I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this book, but with a title like “The Malevolent Seven”, I knew it was going to be fun. Though it’s got mages and spells and a quest to stop evil other-dimensional beings from taking over the world, it’s not your typical epic fantasy nor is it a…
Category: Books
Empire of Silence (The Sun Eater, Book 1) by Christopher Ruocchio – Book Review
We start with a story that the main character (and sole point of view), Hadrian Marlowe, is recounting: his life story after he has achieved the notoriety of being named “Sun Eater”, due to his having destroyed a sun, killing millions of enemy aliens. But that story is not part of this book (presumably we…
BookTube: For the love of reading (& YouTube)
If you had told me a few years ago that soon I would be spending more time watching videos on YouTube than streaming Netflix, I would have called you crazy. While I observed YouTube’s incredible popularity, I always thought it was more for kids with short attention spans watching pranks, unboxings, or their friends playing…
Ready Player One – Movie Review
The paradox about watching the Ready Player One movie is that I would probably have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn’t read the book, by Ernest Cline, a few years ago (and then again last month to get psyched for the movie). I had been very much anticipating this movie because the book…
More Shows to Watch (May 2017)
The network television season has all but ended, and next week we’re going to be talking about the new shows coming in fall 2017, but before we reach that point, there are still a few interesting shows on right now (including a couple from Netflix, so they’re always “on”) that could tide you over until…
New Year, New TV 2017
Streaming has really changed the way we watch TV, and what would have (over the last few years) been considered “midseason” — I.e. the time when networks bring out new/returning shows to replace the ones that have already been cancelled or taken an early break — is now a bit more free-flowing. Netflix (and other…
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – Movie Review
This is my most anticipated movie of 2016, and I have been looking forward to seeing it ever since they announced that we would be returning to JK Rowling’s wizarding world (without Harry). Just like they did with Tolkien’s The Hobbit, they took a thin book, with story set in the same universe, and made…
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – Movie Review
It’s not because I loved the book (click here to read my short yet dissatisfied review) that I had high hopes for Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. A movie version, directed by the very creative Tim Burton, and featuring a cast of excellent actors including one of my favourites, Eva Green, as the titular…
Midseason TV 2016 – Plenty of Sci-fi & Fantasy
This is a pretty big year for mid-season sci-fi/fantasy shows. We already had the debut of The Expanse, but there are a bunch more new genre shows that run the gamut from glossy comic-book super-heroes, to Anglo-Saxon legends. Many of them are adaptations of successful books. While I can’t say that any of them stand…
Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture 