I was very fortunate to chat with Ben Mauro when he appeared at Toronto’s Fan Expo. And I have just finished the first installment in his Huxley saga. Filled with world-building and fantastic art, Mauro takes some familiar science fiction tropes, and incorporates them in a new way. The trade paperback is composed of the…
Tag: Intelligence
Lords of Uncreation (2023) – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Orbit Books delivers the final book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s The Final Architecture Trilogy, and if you dug the first two, the space opera in the third is going to let you enjoy every page as Tchaikovsky wraps things up while delivering a fast-paced, highly enjoyable tale. The Architects, strange planet-shaped beings that appear from unspace,…
Paradise 1 (2023) – David Wellington
Orbit Books takes the reader to a far-distant solar system and exposes them to fear in the new novel, the first in a series, by best-selling author David Wellington. An officer of the Firewatch, Petrova, and a doctor, Zhang, who may not be all there, are shipped off on an AI-controlled ship, accompanied by a…
Fringe (2011) – Reciprocity, and Concentrate and Ask Again
It seems Massive Dynamic has assembled the Device from the parts left behind by the First People (an ancient race who were technologically advanced) and against Walter’s (John Noble) wishes, Peter (Joshua Jackson) agrees to let the company run some tests on him, and his interaction with the machine. Reciprocity was written by Josh Singer…
The X-Files (2000/2001) – Via Negativa, and Surekill
Agent Doggett (Robert Patrick) takes on a killer who can seemingly murder his victims via dreams, while Scully (Gillian Anderson) undergoes some medical tests – is it her cancer? it it the pregnancy? We don’t know yet. Via Negativa was written by Frank Spotnitz, and first debuted on 17 December, 2000. Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) pairs…
The Color Out of Space (2010) – Huan Vu
H.P. Lovecraft, despite his racist tendencies that pop up in his writings, was a master of unnerving cosmic horror, and in 2010, Huan Vu adapted the classic novella, The Color Out of Space into a moody and ominous thriller. A German made film whose only problem lays in some of its special effects, but more…
Zardoz (1974) – John Boorman
John Boorman wrote, prodiced and directed this sci-fi cult classic that has Sean Connery running around in red underwear and thigh high boots, waving a pistol and his moustache around. With a commentary on class, knowledge, and sex, the film wasn’t a big hit at the time, and sort of settled into the cultutal subconcious,…
Panic (2014) – Lauren Oliver
Lauren Oliver’s Panic is a page-turner on a monumental scale. I can’t remember the last time I was so swept up in the narrative of a story. I had to find out what happened next. As much as I have been enjoying my foray into the tales of Ian Fleming’s 007, and the writings of…
Pump Up the Volume (1990) – Allan Moyle
There are moments, movies, books, and shows that stay with you, and some undeniably influence you. I remember where I was, and who I was (or at least on my way to becoming) when I was first introduced to Mark Hunter (Christian Slater) better known to his listening audience as Happy Harry Hard-on. With a…
Tiamat’s Wrath (2019) – James S.A. Corey
I say this every time I review one of these books. I love them! I love travelling with this crew, I love the way the story gets doled out, the way not only the action beats play out, but the emotional ones as well. And this book, literally had me cheering, laughing and weeping. After…
The Mind Reels 