It's said that the West was built on legends. Tall tales that help us make sense of things too great or too terrifying to believe. This is the legend of the Ghost Rider. Nicholas Cage has done a lot of movies – some good, some pretty bad – over the years. Of all his movies I've seen, my favorite remains Ghost Rider. Part of the first new wave of superhero movies (which was sparked by the success of Spider-Man), Ghost Rider tells the story of Johnny Blaze, a son of a stunt motorcycle driver (and a good stunt [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
February 7, 2014 By Leave a Comment
"Well, ain't we a pair… raggedy man?" Back in 1979, a then-little known actor named Mel Gibson did a pretty cheap little action flick, in which a policeman in an Australia suffering slow social breakdown falls afoul of local motorcycle gangs who, after several encounters, kill his wife and child, thereby sending him on a classic Roaring Rampage of Revenge. The name of this movie was Mad Max. The movie, with dramatic combat sequences despite low budget, did astoundingly well (making over ninety-nine [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
February 5, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Many years ago – something like 40, I think – my family was visiting the house of couple of my parents' friends. As I've mentioned in other contexts, I was not the most sociable kid; I'd learned to survive very nicely in isolation, but not how to deal with people as such, so "visiting friends" that weren't my friends (I had two) was, for me, very tense and unpleasant. My best defense was to hide somewhere behind a book, but often I couldn't bring a book, or I finished the one I had long before it was time to go home, which meant I had [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Tiger & Bunny
January 31, 2014 By Leave a Comment
In an alternate world, superbeings, called NEXTs, have emerged from the general population. Generally gifted with one power, the NEXTs were originally feared, but as many have turned their talents towards crimefighting, keeping the peace helping people in times of need, they have become more popular. "Hero TV" is the most popular show on television, following the exploits of the Heroes and ranking them based on their achievements (catching crooks, preventing accidents, saving civilians, etc.). To further increase their [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The _Alien_ Franchise
January 29, 2014 By Leave a Comment
In the late 1970s, Ridley Scott released what became one of his two most recognizable and famous movies, and inarguably his most successful: Alien. Alien was and is the quintessential "haunted house" horror movie, transplanted into space and given a coat of SF paint. The crew of the space freighter Nostromo picks up what they believe is a distress call and discover a crashed alien vessel. Within the vessel is a strange room containing what appear to be giant eggs; when a crewman approaches one of these too [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Shibumi and the Kitemaker
January 27, 2014 By Leave a Comment
I mentioned this book in my prior review of The Paper Dragon. They share certain similarities, not the least of them being a protagonist faced with an apparently insuperable problem who finds a clever way to address this problem. Shibumi and the Kitemaker,(no link because, to my surprise and disappointment, it appears to be out of print and only available as ridiculously expensive new copies or used copies of uncertain provenance) by the famous children's author Mercer Mayer (most well-known for his "Little Critter" [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The City and the Stars
January 25, 2014 By Leave a Comment
It seems appropriate to finish this week's postings with one on a novel by the third of the classic triad of the Golden Age – Arthur C. Clarke. The City and the Stars is a revised, expanded version of an earlier Clarke story, Against the Fall of Night. It is one of the most far-future stories told, set one billion years in the future. The story begins in the beautiful and apparently eternal, self-renewing city of Diaspar, a city which has endured for most of that billion years, ever new, ever perfect. [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Double Star
January 22, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Written by Robert A. Heinlein at the apex of his powers, Double Star is in my view one of his best novels. It takes a fairly well-worn plot – the actor who must, for some vitally important reason, impersonate a famous man well enough to fool that man's own associates – puts it IN SPAAAACE!, and adds in some of the most vivid characters Heinlein ever drew to produce an absolute masterpiece. Lorenzo Smythe ("The Great Lorenzo") is an actor of prodigious skill and talent but, as we can tell by reading between the [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Caves of Steel
January 20, 2014 By Leave a Comment
As I mentioned in my general Asimov post, a common accusation towards Asimov was that he didn't really write characters, but more shaped pieces to support his plots or story ideas. In general, this is a fairly accurate descrition, though it's not exactly a negative thing; much of what Asimov wrote didn't need characters as such, because many of his stories were stories of ideas – ranging from SF stories that were nothing but a setup for a bad pun to what-ifs to mysteries based on logic which wouldn't vary much no matter which [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Witches of Karres
January 17, 2014 By Leave a Comment
While I've discussed James Schmitz in general elsewhere, some of his works warrant individual discussion,and this is one of the best. The Witches of Karres is undoubtedly James Schmitz' best-known work, and certainly deserves its fame. Originally a short story (basically the initial portion of the novel), many fans consider the novel to be a somewhat lesser work than the shorter version, but I don't agree. The Witches of Karres is a … peculiar work. It's not quite like any other story I've ever read, [ Continue reading... ]
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