Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

How Social Media Rewired Our Minds

Posted on November 2, 2023 by smellincoffee

One of my core beliefs is that we live in a world which we made for ourselves, and yet which is not fit for ourselves. Our eyes expect to see what they do not see, our arms reach for which … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Influx

Posted on October 31, 2023 by smellincoffee

Jon Grady is ecstatic. Tonight he has ushered in a new era in human civilization. He’s created antigravity. A thousand years from now, schoolchildren will recite his name alongside Newton and Einstein. Or….they would, if a strike team from a … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science fiction | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Metatropolis

Posted on October 30, 2023 by smellincoffee

Metatropolis collects five short stories from a “shared future”, all in or about the future of the city. That vision is not one of growth, however, but of retraction and collapse. Expect nothing like the Sprawl here. I was drawn … Continue reading →

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Neuromancer

Posted on October 26, 2023 by smellincoffee

Neuromancer is a rare book — bewildering, beautiful, horrifying, disorienting. It’s the story of Case, a ruined hacker who is approached by a woman with a job offer. In the recent past, he made the mistake of stealing from the … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science fiction | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Reads to Reels: The Island of Lost Souls

Posted on October 25, 2023 by smellincoffee

Tonight a friend of mine and I watched The Island of Lost Souls, a 1932 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau. The island references Wells in the credits, and largely follows its plot although a shift in … Continue reading →

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Do you believe in…ghosts? Short rounds, ectoplasm edition

Posted on October 25, 2023 by smellincoffee

This past week I’ve finished two books about ghost-hunting: one from “the only full-time professional paranormal investigator”, Joe Nickell, and the other from journalist Will Storr. I’ve read both men before: Nickell’s Real Life X-Files from 2008, and Storr only … Continue reading →

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It is Tuesday, captain….teasing frequencies open

Posted on October 24, 2023 by smellincoffee

Time for the ol’ Tuesday Teese. “I have to fly this shoebox into an electrical maelstrom, go looking for a scientist in a jungle where it never stops raining, avoid corrupting a primitive, Prime Directive-protected indigenous culture, and then somehow … Continue reading →

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Child of Two Worlds

Posted on October 24, 2023 by smellincoffee

The Enterprise is a plague ship enroute to an independent world for a rare medical ingredient when it answers a distress signal and things get…complicated. As in, this couldn’t be worse, could it? complicated, because the rescue creates a no-win … Continue reading →

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In Harm’s Way

Posted on October 23, 2023 by smellincoffee

Scarcely five days after the Enterprise barely escaped an encounter with a giant machine capable of devouring entire planets, a rattled Jim Kirk has another foul assignment land on his desk. A scientist has gone missing on a planet within … Continue reading →

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Astounding

Posted on October 20, 2023 by smellincoffee

I don’t remember why I picked up “Foundation” back in 2008, but it would be the beginning of an obsession with Asimov that saw me reading collection after collection of his stories from the 1930s – 1960s, finding greater and … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews, science fiction | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments