Jan 04
I watched the first episode and part of the second. After that I had to stop to avoid breaking my tablet. The stupid, it burns. The show opens with a nice special effect. The alien spacecraft looks cool and alien if not overly practical. The thing it turns into looks like a Christmas tree. It’s …
Mar 12
Incendiary Todd of the Funk writes, Is the ST:TNG episode “Darmok” genius or what? Can’t decide. “What.” To recap, the episode involves a spacefaring species, the Tamarians, that nobody can manage to talk with because (as it turns out) their only means of communication is with cryptic metaphorical references to the stories of their culture. When …
Jul 20
Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire My rating: 4 of 5 stars My wife and I enjoyed this book enough to pick up the sequel. The snappy dialogue and narration of the independent-minded heroine is a big plus here. The setting is creative. The plot is well-formed. On the negative side, I thought there were too …
Jun 05
Pogyqueen asks: Hey, do you be liking your Prius? Cuz I am thinking about shopping for one, and I see they have all kinds of models and blabbady blah. Do you have complaints or things you wish they had done differently, that I should watch out for in different models? I haven’t looked at the …
Jun 03
A Free Man of Color by Barbara Hambly My rating: 5 of 5 stars I always enjoy Barbara Hambly’s work, and I’ll certainly read more of this series. The setting is richly detailed and convincingly rendered, in a way that supports the story rather than distracting from it. It’s also a real mystery, and a …
Jun 01
The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu My rating: 3 of 5 stars Reasonably well written, ultimately failing to delight. This is basically a geek secret agent fantasy, the protagonist being computer geek Roen Tan, not the titular alien. Where it disappoints me is in hewing too close to the line that the only way …
The Deep End is a steampunk intrigue with plenty of reprehensible characters, plots, poisoned stabby things, and a murder mystery where the sleuth has to suspect herself.
