I was on vacation, and the one movie theatre in town had only two options. It was this, or Pitch Perfect 2. I have not seen Pitch Perfect 1. Also, I like George Clooney. Tomorrowland it was ( Read more... )

1632, by Eric Flint.A chunk of a modern American town, including the entire local chapter of Mine Workers of America, is mysteriously transported into 1632 Germany. What those people need are red-blooded Americans with lots of guns ( Read more... )

You may recall a great deal of outrage several months ago over a horrible-sounding self-published YA novel, Save the Pearls, about a future in which black people (Coals) rule and white people (Pearls) are oppressed, and also must wear blackface in order to protect themselves from the now-deadly sun. (Blackface shown in a truly ill-conceived video ( Read more... )

I don’t often say this, but I regret reading this book, a collection of short stories by Lindholm (aka Hobb). Not only did I dislike nearly all of them, but many of them were creepy and unpleasant, full of child abuse, animal abuse, preachiness, and despair. In particular, two stories were largely centered around cat corpses. There’s a theme I can ( Read more... )

I would never be a crazed sex-teen!Someone could write a good teen dystopia based on the screwed-up messages that modern American society sends to teenage girls: If you have sex with boys, you’re a slut. If you don’t, you’re a prude, a lesbian, or a reject. If you dress fashionably, you’re a slut. If you dress conservatively, you’re a prude. If you ( Read more... )

There are some rather interesting discrepancies between the votes in general, and the votes of sponsors who are actually ponying up some cash. In overall totals, we have Bumped (teen pregnancy is bad) in the lead, followed by VI (Sexteen) (teenage girls having sex is bad), and then Divergent (basing society on a personality quiz is bad ( Read more... )

I did not deliberately select my sample reading for simplistic high concepts, but wow, did I get a lot ( Read more... )

I love my Kindle. And I love being able to download the first chapter or few as a free sample. I’ve bought several books I otherwise might not have taken a chance on, based on the quality of the first few chapters, and been warned off others. (Best purchase based on sample chapter so far: Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City. Warning: dark. Further warning: get ( Read more... )

Dean Koontz writes thrillers, some involving science fiction or fantasy, some just bad guys chasing people, with excessively wholesome protagonists, hilariously evil villains, and cute kids and pets. They are very good airplane reading ( Read more... )

My back hurts too much to concentrate to the level the memoir requires and way too much to train, so yay for livejournal and a pillow stuffed behind my back ( Read more... )