The Fear of a Not-So-Scary Movie

I suffered through a horror movie last night, because someone very special to me told me it was the scariest movie of all time. He had never been more scared by a movie than this one. All right! Well, considering the source, I had no reason to doubt him. I’m sure, in fact, that he was being completely honest. However, comma, I don’t think he’s seen many movies in his life. He is, after all, only thirteen.

But I’m not really here to rip on the movie, though it did suck pretty badly. Like a brand new purple Dyson. In fact, I wasn’t scared of creeped-out even one time during the entire film. Not even startled by the Dolby shocks. Seriously. I’m not bragging here. When I watch a ‘scary movie’ I want to be scared. I want to wake up with nightmares when I go to bed. I want the horrifying images I’ve seen on the screen to haunt my waking days for the next week. I want to be terrified. The Possession didn’t even come close.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rantreview
  • Reading time:6 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: Bangs & Whimpers

This book, Bangs & Whimpers: Stories About the End of the World is a collection of short stories by different authors. Most of these stories were written some fifty to sixty years ago. It includes passages from all the greats – from Arthur C. Clarke to Robert Heinlein, Neil Gaiman to Isaac Asimov. I’ve owned it for many years now, but have somehow never gotten around to reading it, until now.

I started it several nights ago, longing for the feel of a paper book in my hands after nearly a year of nothing but audio and electronic books. I just finished it. And let me tell you: if you are in the mood to be depressed, pick up a copy of this volume and give a go. Dear Lord.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:5 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: Ancient Shores

Ancient Shores
by Jack McDevitt

as posted on Goodreads

This book was like a “wave” at a football game. You know the one where people stand up in turn waving their arms around and it gives the effect that the stadium is an ocean? Yeah. That. Let me explain the analogy.

Well you probably got that it was up and down with the suspense, drama and general kickassery of the story. It was indeed. The gait would pick up and get me real interested, then it would slow back down and even bog down with unnecessary character introductions and irrelevant loose ends. But it also reminded me of a stadium wave because of how imperfect the wave part of the wave actually was.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:6 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: The Windup Girl

The Windup Girl
by Paolo Bacigalupi

I have a lot to say about this book. It was a big book, so it needs a big review. And by big, I mean twenty hours. I listened to it on audiobook, you see. I think Jonathan Davis was a great narrator, but he reads very slowly. He’s very precise with his words, and his pauses between sentences are often pregnant with wait. This probably added several hours throughout the entire book. But it’s also big because Bacigalupi was very liberal with his words. If words cost money, he spared no expense.

It was good. Well written. Mr. Bacigalupi has a way of romanticizing famine and plague, terrible conditions and even rape with such smooth words. They feel like warm honey running over your skin. It’s very easy to latch onto the world, and feel like you’re part of it. His world is a post-apocalyptic version of ours, a couple of hundred years in the future. Not that he ever actually comes out and tells you that, mind you.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:5 mins read

Vincent Hobbes is a Thief

I’m a writer. One might debate how well I perform this craft. Or not. Almost everyone who has read my books has told me they liked them greatly. I say this not in boastful arrogance, but just to say that I do it to the best of my ability, I take it seriously, and I take pride in making it as good as my ability will allow. I’ve written millions of words. A lot of them on this website. If you peruse back through the archives, you will see I have over 450 columns attributed to my name. And most of them are 800 words or more. Not just some quick paragraph about nonsense. Why do I say all this? I don’t know. I think I’m just trying to justify the title I used in the first sentence of my column.

But I don’t need to. Not really. The word writer speaks nothing of the personality of the writing. It doesn’t lend itself to any superlatives or adjectives describing the talent of the human being who takes the title. It only expresses that he or she has set out to perform a task, an effort that takes at least a fair amount of talent or skill, and has thus taken the label.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:newsrantreview
  • Reading time:6 mins read

Stumbling on a Musical Gold Mine

Winter is historically my season for inspiration. Everything is dead or dying, cold and gray. It’s a blank slate for creativity and thought. I adore these months. My writing, drawing and music all come alive in the winter. I also listen to a lot more country music in the winter. This stems from spending winter months in Germany when I was in the service, being couped up in a barracks room with one other American guy, snowed in and unable to go anywhere, and all we listened to was country music. I love it.

I understand sometimes it gets annoying and begins to all sound the same. But I have very little respect for people who just automatically dismiss it as if none of it is worth listening to. “I listen to everything but country and rap.” Yeah, yeah, you’re too cool for school. So if this describes you, then you probably need not read on. The column ends here for the closed-minded. If, however, you have an ear for talent – whether or not you actually listen to country music, then read on, dear reader. I listen to everything. This even includes Tejano and Irish polkas in which cases I can’t even understand what they’re saying – so long as the music itself is tolerable and attractive.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:diaryreview
  • Reading time:4 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: No Country for Old Men

It’s been a while since I’ve had the time – and frankly, the desire – to watch a movie. I’ve been reading a lot more lately, and what with having three kids who need what seems like almost constant attention until almost nine o’clock, it seems I never really have time. How, you might ask, do I have time to read, but not watch movies? Well, the answer is rather obvious if you ask me. Movies involve a lot more than just yourself. And not all movies I like to watch are rated PG or below.

Anyway, whatever supernatural forces favored me, the stars aligned, and I was finally granted a few hours to sit back and watch some good cinema. I chose No Country For Old Men. As always, my red-haired wife fell asleep after about forty minutes, leaving me to absorb the picture basically alone. Allow me to tell you what I thought.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:4 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: Insidious

I finally watched this film last night. I’ve been wanting to see it for a long time, and my daughter wants to see it too. So I needed to watch it so that I could screen it and see if it was going to be okay for her to watch it. Under supervision, of course. But yeah, I’ve been wanting to see this for some time. I love getting the cobbles scared out of me. And this was touted as being one of the most terrifying movies ever made. Well, it’s kind of hard to get my red-haired wife to agree to sit down in the dark with me and watch a scary movie – much less the scariest movie ever filmed. And oh, it has to be dark.

So I finally got the chance last night! I was so excited. I turned off the lights and got my couch all centered and up close, turned off the dryer and all of the walk lights in the house. Made sure it was nice and quiet. I wanted absolutely no breaks or attention thieves. I was going to get the ever loving holy horse dung scared out of me. Oh man, I have to tell you about this too. I had to force myself to stick with it. My red-haired wife had fallen asleep next to me with a blanket over her face. And I’m here to tell you friends, I literally had to force myself to finish watching it. Because it was so absolutely, horrifically, incredibly… stupid.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:5 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: The Wasp Factory

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

I enjoyed this book well. It was far different than anything I’ve ever read – which I’m sure most people who’ve read it will agree with – but not bad at all. If you’ve read any other reviews of this book, you know how violent and gruesome it is with animal cruelty and murder. Some people have said it makes them physically ill and they’re not able to finish it. I didn’t have that problem. I guess I’m desensitized from all my years of working on computers. Anyway, if you can fight through it, just tell yourself it’s fiction. It’s a book and nothing more. I think it’s worth reading.

My writing here will be vague and make references to events without spoiling any of the book. You can safely read my review without fear of losing anything in your reading of the novel.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:4 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: Dooms Day Book

I have so many things to say about this book. I’ve never really read anything like it. I do love time-travel tales. It follows that I love anachronistic situations, people getting stuck in a different time, and – well, just a bunch of bad schlit happening. This book has all that. I also rather enjoy tales set in medieval times, or the Middle Ages, as it were. I’m not, however, big on fantasy. You show me a dragon or a wizard, and I’ll show you how to set down a book so fast you risk injury to the wrist. Alas, this novel had nothing of the sort. This book was more like a National Geographic presentation about the Middle Ages.

I hesitate to say anything about what happens in the book for fear of the spoiler. It seems to be that every other review on the book sort of just expects you to know it though. The thing that perplexes me is that if Connie Willis had expected you to know the preliminary twist, why did she write so deeply into the book trying to add suspense and mystery over it? Why did she not just advertise it on the dust jacket? Well, I don’t know. But assuming you aren’t only going to read one review – my review – of the book, I’m going to have to go with the notion that you probably already know what the book was about, and that huge plot device that seems so carefully hidden by Connie yet so destructively advertised by every other reviewer I’ve seen. Further, if I don’t talk about it, then I really can’t tell you why I thought so highly of this story.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:8 mins read