I’ve read most of Bentley Little’s horror novels, and they’ve been pretty consistent in what they offer. Start with an interesting idea; race onward in an inventive, typically gory, fashion; arrive at a resolution that doesn’t really live up to the rest of the book, but the ride was so fun you’re okay with that. A typical Bentley Little novel involves something supernatural, and lives in a world that isn’t quite like the real one.
With His Father’s Son, Little makes his first foray into “the real world” in a novel — it’s basically a psychological study of an ordinary man and the way his life spins out of control after a shocking confession from his dying father.
With The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown supplants James Patterson (*) as king of what I call the “popcorn books” — books that work best when read straight through in as few sittings as possible, with no reflection on what’s come before as you plow ahead. Whether you’ll like the book or not depends on how willing you are to do that, I guess.
(*) – Well, Brown supplants Patterson on a “quality of book” basis. With Brown’s extended hiatus and Patterson’s co-author book factory pumping out 6 books a year, he’ll never catch him in quantity.
If you’ve read The DaVinci Code or Angels And Demons, then you can guess the outline of the plot — Robert Langdon is called to a famous landmark, something bad happens, and he’s forced into a race against time to solve ancient riddles, accompanied by a love interest. The setting is Washington D.C. this time, and in a happy-enough change of pace, his love interest is actually age-appropriate.
Books · Dan Brown · James Patterson · Popcorn Books · The Lost Symbol
I recently returned from a vacation on Kauai, one of the islands of Hawaii. I’ll be doing a series of posts reviewing the places we went and the things we did, to help out the next person who comes along trying to Google them, as I had before we left. :) Today, it’s the various “adventures” we went on.
Let’s face it: you probably already know if you want to see this film or not. Go with your first instinct.
End of review.
Oh, you’re still here? Okay, here’s something else — if you’re a child of the 80s and you hated what they did with Transformers, then skip this movie. If you were at least okay with that, then see this movie.
'80s Nostalgia · Films · G.I. Joe · War
The Birthing House is the debut horror novel from Christopher Ransom, a writer whose promise shines through about the first two-thirds of the book, after which it falls apart a bit.
The setup is compelling — let me just quote from the inside jacket copy:
Conrad and Joanna Harrison, a young couple from Los Angeles, attempt to save their marriage by leaving the pressures of the city to start anew in a quiet, rural setting. They buy a Victorian mansion that once served as a haven for unwed mothers, called a birthing house. One day, when Joanna is away, the previous owner visits Conrad to bequeath a vital piece of the house’s historic heritage, a photo album that he claims “belongs to the house.” Thumbing through the old, sepia-colored photographs of midwives and fearful, unhappily pregnant girls in their starched, nineteenth-century dresses, Conrad is suddenly chilled to the bone: Staring back at him with a countenance of hatred and rage is the images of his own wife….
Ponyo is the new film by anime master Hayao Miyazaki, director of such films as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and Howl’s Moving Castle. It offers Miyazaki’s own unique take on the old Little Mermaid story.
The story in a nutshell involves Ponyo, a little girl who is more like a fish (the humans refer to her as a goldfish at first) than a mermaid, but nevertheless is a girl who is rescued by and falls in love with the human boy Sosuke. She becomes determined to become human and live on the land, and with a little help of some magic, she gets her wish. Her father tries his best to bring her back, there’s a magic-caused tsunami of sorts, and all sorts of hijinxs ensue.
Films · Hayao Miyazaki · Ponyo · Recommended · Studio Ghibli
