Scientifically Illiterate Vogon Poetry.
345303
Some would argue that this is "art" and should not be judged in the same way as conventional "entertainment" films are.  That might be true to some extent, but I contend that it is really just a very poorly made, poorly acted, poorly narrated, poorly conceived failure.

I picked it up thinking, "Cool, a science fiction film by an avant-garde director with an environmentalist message.  Right up my alley."  What followed was a brief period of bafflement, followed by disbelief and outrage as I realized how horrible this movie is.

This movie features extensive use of NASA footage (mostly inside scenes of the space shuttle and lectures/interviews) and some truly beautiful Antarctic undersea footage.  Okay so far.  It has a strange and beautiful soundtrack, also very much okay as far as I'm concerned.

But the story...  Fearing contamination from an alien disease, NASA sends up an ad-hoc space shuttle mission which immediately determines (via badly repurposed SOHO and other solar observatory footage) that the entire Milky Way galaxy is inhospitable, so we'd better go to the edge of the Amdromeda Galaxy instead.  In the space shuttle.  Using completely bastardized Lagrange Point orbital mechanics (a cool lecture in its natural context) to magically transit the 3 or so million light years to Andromeda overnight.  The astronauts then spend two days scuba diving in the liquid helium (-260 deg. C) planet they find there, and decide that this is (of course) the perfect place to put a new base.  They then travel (forward) in time (not relativistically, but parallel-universtacularly) while being transmuted into pure light and reassembled back on a now-abandoned Earth, which shore looks purty without all those people.  Roll credits.

All that might be forgiven if... um... uh.... No, all that is unforgivable.  But it's made significantly worse by the flat performance turned in by the film's only actor, Brad Dourif.  His is by far the weakest performance in the film.

If I were one of the scientists whose work was quoted in this movie, I would be so unhinged by the ordeal as to waste the rest of my days searching for ways to go back in time in a trans-galactic wormhole-surfing space shuttle to dip Werner Herzog in liquid helium and prevent this film from being completed.  Sadly, the time for proactively dipping Werner Herzog in liquid helium is gone forever.  But it is (hopefully) not too late for you to turn your back on this pretentious atrocity.  Run, I beg of you.  It's too late for me; save yourselves.

(An addendum: Don't believe the reviewers who imply that people who dislike this movie simply lack the sophistication to appreciate it for what it is.  I enjoyed the original Russian "Solaris", which is certainly no popcorn movie.  And one of my favorites of all time is "Koyaanisqatsi" - a film which consists entirely of plotless, soundless documentary footage with a score that prominently features toneless Hopi vocals.  So I can appreciate the avant garde, and I still say this is the worst film I've ever seen. Honest. You're better off watching two hours of security camera footage from an empty underground parking garage.)
3395675
This is an extremely short tract that weaves indiscriminately amongst legitimate (albeit math-free) science, Gilligan's-Island style improvisation (that's a toilet float atop the coil pictured on the cover), and mythical pop pseudoscience ("unlimited free energy," etc.).

A good Google search will be far more informative, and free, too.
4193662
Dreadful and antiquated. I made the mistake and read the author's acceptance speech for the Newbery Medal first and instantly disliked her. The condescending and snobbish attitude in the speech is present in the stories (I only managed to get to book 2), her desire to educate children and "teach" them creativity as well as values is oppressing throughout. While expressing a wish to spark imagination, her plots are very poorly constructed, meaningless dialogues are decorated with random "big" words and there are only unlikeable characters. Wanting to tell an unconventional story is her excuse for being unable to decide on any genre. Science fiction? The intriguing thing about SF is that it takes existing science and imagines it developing further. The scientific elements she includes throughout are embarrassingly false even for somebody in the sixties. H.G. Wells and Jules Verne were doing better. Fantasy? Too unimaginative. Young adult literature? Too moralizing. For children? No flow in the story. The whole time you have the feeling that the author thought that literary quality was wasted on children anyway, that they should be happy being allowed to read her books because they are different. Maybe people remember them positively from there childhood for lack of better alternatives, but literature for children has evolved since. DO NOT BUY!
1734985
A very hastily and cynically written response to a physicist's book on physics from someone who is neither mathematically literate nor a native speaker of the book's language sadly.
1847270
Although, I love science fiction book Blithering Genius I was totally indifferent. Too many characters, the plot is so confusing and simply hard to read. No matter how hard I try writer failed to attract me to read. All in all, the book is full of strange characters: Queen Plithergaflerd, Rog, Thelonius (a wizard), Psychann, Cheesters (genetically engineered beasts), Sir Reginald, a dragon, teleporting psionic fish, a trio named Skippy, a horse that talks, hair operates with its owner, spiders, computers that manage people and not to mention all of them. Although me for a few moments writer managed to laugh, they were only moments. I wish I could give a better review of books but I think it is for me too confusing, but there is always a reader of science fiction that could be like this this book.
"Copy provided courtesy of the author in exchange for an honest review."
2879346
An author who was unfamiliar with the source material he was supposed to be writing about.
1919211
I liked the mashup of sci-fi and fantasy but it becomes incredibly frustrating because the author doesn't know anything about physics, gravity, orbital mechanics, or anything else which might relate to sci-fi. Virtually every single thing he writes about space and planets is wrong or a false wive's tale. It completely takes you out of the story when even simple physics are wrong. If you don't know anything then I think he should stick to everything being magic.
3313528
Outside of Catalonia and Spain, Antoni Gaudi i Cornet is mythologised as a sort of mad genius . The man, like his work is appreciated, but completely misunderstood. Gils van Hensbergen's intention is to present Gaudi to us in the Catalan nationalist context which formed him and his buildings. Yes, an understanding of Catalanism with its piety, spiritualism, chauvinist patriotism and family values is helpful to understanding Gaudi's life, but not essential to appreciating his work. Antoni Gaudi was a genius. Works of genius communicate themselves. That is all you really need to know admire and love Gaudi's designs.
As pure as Hensbergen's intentions are, the book is a failure. Poorly written, haphazardly organized and indifferently edited, Gaudi is painful to read and does very little to improve ones understanding of the subject. To learn about the Barcelona of  those days, its politics and players and how they influenced the architect, read Robert Hughes' Barcelona: a magnificent book by a master non-fiction stylist.
Gaudi: A Biography is also inadequate in the descriptions of the projects and the buildings. Hensbegen never clarifies what happened at Poblet; how Gaudi worked and what his studio was like; that the model for Colonia Guell was for an entire church, not just a crypt; and most importantly how did Gaudi view space? Hensbergen never discusses Gaudi's mature interiors. He treats the designer solely as a sculptor--a former of symbols--not as a creator of spaces.
I was confused as often by the imperfectly written sentences as by the badly explained ideas. The chronology is a muddle. Dates are even mistyped. Names pile up without clear explanation of who they are or why they are being mentioned. And the endnotes...! They are confounding digressions which clarify nothing. Without beauty, rationality and solid construction, this book is wholely unworthy of its subject.
4901641
There is a laziness to these poems, a fake rigor -- short sparse lines that imply lyric tension, but feel like no more than cocktail coaster jottings.  Lots of vague pseudo-connections, hocus-pocus, imagistic smoke and mirrors -- and to what end?  There is little here that speaks to an intelligent, receptive poetry audience.  It is all word games, which we are told to believe contain some higher purpose and deeper meaning, indiscernible but ever-present.  How the hocum that the academy has labeled "language poetry" has taken root would be hilarious if it were not such a destructive force in American literature.  It undermines the appreciation of clear, powerful multi-textured poetry that is more depth than surface.  Experimental, surreal, futurist poetry can be quite wonderful.  The best of its practitioners, from Stevens to Eluard to Vallejo, spoke directly to their audience, however deflective or circular their language might initially appear.  Its carefully wrought circularity leads the reader, or listener, into a labyrinth resonant with music of all sorts.  Ms. Armantrout's verse, and its ilk, speaks to itself, unintelligibly and pretentiously.  Read it aloud to another person and ask him or her where it has taken them, aesthetically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Pairing odd combinations of images -- many of them not even fresh or original -- is not poetry, but gamesmanship, verbal solitaire.  Poetry is not about scratching your head, but feeding it.  Try reading some real lyric and narrative poetry: Merwin, Strand, Hecht, Simic, Rich, Justice, Ai, Christopher, Hirsch, Spires, Levine -- there's a world of fabulous American poetry out there, rich with texture, music, and yes, meaning.
119803
Although I respect Fagles as a modern translator, I cannot recommend his translations of Homer...I would probably only recommend his translations of Sophocles's 3 Theban Plays.

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey don't sound like Epics anymore under Fagles...they are turned into mild nice sounding children stories!  He tones down Homer to the point that I feel that Fagels wants his personality to shine NOT Homer's!  I am gravely disappointed by this.

I also find that he not only forces beauty into the text but adds too much of his personal warmth that gets in the way of the texts and creates a vision of Homer's epics that is truly unsound to the original.

Not only that but the font and design of the print is an eye sore, I don't like the choice the publishers and Fagles gave to the works.  It doesn't make for easy reading...

Stanley Lombardo's translations are unparalleled in their print layout, design and font...not to say vivid and powerful evocative translation.

I continue to find Richmond Lattimore's facinating translations the most accurate to how the Ancient Greek language sounds to English ears. I would buy Lattimore over Fagles (and Fitzgerald).

And I still think Rieu's famous Prose version of the Iliad from 1950 is hard to beat for it's modernity and readibility.

...Find out for yourself by comparing a few versions but don't be duped into this mysterious "Fagles hype"!
683385
"The Crimson Worlds Collection I," authored by Mr. Jay Allen, showcases the first three (3) books of his "Crimson Worlds," SciFi Saga. It also showcases Mr. Allen's inept writing, nearly total lack of basic writing skills, and his robust ignorance of known science and astrophysics, military strategy and tactics, and economics. The author has created a barely readable, often illiterate, tome of substandard, SciFi drivel.

The storyline is a few centuries in the near future, where Earth and humanity, has barely survived multiple wars. Sprawling, undemocratic governments have morphed into eight (8) "superpowers," controlled by oligarchs and religious zealots, that have created feral, barbaric, brutal populations as an unending pool for cheap labor and cannon fodder. The serendipitous discovery of "wormholes," have allowed the colonization of multiple interstellar systems, firmly under the dictatorial thumbs of the Earth governments. As "warfare" is prohibited within the Sol System, the colonies become the battleground. Every government is competing with each other, with no quarter given. Tactical and strategic nukes are tossed around with total abandon. Marine, Naval space warships, and other military and paramilitary units are shunted around, in order to control "wormhole gates," colonies, and obtain resources.

There are two (2) basic issues that makes these very bad books.

First and foremost, Mr. Allen cannot write. He is incapable of creating a cogent and coherent sentence. The writing borders on illiteracy. Runaway, run-on sentences become paragraphs. The lengthy list of words the author prefers to use, in order to equivocate and create "sentences," follow: of course, like, still, at least, so, though, probably, and many similar. The author's all time favorite is "but." The word "but" appears nearly as often as the use of a period. There are actual sentences that achieve usage of "but" twice. These are not stylistic nor a device for narratives. They are not just flaws or faults. They are WRONG. The author needlessly repeats throughout, either for "page-fill" or indicative of lack of reading comprehension. The obvious lack of both editing and proofreading are further indicators of bad, bad writing.

Secondly, Mr. Allen has attempted to create a storyline with a great arc, complicated and complex. He fails in execution due to his aforementioned inability to write and the scope of his ignorance. Science, astrophysics, human anatomy, military, economics, and other base knowledge, essential to Mr. Allen's self perceived "epic," are either at an inane, cartoon level or fully absent. The author apparently is a proponent of "ignorance is bliss."

After trudging through all three (3) books, hoping for improvement as the author perhaps matured, took some remedial writing courses, did some research by opening a book, "Googling," or speaking with someone who has actual knowledge, this reviewer was too optimistic. Mr. Allen's writing is evidence of the self absorbed, abject failure of so many self published SciFi author's.

Fortunately, the reviewer only wasted some empty time and the Kindle Unlimited Monthly fee.

The three (3) eBooks included in Volume I of "Crimson Worlds," are ALL HIGHLY NOT (caps intentional) recommended, repeat, NOT recommended. They were fully read via Kindle Unlimited.
2688431
My first thought was that this was LARPers making a movie with their cell phones but that would be insulting to LARPers. A mostly silent movie with narration written in Vogon poetry.
3125327
The guy finds a way to take simple facts and stretch them into an anthologies comprised bad puns, unrelated examples, and roundabout definitions that are not clear or efficient. Reading this has irreparably lowered my IQ.
2192544
Unfortunately poets aren't always the best readers of their work. Still even a poor reading of good poetry is rewarding.  The words soar even if the voice doesn't.
54676
I like poetry, but I don't think it works well when writing a book on mathematical history. The point of this book seems to be the showcasing of the author's formidable command of language. OK - now that we know how great the author is in his use of language - what's left? There is some good information, but nothing so extraordinary that it merits the work you have to go through to glean it. SUMMARY: Long on beautiful language, short on information.
4768158
The poem is excellent though the I formatted text ruins the reading experience. If you can find at another source you would be happier. It is shame.
4269835
There are a few interesting scientific findings hidden amid the florid language that reminds me of the fundraisers on public television. I personally find this style of writing unreadable, which is a pity because I suspect that underneath the effusive rah, rah, rah the professor may have something worthwhile to say.