Before the bell rings on 2014 and rings in 2015, I wanted to give my two cents on a few of the blockbuster movies that blew away the box office in 2014 (but I missed catching them at the theatres). Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel’s leap into space adventures had a US opening weekend of…
Category: Fantasy
Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith – Book Review
Featured image is Diamond Star by Brian Yi (please click the link to see the full image — it’s nice.) Seth Grahame-Smith is the author who brought zombies to Pride and Prejudice, and turned America’s “great emancipator”, Abraham Lincoln, into a vampire hunter. He’s been tipping some of the sacred cows of literature and history for…
Capsule Book Review Catchup
Now that I am listening to audiobooks on my commute to and from work, I’m catching up on so many books that I’ve got a backlog of books to write about on my blog. Of course, this is all thanks to Audible.com (Free credits for the plug, please!) which has been a great way for…
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman – Book Review
I enjoy it when authors perform on the audiobooks themselves. The interpretation of the voices and the inflections of any dialogue are true to their original vision and conveys the intended feelings. That’s especially helpful in the case of Neil Gaiman’s novels because they are full of surreal imagery and magic realism. This story is…
The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson – Book Review
Featured image is The Mistborn by Hunter Bonyun The Final Empire is the first of the Mistborn trilogy, whose premise is an intriguing one for anyone who has enjoyed fantasy fiction: What if the “dark lord” had won? Imagine if Voldemort, Sauron, or Darth Vader had not been defeated. What would have become of the…
2014 Fall TV – New Shows
It’s that time of year again. Beloved shows are back on air and new shows are vying to find their way into our viewing schedule (and our hearts). The premiere period seems to be pretty tight this year and a lot of shows have started or are starting again within a couple of weeks of…
Movie #18: Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons
As a kid, I grew up hearing Chinese folk tales as bedtime stories. The most well-known of them all is the Journey to the West: the story of the trickster-god Monkey King and his companions as they travel across an ancient China plagued by demons. When I heard that Stephen Chow, writer and director of…
Movie #14: Knights of Badassdom
I do love a good genre spoof. There are often a lot of inside jokes (most of which I actually get) and fun cameos. Often the plot is nothing too original, but that’s OK. In the case of Knights of Badassdom, the genre is fantasy role-play — specifically LARP (or live-action role-play) — where players…
Movie #13: Ragnarok
It is hardly surprising that people compare Norwegian director Mikkel Brænne Sandemose’s movie Ragnarok to something by Steven Spielberg (most obviously Jurassic Park). Once again we have a scientist (this time an archaelogist rather than a paleontologist) looking to prove his wildly dismissed theories about the past (in this case it’s about the site where…
Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture 