Category: Aa

Homecoming — Season 1

By 5t4n5

Homecoming -- Season 1Production by Esmail Corp and directed by Sam Esmail.   Sam is also executive producer of this and Briarpatch.   And if you’re still not with it, he’s also the guy who created Mr. Robot.   Oh, that Sam Esmail.   Yes, that Sam Esmail.

It’s all a bit strange to start: Heidi Bergman, now a waitress, is questioned by Thomas Carrasco, a Department of Defence auditor, as to her role in the Homecoming Transitional Support Center, about which she claims to have no knowledge.   We then switch back and forth in timelines with Heidi, years earlier, running Homecoming while in the present claiming to have no knowledge of doing so.

There’s some great acting all round in this, but especially from Shea Whigham who plays Thomas Carrasco, the downtrodden cog in the DoD machine, to absolute perfection.

It’s good.   So good i even watched season 2: review coming soon.

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#5t4n5 #homecoming #tvandfilm

Extricating Young Gussy — P. G. Wodehouse

By 5t4n5

Extricating Young Gussy -- P. G. WodehouseThe first appearance of Jeeves and his master Bertie Wooster.   Bertie gets sent off to New York to save his friend Gussy from the vaudeville.

This is my very first reading of Wodehouse after watching the TV series.   And guess what?   I quite like it and will certainly be coming back for more.

You can read it for free by clicking on the cover, or you can also find it in The Jeeves Omnibus: Vol 5.

Next story after this one in the time line is The Inimitable Jeeves.

Pelham’s Page

#comedy #jeevesandwooster #pgwodehouse

The Vegetarian — Han Kang

By 5t4n5

The Vegetarian -- Han KangTo put it bluntly, this is vile.

It’s not long into this book before we are treated to graphic descriptions of a disgusting excuse for a human being raping his wife and then later, just sits and watches while his father in law beats her extremely in front of the whole family, including the young children, and then her father has her siblings restrain her in a chair while he violently smashes the dead rotting filth these people consider food into her face forcing it into her mouth.

The attitudes in this book, not only to vegetarians, vegans and their respective diets, but also to how a human being can be treated by their own family, are, quite frankly, appallingly backward and extremely vile and sickening.

I didn’t even get to a quarter of the way into this book and i was utterly sickened by it.   How anyone can think that this is what people wish to read for entertainment is quite beyond my comprehension — they, and those that are entertained by this vile filth, should be ashamed of themselves.

Is this what people are really like in South Korea?   I have no idea, but this really doesn’t do South Korean’s any favours whatsoever.

How this won a Man Booker prize i have no idea.   That people actually carried on reading this after the rapes and the extreme domestic abuse is quite beyond me.   Some people obviously have no empathy, because if you have any empathy at all, you would be sickened to the core and throw this book away, not give it an award.

This should also have a warning label very clearly portrayed on the cover — THIS BOOK CONTAINS GRAPHIC ACCOUNTS OF RAPE AND EXTREME DOMESTIC ABUSE.

The only award this book deserves: Deleted.

Kang’s Page

#hankang #whataloadofcrap

Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel — Ruth Hogan

By 5t4n5

Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel -- Ruth HoganHaving totally enjoyed Ruth’s first two books i had fairly high expectations of this, and i wasn’t disappointed.

Once more Ruth dives into sensitive topics and tells a great story with not only compassion but also a wonderful touch of humour in all the right places.

Written from the point of view of Tilly and Tilda.   Tilly, the little girl who finds out her dad just died after he went away to work and Tilda, the grown woman whose mum just died and left Tilda her diaries of what really happened to her dad all those years ago — and a simple note saying “Forgive me”.   Back and forth we go, a chapter at a time, between Tilly back then and Tilda now, and it works amazingly well as, piece by piece, Tilly’s story gets told and Tilda’s truth gets revealed.

And what a wonderful place the Paradise Hotel must have been for a child to live, if only for a while.   A delightful den of loveable, eccentric crackpots: “Everyone there had been cracked in the kiln in one way or another.”

Ruth is a wonderful writer who never fails to conjure up the most wonderful cast of characters to tell the stories about the damaged souls that life creates.   I do hope for many more books from Ruth.

Ruth’s Page

#lgbtq #ruthhogan

The Blacklist — Season 7

By 5t4n5

The Blacklist usually has some great season endings but, sadly, this season had to end early.   Bummer.

So what we’ve learned this season is that Raymond is on his last legs, health wise, and tidying up his estate ready for the inevitable death.   One would have thought he’d already done that considering his line of work.

Raymond also discovers that Katarina, or whoever she really is, isn’t dead after all.

So now we have to watch yet another season to find out what is actually happening and who Raymond really is.

On a sad note, we have to say a final goodbye to Brian Dennehy, who left us in April.   Over 180 films and many tv shows besides — including The Blacklist of course.   Now that is one really superb innings.

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#5t4n5 #theblacklist #tvandfilm

Code Breakers: Beta — Colin F. Barnes

By 5t4n5

Code Breakers: Beta -- Colin F. BarnesBasically, it’s more of the same as Prequel and Alpha, which is all quite good and keeps one rivetted and moving along at a very good pace but, and here’s the thing, i just can’t handle diving into Gamma at the moment, it’s all become a bit too much.

Yeah, for now at least, i’ve totally overloaded all of my data banks and overheated my CPU’s with all this hacking, AI’s, post apocalypse chaos, everyone wanting to kill each other and take over the world, etc., etc..

So i’m off for some quiter paced reading for a while and maybe i’ll get back to reading Gamma and finishing the series sometime in the future, maybe not.

Colin’s Page

#scifi #postapocalypse #cyberpunk #dystopian #colinfbarnes

Code Breakers: Alpha — Colin F. Barnes

By 5t4n5

Code Breakers: Alpha -- Colin F. BarnesAfter the super lively prequel i was wondering if this could keep up, and i have to say that it more than matched my hopes.   This is all rather full on stuff, it just doesn’t stop steaming along full tilt.   I can’t remember the last time i read a book so fast, just didn’t want to put it down.

Back are our two wonderful protagonists from the prequel and this time they’re joined by Jerry.   Jerry’s lead a rather sheltered life in a nice big, clean, domed city, that is, until it all goes wrong one day and he has to leave and run off into the wasteland outside.

There’s also lots of other great characters added to the mix with lots of cyberpunky, post-apocalyptic, dystopian shenanigans to go along with them.   Yes, folks, we loves any kind of shenanigans at Kindle Worm HQ and this ones got several different kinds.

Full steam ahead into Beta: don’t go away, i’ll be back soon.

Colin’s Page

#scifi #postapocalypse #cyberpunk #dystopian #colinfbarnes

Code Breakers: Prequel — Colin F. Barnes

By 5t4n5

Code Breakers: Prequel -- Colin F. BarnesA quick and lively prequel for the main series, which i have dived eagerly straight into without a pause.

Characters are really well written and perfectly suited for this nuked out, post apocalyptic wasteland that the world has become.   I am so hoping the rest of the series holds up to what’s been suggested here because it looks like it’s going to be a rather good read.

Next up: Code Breakers: Alpha.

Colin’s Page

#scifi #postapocalypse #cyberpunk #dystopian #colinfbarnes

The Breath of War — Aliette de Bodard

By 5t4n5

The Breath of War -- Aliette de BodardCurrently available to read at Beneath Ceaseless Skies and also in the collection Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight.

This is the last of “The Universe of Xuya” stories currently listed on Aliette’s website, where it’s mentioned as being “… in a completely different corner of space”.   And yes, it most certainly is.

It’s got some sci-fi-ish things going on but at the same time it has beings carved out of rock that are breathed life into by their breath sisters who are then needed to breath life into their breath sister’s new born babies else they’re still born.   So in a lot of ways it feels far more of a fantasy story than a sci-fi one.   It’s certainly a very different thing to the rest of the Xuya stories, but it’s really quite enjoyable and i would give it the award of the most stand alone story in the Xuya universe.   If you are just wanting to grab a quick read without needing any background stuff then this would be it.

And that, as they say, is that: all current Xuya stories read apart from one.

Aliette’s Page

#scifi #aliettedebodard