This is such rubbish. Incoherent, mostly insipid and scattered. Doesn't compare to its Superman analog, or anything even halfway decent in the Batman canon. Skip if you are not a completist.

I think this book should be subtitled, "how many quotations from widely disparate souces can I put in my book - and where's my ritalin."

The author's style is a hyperactive, thrusting maniacal prose that made me jittery just from reading a few pages. She jams quote after quote after quote after quote in small easily digestible paragraphs of minor content. Hey, i'm quiting Seneca, then Madonna, then Oprah, then Abe Lincoln...isn't concentrating fun?? There is nothing really new here that you haven't heard better in a dozen other places. It's more of a consolidation of common wisdom, but dispensed by a crack-addict. I truly fear for this woman's sanity...

Another ho-hum entry into the non-Howard Conan genre. Unlike John Maddox Roberts or Robert Jordan, two of the better Conan writers, Hocking writes a very middle of the road fantasy novel that just happens to have Conan in it. He makes the mistake of spending way too much time with villains and other characters and not enough time with Conan. And he doesn't really know the character that well, so Conan seems fairly indispensable here. As a rule, other than Karl Edward Wagner's "Road of Kings," stick with John Maddox Roberts or Robert Jordan when ranging in the non-Howard Conan field.

Admirable as Ms. Angier's book is in its attempts to lay out the basics of science, she is far too continually sarcastic in her delivery for anything truly lasting to come from this book. I fear that when you finish 'The Canon,' you will come away with some anecdotes and nothing much else.

Here's an example of an author much too concerned with being funny, and not at all trusting to her subject matter:

"A top of the line radar can pinpoint the whereabouts of a housefly two kilometers away, although clearly this is a radar with far too much time on its hands."

"Fine. They are all light. They are all electromagnetic radiation. They are all - what?"

"The universe, though, doesn't only like to cut things short, it also opts for the sagging saga approach, dictating thick volumes of time that are nearly as unfathomable as Finnegan's Wake."

"Where might Ebola weigh in? And how many of any could dance on a pin?"

"Contrary to myth, time doesn't fly particularly fast when you're dead."

"Hold your Miss Havensham's, huffed the progressive-spirited Darrell."

After several hundred pages, these trite quips (appearing as they do ten a page) grow tiresome and even somewhat alarming. Ms. Angier does not trust her reader to surrender to the facination of her subject or her research and, like an annoying friend in a museum, continues to make jokes upon viewing each painting ('I mean, I guess you can paint with one ear, am I right?')

New Yorker readers (I am one) who are not much interested in science might find a friend in Ms. Angier as she presents 'boring' material with a wink and a nudge-nudge. But to those with curious minds who purchase a book like this to actually learn a few things, move along.

First of all, I don't think I can critique this like a narrative film. Narrative defined as a series of images and dialog used to create dramatic tension and story. Stalker is more like Russian Ark, or Roma in that it is more pure cinema, like a guided tour through someone's imagination (although they ought to change the DVD packaging art - it's dreadful and incredibly inaccurate!!).

My first impression was that the script was very interesting - really, really made sense to me on a lot of levels. Their was one intellectual 'surprise' that I really liked with regards to the nature of the power of the room and how it related to Porcupine's death. That was great - very 'human condition.'

Visually, there is a grimy, filthy beauty to the non-Zone settings and a wonderfully baroque post-apocalyptic feel to the Zone itself. While there are several sublime moments in the film that are transcendant, one has to question the entire package these 'moments' come in. There was something absurd in the camera tracking the men as they threw nuts with white fabric and walked around the Zone talking. The dialog between them was interesting to me and I did enjoy the play of ideas, but there was a severe disjointment between those ideas and the choice of physical action rendered in scene (maybe on purpose?). What I mean to say is Tarkovsky assumes his images have a larger import than they may have intrinsically. I don't buy a lot of the more mundane Zone imagery even as I understand and deeply buy the screenplay/dialog. To me, this dialog could have been spoken by other characters and rendered in other settings - his final choice of setting and plot doesn't feel like the only choice (or even the preferred one) and I think that is a serious flaw in any art. I can compare this with 2001 in that Kubrick's cinematic images matched the ideas in the script perfectly: there was really no other way one could imagine the ideas in that film rendered. I didn't feel that way with Stalker. And even if his argument is that LIFE is like that - the immediate surround is banal vs. the limits of man's imagination, I still don't think it works in action as art.

But as a serious meditation on life and a serious attempt at filmmaking, Tarkovsky ranks with the giants of non-narrative cinema. This is a movie you should see one way or the other, regardless of positive or negative reviews.

Another failed SF series. And watching it, I can understand why this one failed (even though I still cannot understand why something like JAG can survive for ten years...). First of all, the debt to Blade Runner is considerable. Cops tracking `androids,' exterior scenes garishly lit in constant rain by neon fluted with Japanese characters. And a scene midway into the story of an android wanting to extend his memory and the `cop' not killing him. In this version, he jumps off of the building instead of delivering the pithy 'tears in rain' speech. And the dialog does not approach the genre-pathos of BR.

The structure of the story revolves around a good `cop' who is chronically underappreciated by his captain. The dialog is peppered with cliches from just about every TV cop show ever written. What is tiresome is the trope of the good cop constantly doing good cop work, yet his captain somehow amazingly seems not to be able to stop yelling and berating him for it. In this series, the logic of such a relationship is broken. We can see no reason why our hero Hume keeps getting trash-mouthed by his boss, as he is consistently uncovering clue after clue in the ongoing investigation and breaking it wide open. But of course, that doesn't create much drama, so we have to have his boss be an unmitigated jerk. And the female lead/support is also tiring. Enough of bromide female characters afraid for their spouses and constantly berating them for not coming home on time or forgetting the milk. Let's face it, as a viewer, If I see this guy evade certain death and heroically perform feat after feat, i'm not going to have much sympathy for his dumbass wife. But the berating chastising/wise wife is a hallowed cliche in TV and is trotted out again and again. And boringly, everyone is beautiful - or at least, the good guys are. Skip it.

"Stories Of Your Life And Other Stories" was arguably the best spec-fic short story collection in about 20 years. What promise Chiang exhibited!!

And now, five years later, we receive a breezy SF retread of "1001 Nights." It's not a bad short story, but jeeze, did they have to soak us for $24?

Chiang needs to quit his day job, find a rich partner or start taking speed. We need more product!!!!!

No more plot, not much character...this is the new Gibson. He langorously winds his way through page after page of description of night clubs, new products, international manufacturing trends...and we, the reader are left standing around while he ruminates. The fresh breath of hip he injected into SF in the mid 80's is very much dated now and labored. He's been imitated so much that he now comes off as a pale imitation of himself.

Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties were much the same. Virtual Light was really his last good book.

It's one thing to chronicle a man's life clearly (and a biographer of any notable subject ought to have the professional courtesy to address the notions out there about his subject, then dispassionately analyze and either support or reject them) and another to set out to prove a set of pre-conceived notions. Baxter, much as he did with his Kubrick biography, already decided that Lucas was a cold-hearted [...] who took credit for everyone else's work and from a few cliche'd ideas, made a fortune.

Notwithstanding that this is precisely what a producer's job is, Baxter focuses on every negative aspect of Lucas, Coppola and Spielberg's lives. There is more than a sense of professional jealousy/envy at work here. It seems as if Baxter has decided that he is going to "out" the hack that is Lucas and prove that his wife, his producer and his special effects technicians should all be given credit over Lucas for Star Wars' conception.

As another review has cited here, the book is crisply written and entertaining, but one does weary of Baxter's negative view after awhile.

What I have always loved about Chick is his interest in formal structure. He rarely composes "heads" just so he can get on to the blowing, but through-composes most of his songs, which gives the music wonderful depth and breath. And of course, what seperates Chick from anyone is his rhythmic sense. This session crackles with energy and passion - it's not just another "white guy" jazz trio designed for sleep inducement and 'abstract' reinventions of standards. And thank god he echews playing "standards." Can anyone really stomach another record by anyone that covers jazz tunes written 50-60 years ago? My exhortation to new jazz artists - smash the busts of the hallowed giants and compose, compose, compose!!!

Play this CD to anyone who only knows Sammy from "Candyman" and "Cannonball Run." The West Side Story medley alone is worth the price of a CD. Utterly passionate and unforgettable.

This is the first Conan adventure I have read where several times I wished Conan would just shut the hell up and fight! Roberts puts him in situations where only he knows the right way to handle, and he endlessly explains why, why, why. I pictured the supporting characters turning to each other and whispering, "does he always talk this much?"

Achilea the Amazon is a great character, but she isn't really fleshed out or used that well. And there is zero sexual tension between them, which is a missed opportunity. Jordan's Karela would have made mince-meat out of her. At least Conan gets three days of serious romping with her in the end.

The tale itself is oft clumsily told. An example is when Conan and Achilea run a scouting mission and get caught in a sandstorm. When they finally arrive back at the camp, we have to hear the entire narrative of what had happened there from the old man. Roberts could have easily juxtaposed each narrative on the other, creating more tension and action rather than telling by flipping back and forth.

This book sort of reminds me of Roberts' Conan the Champion, which was a similar lame, "road movie" plot with not a lot of tension and action. Conan is never in any real danger in this one, not that we ever doubt that he will win the day, but better Conan writers have put him in more interesting jeopardy than Roberts. I'm beginning to think that Conan the Valorous was Roberts' one hit.

Hard to believe they could have followed up "Of Malice..." with such an amazing record, but they did. This is prog-metalcore with hooks and great sonic carpets from the guitarists. The new vocalists is different than the previous one, but each put a recognizable stamp on each record. For the listener to judge better/worse. But it's the band underneath that makes it all go.

Some thoughts on "A Carnivore's Inquiry:"

A narrator can be both sympathetic and unsympathetic provided that they are interesting to read about. Katherine's closest relative, Hannibal Lecter, knew more about wine, food and culture than we did, and we envied him for it. Katherine Shea knows very little about anything other than what brands surround her, and her ambivalence towards horrific events is merely adolescent rather than indicative of humanity.

Murray's exquisite skill at painting a scene is akin to eating nothing but Creme Brulee. Inside the twelve course meal that is the novel, one craves a greater variety of ingredients. I am sure her short stories are marvels.

Her characters are not convincing actors; their motivations for action are suspect when they are present, which is not often. We are asked to believe that our distant, dilettante narrator inspires lust and love in every man she meets. This is implied and not convincingly rendered.

The historical recreations fail to reflect, augment or amplify the novel's main theme: man's hunger for literal or spiritual wealth (laid down in a paragraph on page 286). Thought was given to their rendering, but not to their overall thematic importance.

We cannot believe in her resourcefulness as a character because chance plays too large a role in her life.

For a gourmand, she is surprisingly chaste about describing sex or her carnivorous meals. Murray's talents would have been put to great use here.

I'm tempted to give Arslan another star for the writing in the 'Hunt Morgan' sections alone, but ultimately Engh squanders what starts as a compelling and potentially brilliant treatise on the complexities of power and the relationships between those who possess it and those who do not.

The first half of the book [written from the point of view of the 'Franklin Bond' character] sets up the story, the characters and rolls out the Engh's main arguments and socio-political theories. The writing is clear, penetrating and full of wonderful detail. The characters of Arslan, Bond and Hunt Morgan are very well rounded and complex, each with their own believable paths.

But then a strange thing happens. Engh ends this portion of the book and begins a new section called 'Hunt Morgan.' Hunt's 'voice' is devestatingly lyrical and expressive - some of the best writing of the novel is contained in this section. But even as Engh creates a powerfull, more lyrical voice for Hunt's POV all this beautiful writing hides a hollow narrative center. We re-live some of the scenes first introduced in the 'Franklin Bond' section and then follow Hunt as he travels with Arslan to Bukhara. All of this wonderful writing amounts to very little character or story development; we continue to range around in Hunt's mind as he is subjected to similar events concerning Arslan, none of which deepen our understanding of either character. This continues for over one hundred pages.

Beautiful the writing may be, but structurally the book falls apart. From here on out Engh flies on fumes, coasting until the next 'Franklin Bond' section yet when it finally arrives, it is nothing more than a melodramatic end-cap to the story that [again] does not further her characters, the argument, or the narrative.

Ultimately Arslan fails in spite of its superior effort. The ideas and characters so assuredly introduced spiral out of Ms. Engh's control and by the end of the novel, one gets the feeling that indulgence set her adrift, forcing her into an artificial ending rather than a re-working and re-structuring of the novel. Still, I would recommend this book to anyone frustrated with the lack of well written speculative fiction. As a very interesting failure, it facinates.

Before one can properly criticize Underworld, one needs to excise the elements lifted whole cloth from "The Matrix:"

01. Leather/Urban Chic costumes
02. Lighting design
03. Characters reflected in other character's sunglasses
04. Comic book "look down" shots
05. Bullet Time effects
06. Muted Color Scheme
07. Bloody needles/razors dropped in water.
08. Raindrops
09. Orchestral soundtrack
10. Pop Soundtrack
11. Chosen one mythos
12. Character: Michael Corvin (IS Neo)
13. Character: Selene (IS Trinity)

I think basically Len Wiseman (director) saw the Matrix, phoned some film executives and said: "let's take the most original SF movie in years and remake it, this time with Vampires and Werewolves."

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, we can critique what's left of "Underworld."

The Mythology.

Nice job here. I liked the idea of the Lycans (and using a variation on the word Lycanthropy) being the Vampire's slaves and the 'star-crossed lovers' plot device (nod to Shakespeare, of course). The extended cut really expanded on this.

The Visual Ideas

Aren't we all sick to death of Vampires being tragic, doom-obsessed goths? Puts the 'ring back in BORING. For a spectacular re-imagining of the genre, rent the British miniseries "Ultraviolet." It's the best thing to happen to Vampires since, well, immortality.

The Story

They actually did a nice job of trying to keep it fairly believable. I have to give credit here. It seems that since so many of the other elements had already been developed (and previously filmed) they had time to really sit down and hash out the story. Kudos.

The Performances

Trinity vs. Selene

The very quality that Carrie-Ann Moss gave Trinity is what Kate Beckinsale did NOT give Selene. There is a vulnerability and a sense of things going on behind the eyes with Trinity that makes her an intriguing character rather than the mindless video-game killing machine that is Selene. There is nothing interesting about Selene; she's is one note affair from beginning to end. There were rumors that Beckinsale spurned some convention fans by saying of Undwerworld: 'it's only a bloody comic book.' Well, if that's the extent of the thought she put behind Selene, it really shows.

The supporting cast were stellar. Michael Sheen as the lycan leader and Shane Brolly as the vampire leader were very good. Speedman acquitted himself rather well also.

Overall Summary

Not a bad little film given all the caveat's above. Curious as to what they do with #2 (oh yes, it's already underway). Perhaps a cameo by Hugo Weaving?

Cardboard characters, High School level writing, poor plotting, unremarkable prose, "Brightness Falls from the Air" is a book that confounds the reader who has earlier read the superlatives and the cover blurb by the New York Times. Was Gerald Jonas high that day?

The setup is fairly interesting: sixteen characters gather on a planet to witness the arrival of a visually spectacular nova front. This front is all that remains of a star destroyed along with an entire race of beings during an interstellar war. Our story opens as sixteen characters both human and alien arrive on the planet to witness the phenomena.

The story is needlessly melodramatic and constantly dragged down by incidental minutiae. The much lauded sexuality of the novel turns out to be a child pornographer and his troupe of pubescents, whose depiction is about as sexy and subversive as "Calendar Girls." Praise has been heaped upon Sheldon for her short stories. I saw no writing in evidence here that would cause me to go seek any of them out.

Here is one frustrating event that characterizes the failure of the novel: an alien bounty hunter, the last of his race, has spent the better part of his life tracking down the person who activated the device that destroyed his people's star. When he finally finds the person (one of our characters) he does a complete turnabout, realizes that the destruction of the artifact (which in turn destroyed the star) was a good thing since it had been psychologically destroying his people over the years (she must have hit the alien cable network), changes his mind and blows his head off (after a cliche hostage standoff). Some might say that this is an interesting and even shocking twist. I had to pinch myself from falling asleep. One question blows the entire construction out of the water: has this alien never thought about these things before? How can it be that only at the very end of his search does he wake up and realize that she did them all a favor? In plain language, a steaming heap of...BS.

And the relationship between Kip and Cory seems like some idealized autumn years marriage but with the woman (Sheldon perhaps?) 'deepened' by her 'dark' past. Hooey. And overall, could there be any more boring representation of a relationship between two people? Isn't everything just perfect? They don't use the bathroom, they don't stink, and they don't use harsh language - and they have really boring lovely sex: how enlightened!

You would be well advised to try one of her short stories first before launching into this C-grade affair.

Danvers builds a steadily credible narrative by staying with his characters and slowly building suspense yet throws in the towel at the novel's climax and loses his way completely in the last fifty pages.

"The Watch" begins as Peter Kropotkin, real life Russian anarchist, is revived on his deathbed by a mysterious man who calls himself Anchee. Anchee sends Kropotkin, complete with a new 30 year-old body, to Richmond, Virginia 1999. The novel follows Kropotkin as he interacts with Richmond life and slowly contacts several people who will play pivotal roles in an alternate American future.

For the most part, the novel succeeds in its characterizations and in persuading the reader to suspend disbelief. We come to believe this new Kropotkin and are thoroughly convinced by telling background details that we are seeing this story through his eyes. In this he rivals Farmer's portrait of Richard Francis Burton in his "Riverworld" series. There is also plenty of Richmond history as connected with the Civil War and General Robert E. Lee. Well done, Mr. Danvers.

The problems begin when we discover that the watch of the title is a device for bringing the bearer back in time (any time other than the future and the era in which the bearer has lived). Right away a rent is torn in the fiction as any sane living person would use the watch immediately and tour recorded history. Kropotkin however, thinks it's a hoot and returns it to his pocket. Yeah, sure.

When the climax of the novel arrives and events quickly overtake Kropotkin, Danvers bobbles and eventually drops the ball. The closing events in the story have little import, as Kropotkin's new political life is given such short attention. And it is here, finally, where Danvers wants us to believe in too many "SF" tropes at one time, all of which are made possible by the watch. All of which are used to cover up the fact that the author simply ran out of ideas. Also, the Anchee character is given unexplained godlike abilities and becomes the explanation for every plot hole or twist.

"The Watch" looks good on the jacket blurb and for the first few hundred pages, give the reader the impression that it might deliver on its promises.

Don't be fooled.

When one finishes "Casterbridge," one is immediately struck by its place in the development of the novel. Hardy came after Dickens and before James, and his style intrigues as you connect parts of it to the former, parts to the latter.

His plotting is sort of Dickens "lite." There are mysterious benefactors, sudden tragic deaths, reversals of fortune, paternity mysteries, ect. His prose is cleaner and easier to read than both Dickens and James; "Casterbridge" scans better than "Bleak House" or "The Wings of the Dove."

The story begins when a pastoral laborer, in a drunken rage, sells his wife and child one evening (I hate it when that happens...). When he wakes the next morning, abhorred at what he has done, he swears off liquor and decides to make something of his life. The novel truly begins eighteen years later, when his wife and daughter come back to present themselves to him. In the course of the rest of the novel, we witness the fall of the now Mayor of Casterbridge, brought about by his own character flaws and the interventions of fate.

Henchard, the main character, is a facinating combination of hot-spirited volition and turn-on-a-dime repentance. He is quick to do things which damn him but just as quick to admit his guilt. He is a wonderful character and a precursor to the later "psychological" novels of James and Forster. The satellite characters remind one of Dickens, but they are not nearly as startling and interesting, but of course, a character such as Henchard never existed in all of Dickens.

The novel proceeds to its forgone conclusion inexorably, albiet with a few melodromatic touches, yet it sustains its tone and readibility due mostly to Henchard, and the dramatic situations Hardy puts him through.

Well worth a look.

This is a wonderful novel about twin worlds that share an atmosphere and what happens when the inhabitants of one world have to abandon it for the other via hot air balloon!! It contains suprising charactarizations and a very cool ecology all wrapped up in a fairly believable page-turning plot. What more could you ask for from SF? This is the first book i've read by Shaw and I now consider him to be one of the better SF/Fantasy authors.

His sentence by sentence prose is tight and scans easy. He knows how to describe a scene or scenes well without glutting the reader with oceans of words. He does fairly well with characters and although the protagonist is a bit of a Conan/type, we like him and find him fairly interesting.

I found myself remembering scenes days after I put the book down, and that's pretty damn rare. Check it out, if you can find it.