Author: Finious

Review: Zoe’s Tale

Zoë's Tale by John ScalziZoë’s Tale by John Scalzi
Old Man’s War series #4
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My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars 3.5 out of 5 stars 
First Published: Jan. 30, 2016
Read from: Feb. 18, 2016

Ok… to Good… to Really, Really Good!

When I started this I didn’t realize it was basically a retelling of the previous book in the The Old Man’s War series, “The Last Colony”, only from the perspective of Zoë, the teenage daughter of the protagonist of most of the books. So I started off disappointed with this book. I checked some other people’s reviews just to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind and that, yes, I had indeed read this story before. There I discovered that besides the different perspective on the previous story there were some new things, and that much of it was… well, patching some of the parts of “The Last Colony” that had issues. So I took my time reading this, as I was not really “in” to it. I expected my disappointment would continue, and I considered giving the book the boot early on.

I’m REALLY glad I stuck with it. Read the Full Review

Pink Denver Sunset Pano

Denver Sunset Panorama 2-10-2016

Denver Sunset Panorama 2-10-2016
Not a great panorama of the sunset in Denver, CO today, as it was done with my Android phone and I wasn’t anywhere where I could get anything really interesting in the foreground… But was all about the sky anyway. This sunset was so bright and so much of the mountain-wave clouds along the foothills was involved that everything seemed to glow pink reflecting the sky from above.

SR-71 Blackbird Panorama

SR-71 Blackbird panorama

SR-71 Blackbird panorama taken at Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, AZ.
Created by digitally stitching 6 shots. I created a couple other versions of this using perspective correction that removed the distortion, but for some reason it was always chopping off either one side or other so I decided to upload this complete but distorted pano instead. I may upload the others later.

2 Reviews: Slaughterhouse-Five and Peace in Amber

A classic sci-fi-“ish” novel and the post 9/11 short story it inspired.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt VonnegutSlaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
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My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars 
First Published: 1969
Read from: Jan. 24 to Jan. 28, 2016

I read Kurt Vonnegut‘s Slaughterhouse-Five at least once a long time ago. I remember that I liked it, but that it effected me in a negative way and left me of two minds on the experience: I liked the book but hated what it described and made me feel. It not so much described, as allowed you to experience and feel some thing that by nature we resist discussing, describing and by all means feeling if we can avoid it.

I reread the book this time around as there was a short story, Peace in Amber: The World of Kurt Vonnegut by Hugh Howey, that I wanted to read that was basically Howey’s tribute to, commentary on, and his literary attempt at describing and moving past some of the same issues exposed in Slaughterhouse-Five. Knowing this I wanted Vonnegut’s work to be fresh in my ever-more-forgetful mind. I’m glad I did, as the novel and short-story compliment each other. And I discovered in the middle of Howey’s story, he described his experience with reading Slaughterhouse-Five and in doing so described far better than I could what Vonnegut’s book did to me. Read the Reviews

Review: Fantastic Four (2015)

Fantastic Four (2015)Fantastic Four (2015)
0.5 out of 5 Stars 0.5 out of 5 stars

A supposed “reboot” of the Fantastic Four franchise. To put it bluntly, this was crap through and through. The worst, unforgivable sin to my mind was the god-awful writing —  the barest outline of a plot further destroyed by horribly dull dialog and lifeless characters. Even if any of the writing had been decent, the director, cinematography, actors, music and even the effects for the most part failed to bring any life to the creation. Only thing I thought mildly interesting and somewhat original is the different approach they took to how the group receives their powers, but even that was horribly miss-handled. Read the Full Review

Review: Movies with Colons

Movies with Colons (The punctuation mark not the anatomical feature, you pervs.)

I came home after a late work night last night with the urge to watch some action movie violence. Here’s my review of Mad Max: Fury Road and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. Two action movies whose titles both have colons in them, but beyond that are nothing alike. Read the Reveiws