Courtship Rite
{4.5/5} “He was Prime Predictor because the prophesies he had registered in the Archives as a youth had been more accurate than the vision of any other Kaiel. That was how the Kaiel elected their leader. He would be Prime Predictor until he died or retired or was ousted by a man who had proved […]
Barbie
{5/5} “I know I’m Stereotypical Barbie and therefore don’t form conjectures concerning the causality of adjacent unfolding events, but some things have been happening that might be related.” Barbie, released in 2023 Barbie has a great day every day. In her neighbourhood, Barbieland, there are a lot of people named Barbie, a lot of people […]
Futurama (season 6)
{4.5/5} “Lrrr, you lazy ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8. You said you would conquer a planet today but you have not even shed your skin yet.” — Ndnd Futurama season 6, aired in 2010-11 The wormhole that the Planet Express ship went through led them back to Earth. Leela and Fry have become […]
Star Trek: Very Short Treks
{1.5/5} Star Trek: Very Short Treks, aired in 2023 This is a series of 5 short animated videos that were made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Star Trek: The Animated Series. Three of them will make you frown and two will make you smile. The 1st 3 videos are all distasteful in different ways. […]
Timescape
{4.5/5} “He had to admit Peterson was right. It was precisely the kind of simple check he or Renfrew should have tried. But they were schooled in thinking of mechanical experiments, full of devices which operated without human intervention. The notion of asking for a confirming sign simply had not occurred to them. And now […]
Who Fears Death
{4.5/5} “It was like looking into a mirror when you’ve never seen your reflection. For the first time, I understood why people stopped, dropped things, and stared when they saw me. He was my skin tone, had my freckles, and his rough golden hair was shaved so close that it looked like a coat of […]
The Starless Sea
{4/5} “He can hear only his footsteps, his breath, his heartbeat, and the crackling flame of the torch that is definitely getting dimmer, which is disappointing because he had hoped it would be a magic endless-light torch and not a regular extinguishable one.” The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, published in 2019 Zachary is a […]
The Kingdom of the Cats
{4.5/5} “‘What made you think of pulling in all those birds?’ ‘I have it from my mother, who has it from her cousin, who has it from her man’s sister, who has it from her aunt, that Prandra daughter of Tengura, the first woman to leave Ungruwarkh, does something similar with birds of prey in […]
Emperor, Swords, Pentacles
{4.5/5} “Sometimes he scented small animals, but they did not run in fear because none on this world recognized the smell of Predatory Cat. He ran uphill over stones and downhill through rank grass with the savage joy of the marauding Hillsman, fear for Emerald compressed to a small knot in his belly, and the […]
A Judgment of Dragons
{4.5/5} “He dealt food supplies and gave medical attention when requested to all comers among the world’s million and a quarter inhabitants: big red cats, leopard-sized and -shaped; nearly half, mostly female, were telepathic… No one thanked the suppliers. GalFed had plenty of use for half a million telepaths, and one day payment would fall […]