The Quiet War by Paul McAuley

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The Quiet War by Paul McAuley is an interesting book about the choice people make. The book reminds me, in some ways, of Firefly. They both deal with a central authority and outer planets that want to go in a different direction. McAuley has created an novel that deals with different science fiction topics (ecological disaster, bio modifications and space wars), but the novel as a whole doesn’t hold together.
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DVD You Should Own – Duckman Season One & Two

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Duckman is a private eye and family man. And he wants to know “What the hell are YOU looking at?!?”. What started as a one shot comic by creator Everett Peck was then brought onto TV by the team that later brought us Rugrats and punctuated with a soundtrack by Frank Zappa (season one only). It’s a funny and irreverent show that couldn’t keep it’s humor past the second season and never had the cult following of other shows, but it’s a wonderful show.

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Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard

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Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard is a Dickensian mystery thriller with a familiar narrator in a Victorian setting. The novel follows from previous stories in a way that makes sense and has an engaging mystery. Louis Bayard has created an interesting novel that takes it’s time getting going, but finishes with a bang of action and several twists and unexpected turns.

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Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow by Brian Fies

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Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow by Brian Fies is a paean to the worlds of the future that were envisioned in the early to mid 1900s. The book covers the 1939 World’s Fair through the end of the US Space Missions in the mid 1970s to show how the future that was always destined to come has never arrived. It also is a story of the relationship between a boy and his father and how it changes as the world changes. It is an evocative look at technology’s relationship with people as the world moved on.

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Dr Who after 3 episodes

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As I mentioned in my review of the first episode, I am new to Dr Who. I’ve now watched the first 3 episodes with the new Dr. and am truly enjoying it (and wondering why I didn’t get into it sooner). The 3 episodes have been standalone (for the most part) and don’t require a lot of history to follow, but the longer term storylines have been popping up (and a couple references that I don’t understand since I haven’t seen previous seasons).

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Ghosts of Manhattan by George Mann

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Ghosts of Manhattan by George Mann is part Batman and part Sky Captain. The book is a steampunk pulp superhero that is an homage to The Shadow, only our hero is The Ghost. The US is in a cold war with Britain (whose Queen Victoria just died at the ripe of age of 107) and is deep into prohibition and jazz. The only thing missing from the book was appearances from Babe Ruth and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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Green Lantern: The Road Back by Gerard Jones

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Green Lantern: The Road Back by Gerard Jones was designed to handle DC Comics Green Lantern problem. Gerard Jones (author of The Comic Book Heroes) had to handle a situation that had three people who could lay claim to the same super hero name and a mythology that had been torn to shreds. So Jones went back to the basics (but not the beginning like another bad reboot that had been tried) and brought the history and legend of Green Lantern together and launched a new age for Green Lantern with defined roles for all three heroes.

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Who Censored Roger Rabbit by Gary Wolf

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Who Censored Roger Rabbit by Gary Wolf is a wonderful mystery book that combines noir trappings and Looney Tunes type characters. Everyone loved the movie, but the book is much darker and meaner with many of the same characters. If you go into the book expecting it to be like the movie, you are in for a surprise. But it will be a happy surprise as the book is well worth the read.

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Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow

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Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow is similar in tone to Little Brotheror Makers in that there is a bunch of cool ideas surrounded by a mediocre story. The book moves along fast and furiously, but at the end there isn’t much there. I did enjoy the book, but was left with a feeling that the book could have been done much better by a different writer.

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