Tag: review

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

Review: The Republic of Thieves

Republic of Thieves by Scott LynchThe Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch
Gentleman Bastard series #3
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My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars 5 out of 5 stars 
First Published: Oct 8th, 2013
Read from: Dec. 29, 2015 to Jan. 9, 2016

The Best Yet in a Series of Bests!

The Republic of Thieves is the 3rd book in Scott Lynch’s “Gentleman Bastard” series. I loved the previous books in this series but did not review them properly. I gave the first, The Lies of Locke Lamora, a very late, and very basic review. The second, Red Seas Under Red Skies, I reviewed not at all.

The reason for this was there was simply so much I wanted to say about both books. And every attempt I made to say any of it did not do the books justice in my mind. But I tried to show just how much these books entertained and moved me. I rated them both 5 out 5 stars.

Now that I have read the third book, I wish I had rated the earlier ones less, or that I could some how rate this one MORE than 5 stars. If I could I think the The Republic of Thieves would be 8 out of 5 stars. If not more! If I could scale the books in order of great to awesome it would be “Red Seas”, “Lies”, and at the top of this very excellent pile would be “Republic”. Read the Full Review

Review: The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. DickThe Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
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My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars 
First Published: Jan 1, 1962
Read from: Nov. 14 to Nov. 24, 2015
Awards: 1963 Hugo Award for Best Novel

Intense, disturbing, and sad; yet full of beauty hidden behind ugliness.

Life in the 1960’s in a United States that lost World War II and has been split between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan

I’ve been wanting to read this for a long time. I watched the first episode of the Amazon series and decided it was past time for me to read this and compare the two. Like the show, this book is pretty dark and disturbing. Partly because you can SEE how easily the American society could adapt. I happened to be reading this during the ISIS attacks in Paris and the deep religious and racist backlash that occurred in the press and social media was all the more disturbing combined with reading this dark alternate history of a US that lost World War II.
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Review: The Hero of Ages

The Hero of Ages by Brandon SandersonThe Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
Mistborn series #3
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My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars 3 out of 5 stars 
First Published: October 14th, 2008
Read from: Sept. 17, 2015 to Oct. 30, 2015

Awesome Ending… If You Can Make It There

My reaction to The Hero of Ages, the last book in the Mistborn trilogy, is VERY mixed. A LOT of stuff takes place in this novel. Plot-wise what Sanderson did with the entire series is fully revealed in this book, and it is an amazing piece of work. There is some pretty good action, some characters evolve in interesting and ultimately exciting ways, and it has an awesome climax… BUT it just didn’t grab me like the previous books in the series.
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Review: The Well of Ascension

The Well of AscensionThe Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
Mistborn series #2
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My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars 
First Published: July 25th, 2006
Read from: Sept. 3, 2015 to Sept. 17, 2015

Both Better and Worse Than the First, But a MUST Read!

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Review: The Lies of Locke Lamora

The Lies of Locke LamoraThe Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Gentleman Bastard series #2
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My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars 5 out of 5 stars 
First Published: June 27th, 2006
Read from: June 16, 2015 to July 8, 2015

LOVED. This. Book.

I liked this book quite a lot when I first started reading it. A little over half-way though that like became love.
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Review: Shift


Shift by Hugh Howey
Silo series #2
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My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars 3 out of 5 star
First Published: January 28, 2013
Read from: May 27 to June 13, 2015

Prequels to Post-Apocalypse Stories (Pre-Apocalypse?) Have No Suspense… You Know What’s Coming.

Shift is the second book in the Silo series, but is actually the chronological prequel to the Wool Omnibus, the first book in the series. But you should definetely read Wool first! Confused yet?
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Review: Sea-Kings of Mars

sea-kings-of-marsSea-Kings of Mars by Leigh Brackett
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My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars 2 out of 5 stars
First Published: June 1949
Read from: May10 to May 17, 2015

Also titled “The Sword of Rhiannon”, the novella “Sea-Kings of Mars” is from the 1940’s era of classic sci-fi / sword & sorcery pulp novels. I read this as a book club pick, and was looking forward to it as it sounded very similar to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars books from 20 years or more earlier, which I’ve always loved. Unfortunately I was very underwhelmed by the whole thing. The author, Leigh Brackett, is famous for her screenplays, (westerns, noir, and a first take on Star Wars “The Empire Strikes Back”, strangely enough,) but this story can be summed up in one word: meh.
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