Book Reviews
Review: “Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void” by Mary Roach
Science fiction movies and novels dealing with long exploration missions to deep space rarely deal with the complexities of our bodies surviving during the long journey through space.
Review: “The Carpet Makers” by Andreas Eschbach
For those who believe that The Great Masters of sci-fi are necessarily long gone, that the depth of their insight was greater due to a proximity to some essential force that we, as descendants, find always already out of our touch, that singular genius is all but evaporated from the modern writer, to you, I submit The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach for consideration.
Review: “Team of Darkness” by Tony Ruggiero
In the twenty-first century, amidst six billion people and surveillance equipment able to tell a gnat’s sex from outer space, four monsters hid together in caves just outside the city of Kacianik, Kosovo, for nearly a century, until they attacked a captain of the US Army and left witnesses.
General Stone could barely contain himself. Vampires. Real life, blood sucking, coffin dwelling, God damned vampires. What if they could be captured? Studied? What if they could be kept under control and compelled to follow orders?
Review: “The Battle for Azeroth: Adventure, Alliance and Addiction”
Touted as a book of “Insights into the World of Warcraft“, The Battle for Azeroth: Adventure, Alliance and Addiction is more of a class guide and compendium of essays about the different aspects of Blizzard Entertainment’s smash hit game. Players and non-playing family and friends will likely find something of interest in this book.
Review: “The Martian” by Andy Weir
The Martian is a decent hard Science Fiction novel and I certainly didn’t regret reading it. I just wish there was more substance to the protagonist’s side of the story. I hope that this will not be the only novel that Weir does, as I look forward to seeing how he grows as a writer.
Review: “The Prestige” by Christopher Priest
This is an odd, hard to define, impossible to put down book, first published in 1995, but out in a new paperback edition. The reason I’m bringing it to your attention is primarily due to news of an upcoming film: Christopher Nolan, director of Batman Begins and one of my personal favorites, Memento, will begin shooting an adaptation of The Prestige this month.
Review: “Star Trek: Inception”
In many ways, the concept behind “Inception” is an interesting one, but as I read the novel I kept thinking it might have worked better as a short story.
Review: “Killing the Rabbit” by Alison Goodman
This book is based in Australia yet blends in a bit of Japanese and Chinese culture. What doesn’t make sense is this South African Pharmaceutical Company is only killing Australian women with this trait and there is no mention of any other women in any other country. Resorting to the murder of those seven women and the other “loose ends” seems a bit drastic without taking into consideration the possibility of hundreds of women worldwide who might have the same genetic mutation.
