Lee
Fancast
Director: Ben Affleck
Ted: Matt Damon
Lily: Riley Keough / Meghann Fahy
Miranda: Blake Lively / Anne Hathaway
Brad: Casey Affleck / Bobby Cannavale / Wyatt Russell
Eric: Callum Turner / Jacob Elordi
Det. Henry Kimball: Joel Edgerton / Clive Owen
Det. Roberta James: Jodie Turner-Smith
David: Michael Douglas / Timothy Dalton
Sharon: Sharon Stone / Susan Sarandon
Stumbled upon this due to discovering Yorgos Lanthimos is planning to adapt it into a film. A strange and intriguing short supernatural western that certainly fits his unique style and eccentricity. Not really the western horror I was looking for after reading the synopsis, but still an interesting concept when it comes to the “monster.” I'm envisioning Christopher Abbot and Robert Pattinson as the two bounty hunter leads.
Yeah...if like me, you were expecting for this to be something more akin to Dead Space, Sunshine, and Annihilation, best out this lacklustre scifi book back on the shelf. I lost interest around chapter 10, but touched it out in hopes that there would be some epic twist ending, but no, it just kept trudging through one-note monotony. I forget the name of the short comic about an astronaut trying to make it back to his ship in an advanced AI spacesuit, but the suit keeps eliminating non-essential parts of his body in order for him to survive and keep moving. But that short comic alone does more with terror, suspense, and space tech than this overlong book.
Strong The Girl on a Train and Gone Girl vibes with a heavy dosage of Netflix's You (I haven't read it's source material yet). A sturdy recommendation for fellow fans of mystery thrillers and the voyeurism of disturbia.
Feels like a mumblecore thriller/drama where anything you imagine to be the cause of this mystery is better than what we actually get. You can tell this was stormed up or in some part adjusted to fit a COVID lens, as it absolutely plays with themes of paranoia, isolation, and fear mongering, among others. I liked the intrigue and the prose, but the third act and ending fell incredibly flat. There were slight vibes of a possible Twilight Zone episode direction it could have taken, but then it decides to remain more so in the mundane lane.
I haven't looked at the Netflix cast for the future film adaptation yet, but while reading it, I envisioned:
- Amanda: Meghann Fahey/Rebecca Hall
- Clay: Adam Driver/Dan Stevens
- Ruth: Ruth Negga/Viola Davis (after it's revealed she's older)
- G. H.: David Oyelowo but then Denzel Washington/Delroy Lindo (after you find out he's older in age)
A very fun and energetic meta scifi comedy from one of the writers of The Simpsons, Disenchantment, and Regular Show, narrated/acted by a fourth wall breaking Richard Nixon. An alternate history where JFK survived the assassination attempt, with nothing but an even more bolstered popularity and a new roguish eyepatch for his lost left eye. After a brief coma, Jack leads the States upwards and onwards to the final frontier of space, forgoing political strife in Vietnam and the Soviet Union to focus on building a lunar colony. By 1968, the United States had already launched dozens of successful Moon landings, established bases, and quickly expanding America's consumerism. Come 1969, Hilton hotels, breakfast chains, and entertainment venues for the likes of Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Jerry Lewis make appearances.
We follow Natasha Lyonne's sassy smoker night nurse Nancy Kramich aboard Howard Hugh's space station, the Liberty Bell. What follows is a very fresh, entertaining, meta, scifi mystery comic romp, despite a lacklustre ending.
I know I'm going to be in the minority with my rating, but it seems to perfectly align with the fact that I'm also in the minority of the reader demographic this far: the only guy. I shed light on this observation simply because I feel like Cathy Ulrich's Small, Burning Things is a collection of disconnected short stories that certainly seem to aim for more of a female readership. I don't know how to explain it, but I jus found myself struggling to relate or latch onto these shorts that felt more like fleeting thoughts shared intimately between two friends under the stars. Now this isn't to say that it's something akin to a Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey—as it's not romance—but I couldn't help but feel like I just wasn't being spoken to throughout. About halfway through when some of the stories began to lean a little more supernatural—minus the suspense and thrills—another collection of unique yet more enthralling shorts came to mind, Darrin Doyle's The Dark Will End the Dark (which I think Lori also worked with in promotion). Small, Burning Things felt like reading an American-Midwest high school girl's intimate collection of diary entries–I'm feeling during the transition from summer to fall near the end of fair season.
Regardless, many thanks to Lori of TNBBC fame for providing me with an advanced review copy.
Very much the Samurai oriented Game of Thrones that word of mouth sold it to be. I'd go an additional step further in specifying a more acute comparison to House of the Dragon, as Shogun leans more into the socio-political aspects of its feudal 16th century Japan. It's over 1000pg count allows the characters to breathe and develop through its various revelations, fights, betrayals, and romantic ties. While I would say that author James Clavell gets a little trigger happy with his assumption that seppuku was committed on the fly left and right, Clavell does take detailed pauses to showcase the stark cultural differences between the English, Portuguese, Spanish, and of course, Japanese. It's a tome to get through, but I did enjoy my time with it—possibly the longest I've taken to read a single book ever.
Stories ranked best to least:
- Late Returns (by and far the best)
- Throttle
- The Devil on the Staircase
- Dark Carousel
- By The Silver Water Of Lake Champlain
- Faun
- Wolverton Station
- In The Tall Grass (now I can watch the Netflix adaptation)
- All I Care About is You
- Thumbprint
- Mums
- You Are Released
A fun and creative take on the man playing God story. Looking forward to Gore Verbinski's film adaptation even more now! If you like the insect action sections of Starship Troopers, this is definitely a strong recommendation.
A far stronger opening than the previous book in the series, as Rogue Protocol's opening chapter alone is much more entertaining than the entirety of Artificial Intelligence. Whether it be Murderbot's continued reviews of the various shows he's downloaded to his memory unit, his gradually growing liking to human showers now, or his general antisocial tendencies, that missing charm of the first book has finally returned.
Stephen King explains that he believes Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, and Nightmares & Dreamscapes to all be one trilogy of his shorts. The latter of which consisting of some shorts he didn't think were entirely ready on the same level as the other two collections at first.
- Crouch End (Lovecraftian horror)
- Suffer the Little Children (feels Clive Barkerian)
- Sorry Right Number (Hitchcock would've loved this Twilight Zone style ep)
- Popsy (the recent Abigail movie definitely read this)
- Chattery Teeth (feels like parallel to The Monkey)
- The Night Flier (Nightmare at 20,000 Feet if the plane also landed)
- 10 O'clock People (King's They Live)
- Rainy Season (Shirley Jackson's The Summer People meet The Nest)
- The End of the Whole Mess (could be a Twilight Zone ep)
- Ummey's Last Case (great Barton Finkish concept that should be adapted)
- Home Delivery (small island community zombie short)
- The Moving Finger (guy loses his mind locked in his apartment type beat)
- Dolan's Cadillac (might be the most screen adaptation potential, which it does have one)
- Doctor's Case (King's jab at Sherlock & Watson)
- The Fifth Quarter
- It Grows on You
- My Pretty Pony (feels like a brief flashback of a bigger story)
- Sneakers (incredibly underwhelming given the potential)
- You Know They've got a Hell of a Band (bland despite the premise)
- Dedication (as usual, King is rather odd when writing Black characters, and this is an entire Black narrative here)
- The House on Maple Street (forgot it instantly)
- The Beggar and the Diamond (not a King story, but added in)
I don't count the poem Brooklyn August, or Head Down, as that was King sitting about his son's real baseball game.
Not nearly as atmospheric as the Crimson Peak comparisons would have you think going in. Mexican Gothic is far more in line with A Cure for Wellness set in a very lite Guillermo del Toro mansion. The plot is predictable, and the attempts at suspense and tension are not adequate enough for the lacklustre finale revelation. Yet, I did enjoy the fleshed out protagonist and her sassy free spirited nature in contrast and intelligent defiance to the patriarchal traditional and racist Doyle family.
FANCAST:
Noemí: Camila Mendes/Rachel Zegler
Catalina: Melissa Barrera/Eiza Gonzalez
Virgil Doyle: Alexander Skarsgård/Henry Cavill
Florence Doyle: Gillian Anderson/Eva Green
Francis Doyle: Bill Skarsgård/George McKay//Nicolas Hoult
Howard Doyle: Stellan Skarsgård/Bill Nighy
Dr. Julio Camarillo: Diego Calva
Dr. Arthur Cummins: David Thewlis/Stephen Graham
Far too long, gets incredibly tedious until maybe chapter 35ish—which really had me wanting to file this under a DNF. To Nat Cassidy's credit, he—yes, I too was surprised to discover the author was a man—writes the role, perspective, and struggle of aging menopausal women very well and with respect. That said, you'll have a funner time with The Haar, Rouge, and/or Sister, Maiden, Monster in regards to somewhat similar plot tones. Mary was nothing like American Psycho or Midsommar, which is how it was marketed for me.
Uneventful and lacking in any interesting characters. I was expecting much more of a suspenseful and eerie atmosphere like A Cure for Wellness.
Ellison manages to really depict his eerie, slimy, distorted visuals in this body horror meets mental anguish psychological horror short. All in all, not as disgusting as I had expected, but a brisk intriguing read regardless.
The Langoliers is definitely an underrated Stephen King story. Deserving of a modern movie by M. Night Shamylan or Jordan Peele.
While I still enjoyed my time with this incredibly vivid world building and immediate—almost intimidating—sense of absorption via myriad forms of jargon and culture, this is certainly overhyped in being called the greatest sci-fi book of all-time. The characters are for the most part great—and Paul is set up to have some excellent development—but so much time is dedicated to the agriculture, biology, and overall politics of Arrakis, that you wouldn't be blamed for feeling this book's already decently sized length. That said, I did think having finished this prior to the film's release greatly helped and improved my love and respect for Denis Villenueve's adaptation.
Sukkubus by way of A24, with a subtle hint of Oedipus Rex. Nowhere nearly as disgusting as many seem to have agreed upon, but then again I just have such a high tolerance that even French New Extreme cinema won't get me to flinch. Now sure there are moments where I can see why the less desensitised could shiver—grape suppository, cannibalism, elderly nursing, etc.—on a whole it's all what one would expect of a medieval setting. I've quickly become a huge fan of Mosfegh, but by the time I got to the underwhelming third act of Lapvona, I began ti worry I'll never reach the same enamored high of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, again.
FANCAST:
Marek: Barry Keoghan
Jude: Joel Edgerton
Agatha: Jodie Comer
Young Ina: Anya Taylor-Joy
Old Ina: Tilda Swinton / Hannah Waddingham
Villiam: Tom Hardy
Jacob: TimmyC
Lisbet: Thomasin McKenzie / Olivia Cooke
Father Barnabus: Sir Ben Kingsley
As expected, some great sci-fi world building and politics from the master Asimov. If you liked the banquet chapter from Dune, you'll be right at home here; Asimov influenced every scifi writer and director, but it absolutely shows that Frank Herbert was heavily and intrinsically affected by Foundation. Now I can start the Apple+ mini-series adaptation with Lee Pace.
A fun audio experience with great sound editing and design, but a bit of a lacklustre short story. I would like more audiobooks to be better produced with sound effects like this though.
Far less compelling than the first entry into the Murderbot series, and with much less world building. I found this sequel to not only be extremely short, devoid of the character dynamics of the first, but also vastly hollow and lacking of any mental intrigue.
Despite the slew of tragedy in this masterfully creative work, I can't help but feel a sense of underlying optimism and human spirit in perseverance. Slight Mass Effect vibes á la Reapers, and another reminder that our own creations/reliance on tech will lead to our downfall—as every scifi story has depicted.