a little princess
Alfonso Cuaron. Such a beautiful movie.

It should be me.

well, damn
I had hopes for the new album. Something about Interpol's sound just hits my sweet spot. Though I believe I'm in the minority by preferring Antics to Turn on the Bright Lights.

You hit like Anne Rice.

Finally, Dune, yes!

Thank you, Todd. You are a scholar and a gentleman.

Um, count me as one who REALLY WANTS TO HEAR THEM. I think you've got, what, eight episodes left? I don't know if that's too many to post at the end of the review, but I'd love to at least hear your thoughts on the finale. Even so long now since it ended, I still think it's one of the most emotionally devastating…

An ex-girlfriend once made a great point about Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings. She said that yes, she's a poor actress, especially in that movie, but it's not entirely her fault. It was a British film written by a British man, and the way her lines are structured, they're clearly—even if not deliberately—phrased the…

any couple . . .
. . . in Love Actually. (Except for the two little kids. They have to make it, dammit. If there's any justice in the world, they just have to.)

1. When Needful Things came out, that character sadly made me think of my aunt.

It's all up for debate. A lot of people point to Frankenstein, some people go back further, and some people go more recently. I tend to agree with Frankenstein, but one knock against it is that it's more an example of a Gothic romance than a true sf story. Really anything you pick is going to be somewhat arbitrary.

I so dug that movie when I was growing up. I've always been slightly scared to revisit it and potentially ruin the good memories. But what make me want to try it again are Nicholas Meyer as the director, David Warner playing Jack the Ripper, and (from what I recall) a surprisingly effective Malcolm McDowell playing…

But couldn't you argue books like Clarke's Childhood's End and Bear's Blood Music are outgrowths of this kind of thought? The basic idea is the same—some outside influence—a comet, aliens, biological engineering—forces humanity to grow up.

Given the difference between his science fiction and more social realist work, it still seems like he'd be better suited to a Primer treatment than a Gateway to Geekery. Especially when the GTG uses The Time Machine, already arguably his most widely-read book, and then lists only his other science fiction work, the…

Another vote for Book of the New Sun here, not to mention Gene Wolfe in general, especially his 70s work.

The Tripods series scared the living shit out of me as a kid.

"Their stories go a few hundred years ahead and have changes way beyond anything you'd see in that time."

I've been going through the Discworld books chronologically and only have the last two or three left to go. I've yet to read one that didn't have something to recommend it, but yeah, Soul Music has been one of the more dire ones. Really surprised someone thinks Rincewind is one of Pratchett's best characters since he…

when the sleeper wakes
I went on a Wells kick a year or two ago and that was the one book that was a slog. Couldn't even finish it.

necessary?
Is a Gateway to Geekery really necessary for Wells? Yeah, he wrote a lot of stuff, but most of it isn't in print and, anyway, bookstores generally only have the handful of titles people want to read anymore. It's not like starting, say, Discworld, which has thirty-some-odd books in the series, all in print…