I just got done reading Three Kingdoms - all 2000 pages in microscopic type - and here's the short verdict: it is one of the greatest novels ever written. In terms of scope, drama and economy of language, there is probably none finer, and is populated with wonderful characters: Zhuge Liang (aka Kongming) and Cao Cao at the top of the list, but ( Read more... )

I got Metroid Prime Corruption - the third Metroid Prime game - and after about 20% of it, I think I'm done with it ( Read more... )

I've just got done playing Battlefield Bad Company, which is a shooter game about Company B aka Bad Company (though, really, it's more “Bad Fire Team”) and their quest to steal mercenary gold. It's got a nice sense of humor, heavily inspired by Kelly's Heroes - which is, of course, the greatest “war” movie, ever - and is a very playable game for a ( Read more... )

I like reading accounts of how fucked up intelligence work is, which means I should like Robert Baer. Baer's Sleeping With the Devil is about the US and its displomacy - my neologism for the day - with Arabia. (Saudi Arabia? Like they fucking own the place! I hate that term ( Read more... )

Oh, yeah, I forgot to say if I actually liked the book. The answer is "yes", but in that complex way that intelligent hard science-fiction creates in me. In most ways I find the science porn end of it so absurd. Fantasy authors rarely spend whole chapters talking about the confused and pointless metaphysics behind magic (though some do), why ( Read more... )

I just finished reading Stanislaw Lem's Fiasco. It's the first Lem book I've read. It mostly reads like sci-fi of his generation, which is to say there's a lot of science porn about time and space, and the human characters barely have psychologies, being generally defined by their roles - physicist, physician, priest, captain, etc. What ( Read more... )

I just got done watching the movie Doubt, written and directed by John Patrick Shanley (off of the play Shanley also wrote). It's got a really great cast, including a brief but dazzling performance Viola Davis. It is also one of the most intellectually and, you won't hear me say this too often, hehe, morally insulting pieces of media I've ever ( Read more... )

I'm going to admit something and it's going to be very hard for me to say it. But I think I owe it to people to be honest and forthright about it. *takes a deep breath*

I really liked a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. The movie is JCVD. I don't like it because it's a good action movie or a good martial arts movie. It is neither. I like it ( Read more... )

I haven't had much to say, lately, because all the political and economic stuff that's been going on is really just rehashes of stuff I've already said and I can't offer anything vaguely new to it. I have been on-and-off blue enough that it's cut into reading and made it so even when I do finish something I don't have the energy to write a post ( Read more... )

I also finished The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. It's another YA book I liked - which is, very nearly, going to be my entire review of the book, hehe. I liked it, it's a good fantasy yarn, well written (if a little pedantically at times - but almost all fantasy writers fall into that trap because, y'know, fantasy and sci-fi require a lot of ( Read more... )