Fantastic beasts without story are a fantastic bore

I saw the new Harry Potter universe movie over the weekend, and although I'm not a big Harry Potter fan, my wife is, and she was literally asleep next to me in the theater. The problem with this movie is a lack of consequence. The characters, though likable, are not in any danger for over …

A Canticle for Leibowitz: the forgetfulness of humanity

I just finished this post apocalyptic sci fi classic, which takes the form of a few stories over the course of nearly two thousand years. Centuries after nuclear war, society rebuilds itself, regrowing from barbarism, and finding scraps of its ancient past. The story starts with a monk of the order of Leibowitz finding a …

Kindred: disturbing, embarrassing, eye opening

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler follows Dana, a black novelist who lives in California, 1978, and is unwillingly transported back to a pre-Civil War Maryland Plantation. This brief synopsis is already probably enough to make you squirm. I was unsure what I was in for going into this, but I'm glad I read it. The brutality …

Stranger Things: Not just 80’s nostalgia

Remember when the big movies coming out that everyone was excited about weren't remakes, or reboots, or based on a comic book or video game or brand name or fairy tale or popular book series? Well, maybe this is 80's nostalgia after all... Stranger Things not only has the refreshing attribute of being something new, despite …

Death’s End, by Cixin Liu: Mindblowing scope

The final book in the Three Body Trilogy, Death's End (Remembrance of Earth's Past) does not disappoint. Once again my mind is reeling from the barrage of amazing ideas and concepts that blasted me one after the other after the other as I listened to this book. I don't even know where to begin. If you've …