The British weekly news magazine The Economist, one of the world’s most renowned news outlets, has set up a rather nifty site where people from all over the world can drop in and vote for their favourite candidate for the American presidential election this November. Go check it out; it has a lot of fun [...]
Posts filed in Recommendations
Friendly advises from my side to my readers, where I implore them to do, read, watch or listen to something. I like to think that they would benefit from listening to my urgings, but that’s probably just a defense mechanism.
A TV Dante
My sister is one of the most important students at NTNU’s Department of Nordistics (or whatever) and Literature, primarily through her role as founder of the departemental body responsible for arranging events related to the relevant field of study (primarily Nordic linguistics and literature, as well as literature in general). Yesterday, she had arrange a [...]
WALL-E
As I went to see WALL-E (from now on Wall-E, as Nature abhors a shout, even though it’s supposed to be an acronym) last a couple of days ago, I was feeling highly ambiguous and thus also a bit scared. You see, my hopes for this movie were nothing short of astronomic, as just about [...]
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
The Last Colony by John Scalzi.
Tor Science Fiction, 2007.
320 pages.
“Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.”
— Commissioner Pravin Lal of the Peacekeepers,
Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.
I still don’t quite believe my own eyes…
Because of the extensive coverage of the American presidential election in the last couple of weeks, I’ve suddenly found myself wanting to see the complete West Wing series — of which I’ve seen the occasional season, but never the whole shebang. Subsequently, I go to Amazon.co.uk, search for “west wing”, and get this as one [...]
Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie
2008.
536 pages (Gollancz Fantasy trade paperback).
“Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.”
— Paul Gaugin.
This being the opening quote of Last Argument of Kings, the concluding volume in Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law series, one can perhaps perceive that this is a bleak affair. As I remarked in my reviews of the first [...]
Amadeus
Had quite the movie-athon yesterday. Here’s part two, Amadeus, with three and four coming as soon as I can find the time to read them.
Amadeus is often portrayed as the lifestory of one of if not the best musical composer in the history of mankind. (Disagree? Go listen to his Requiem while you wait for [...]
Lord of War
It’s been nearly two weeks since I watched Lord of War, so this’ll be a brief review, but better late than never, eh?
First off, what struck me during this second watching of Lord of War was how similar, in many ways, it was to Charlie Wilson’s War. They both dealt with serious subjects, and they [...]
Almost Famous
Almost Famous has been described as doing for the 70s what Rock Star did for the 80s. Do I believe this description is an accurate one? Perhaps. What I do believe is that it’s a great movie.
Supposedly, Almost Famous is based on writer/director Cameron Crowe’s own experiences as a Rolling Stones journalist. In it he [...]
Rock Star
Rock Star is the movie about the young Chris (Mark Wahlberg), who idolates the Heavy Metal band Steel Dragon and sings in a Steel Dragon tribute band (from whence the immortal comment “We’re not a cover band, we’re a tribute band!” arises). The first half or so of the movie portrays Chris’ day to day [...]
Angelic Revelation
One of the reasons why I haven’t been much active online lately, is that I spend most of my evenings watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with one or more of my flatmates. We started about a year ago, when one of them asked me to show him a really fun Buffy episode. I chose “Hush”, [...]
A Message from the Lost Son: Why I Love Heraclius
“The Persians were applying inexorable pressure on what remained of the empire. Heraclius was faced with a stark choice: he could either wait for the Persian grip to tighten, fighting a series of rearguard actions which offered little chance for ultimate success, or he could throw caution to the wind and take battle to the [...]
Success!
Finally, after close to three months of almost constant webcomic reading, I’m finally ajour with Order of the Stick, PvP, xkcd, Penny Arcade and Ctrl+Alt+Del, meaning that I am now ready to strart reading new ones! Wee!
Which is something I feel like celebrating a bit, as I haven’t really started reading more than one new [...]
2007 — The year’s movies
All the movies are rated on a scale from 0.5 to 10.
THE YEAR’S FIRST HALF.
January.
1. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Am. 2000) 8.0.
2. Taxi Driver (Am. 1976) 7.5.
3. Batman Begins (Am. 2005) 9.0.
4. Eragon (Am. 2006) 2.5.
5. Underworld (Am./Br. 2003) 6.5.
6. Catch Me If You Can (Am. 2002) 8.0.
7. Sense and Sensibility (Br./Ch. 1995) 7.0.
8. [...]
The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe
2004.
920 pages, Gollancz trade paperback.
An American kid is out walking in the forest surrounding his and his brother’s cabin when he spots a castle in the sky, and follows it. During his pursuit he looses track of where he is, and when night falls he decides to sleep out in the forest. When he wakes [...]
Hässelby by Johan Harstad
2007.
444 pages, Gyldendal hardcover.
This is a tale about Albert Åberg — the main character of a series of childrens’ books written by Gunilla Bergström in the early 1970s. What happened to him after his childhood in the quiet Stockholm suburb of Hässelby? How did he grow from a lively, enthusiastic boy to a disillusioned, bored [...]
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
1968.
168 pages, including an afterword by Jon Bing, translator and professor of information law.
In the not too distant future humans have made Earth almost inhabitable by nuclear war. Colonies have been established on Mars and elsewhere, and most of mankind has moved there. Many still remain, though. Some because they don’t want to go, some [...]
Midnight Nation
“Feel the misery of the world, David Grey. For one second, I’m going to open your mind to the song of pain, the song I have been forced to hear every day and every night to the last syllable of recorded time.
For just one, fleeting second, David, feel the totality of the suffering and pain [...]
Rip it apart and start again
One of the many reasons to look forward to Ripper.
As for Brian K. Vaughn’s (first, but hopefully not last) run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Season 8″ comics, the best compliment I can give is that I hardly noticed — if indeed I did notice at all, which is doubtful — that this wasn’t written [...]
Starship Troopers
I was supposed to go watch Elizabeth: The Golden Age with two of my flatmates, but it seems it’s on its way out. And as there wasn’t really anything else that was all that appealing, we decided to watch a DVD instead. After a lengthy discussion, we (meaning my two male flatmates and myself; out [...]
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