The Black Dahlia Murder have been improperly categorized pretty much since the beginning. They've been lumped into the deathcore and metalcore scenes despite being a melodic death metal band. Part of that reason is the late Trevor Strnad's menacing highs. The original comment:I know that the ...
I’m not sure I found the slow-building tension between Casey and a protective, borderline paternalistic stranger (Michael J. Rogers) quite as convincing or compelling as just the way “We Are All Going to the World’s Fair” replicates that hypnotic algorithmic suck of the video-based web....
In a world in which someone uses the phrase “autonomy of opinion” to justify their irrational disbelief of a verifiable fact, it’s going to take more than a satirical film to overcome the astonishing stupidity of a significant proportion of the populations of the US and the UK. When Marn...
The one thing the numbers do show clearly is that authors “have their day”. They will be nominated for half a dozen years on the trot, and then disappear. Some pop up a few years later, but most don’t. In some cases, it’s because their career has ended – either retirement or...
I have all three books – in the nice NEL editions from the 1970s – and have had them for many years, but they’re in storage at present. Having found cheap copies of the first two, I thought it worth giving them a go. That was a mistake. I mean, I know what van Vogt’s ...
fit either. I’m a big fan of breaking the fourth wall, even if it’s fictionally. Having said all that… I don’t like the titles of these novels, but I love the stories they tell. This one has the Order of the Golden Dawn attempting to turn Britain into, well, pretty much wha...
But the replacement plot hook, the threat of plague, puts the heroes in the awkward situation where everyone would have been better off if they’d just stayed home. Tomb Raider follows a long line of great video games turned into mediocre movies. The cinematic subgenre suf...
They’re helped by a “spider-crab” alien. The insectoid aliens, she learns, are invaders, devolved ones, it’s true; but the other races, native to the planet, would be happy to be rid of them, and Kemp is worried they might at some point reach Earth. Not that she expects to ...
Now that winter is here, I’ve been taking the bus into work. It’s great. There’s an app –everythingis apps here – and you buy a ticket on it and show the ticket to the driver. They’ll be introducing a “blippar” to read the QR code on the app’s tickets soon, but it...
The novel is a fairly standard fantasy – while certainly not epic, its setting is plainly of that subgenre – but enlivened by an assured comedic touch, some nice pieces of invention, and a clever use of first person that doesn’t reveal the gender of the narrator. The book opens with...