book came out. She was a big fan and mentioned it several times. After it […]
My rating scheme
I rate movies (and TV shows and books) on how much the story grabs me — on this particular occasion. I’m not rating movies based on their influence on the history of cinema or anything like that. It can have great special effects, great music, great actors, but if it doesn’t have a great story […]
Books & movies based on books
I don’t usually read a book and watch the movie based on the book. I find that whichever one comes second will be pretty ho hum — so I just pick one or the other. I made a couple of exceptions recently for books on Sci-Fi Lists. I read Jurassic Park and Interview With the […]