sci/fi

A visually fascinating setting gives this clichéd story a fresh feel. However, the plot just becomes silly, the direction is borderline poor, and the acting below par. This Jim Sturgess fellow (hero) should hang his boots and switch to lumberjacking or similar where he might find better use for his skills as a tree. Kirsten Dunst does what she does best—shows off her pretty dimple and delivers another upside down kiss. She's pretty cardboard-y otherwise.

This book is sci-fi political philosophy! It's just about as different from the movie as can be possible while still retaining a semblance of the same plot. It is quite amazing that this was written in the 50s.

Bonus of +1 for influencing Haldeman and Scalzi.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance is another book in the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold that I enjoy so much. The book is generally very entertaining and focusses—as the title suggests—on Miles' cousin and bumbling sidekick, Ivan Vorpatril which is a pretty fun diversion. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and a healthy dose of imagination thrown into the mix. However, after a certain point, the plot and the characters get a little too silly and more than a little dull. Maybe my tastes have changed, but I also found Bujold's dialogue rather amateurish in some parts.

The setting is different from the original. But the story is roughly the same. That said, Colin Farrell was rubbish and the Kate Beckinsale character was tiresome.

Give it a miss.

Joe Haldeman's Forever War is a classic sci-fi novel and no matter how many times I read it, I tend to come away satisfied.

Highly recommended.

If anything could be called a seminal work, it would be Alfred Bester's "The Stars, My Destination". Published in book form in 1956 and written well before that, it's an intriguing read after all this time. While the flow and logic can be a little stuttered in spots, allowing for the age of the novel, the leaps in imagination are singularly amazing.

Read this before you die :) I would rate this only three stars lower if it had been written today.

I've just finished reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi - a science fiction novel in a similar vein to Joe Haldeman's Forever War.

... and the winner by a country mile, Pixar's WALL-E. The CG was great as per usual, but the storyline and characterisation took the cake. Nobody wants to miss this one as it's definitely one of Pixar's best.

I actually did not know that Prometheus is part of the Alien franchise. If I did, I would have given it a miss as such films are simply not my cup of tea. That said, the final product was reasonably entertaining. However, as with most of these horror-thriller movies, the script is marked with random bouts of unrealistic idiocy to get the plot moving, something that I really can't bear for any length of time.

I suspect that this will be a fun film to watch in 3D.

MIB3 is a good addition to the franchise. It starts off a little slow and vapid, with everybody (surely) cringing at TLJ's rubbery facade. But then there's an Austin-Powers like time-warp to 1969 and a younger TLJ (Josh Brolin) who livens things up. Good fun.