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THE SOCIETY
Have you noticed how many books and TV shows have taken the Lord of the Flies premise and run with it? This outing is definitely above average and despite coming across as a YA version of Stephen King's The Dome it holds its own with above average acting, an intelligent plot (once you get over the initial 'how it happened' piece) and a decent take on the "what ifs" - what if there were no adults, what if there was limited food, what if there was nobody to enforce the rule of law, etc.
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AUTHORITY
To be fair to Authority, book two in the Area X trilogy, I haven't read book one Annihilation. I saw the Netflix movie and despite some very mixed reviews I really enjoyed the disjointed nature of the story and the amazing special effect images. Given the fact there's unlikely to be a sequel to the movie I decided to check out the novels.
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SEVENEVES
The best way for me to describe this novel would be to call it The Silmarillion in Space. It's almost as epic and mythical as Tolkien's major work behind The Lord of The Rings and at times just as much hard work to read. In fairness it is described as 'hard science fiction' and while I am a sci-fi fan I'm not a tech head and so the laboured, for me, passages giving intricate details of the hardware and space survival techniques left me cold.
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INCEPTION
IN A SENTENCE: A mind-bending intelligent sci-fi thriller that keeps you on your toes from the first scene to the last.
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XMEN – APOCALYPSE
IN A SENTENCE: The re-emerging Xmen must do battle with an all-powerful mutant to save the world and themselves (and the franchise of course).
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MOVIE REVIEW: THE HOST
"What the heck", I said to myself, "why not review both the novel The Host by Stephenie Meyer and the subsequent movie of the same name?" "Why the heck not?" exclaimed the little voice in my head, but something deep beneath the surface of my tiny mind kept screaming out a warning.
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HEAVEN’S SHADOW
Heaven's Shadow by David S. Goyer and Michael Cassutt is a novel set against a background of space expeditions by NASA in 2019. The planned space race by the US and a coalition of India, Russia and Brazil to be the first moon landing of the 21st century turns into something much more when a Near Earth Object appears in our solar system and is on a trajectory that might allow for an actual landing on the object.
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UNDERWORLD-AWAKENING
The fourth movie in the very successful franchise and obviously the concept still has some life in it yet (well at least I’m smiling at that line considering it’s a vampire tale). Not the strongest of the series despite the welcome return of Kate Beckinsale to her role of Selene. Set in a future where vampires and werewolves have been outed and are in hiding from mankind, it trades the gothic architecture for that of a modern North American city (Vancouver to be precise). The lycans and their sworn enemies the vampires have been driven deep underground while mankind hunts and exterminated them with silver and ultraviolet.
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THE HUNGER GAMES
Reminded me of The Running Man but with real acting and a decent plot. The action sequences were exciting enough to hold your interest and the storyline has enough depth to engage the ‘thinkers’. Can’t wait for HG2.
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AVATAR
Well have you been to see Avatar the highest grossing movie to date? Did you see it in 3D? I did and to be honest it was impressive on the effects side and the acting was of a high standard, but if ‘stay in your memory’ and ‘talk about it afterwards’ were important factors to base an evaluation on then it lacked something.
