A Good Outing, But It's No Black Holes
592453
I have been a fan of Muse ever since i saw them at the 2004 Big Day Out, and since have been one of my favourites.  I was excited about the release of The Resistance, especially since the bands last outing Black Holes and Revelations was a piece of pure genius from Matt Bellamy and co.  Upon my first listen the only thing i could think of is this doesn't sound very much like Muse.  This album is a lot lighter with no really catchy song to hook you in.  No Knights of Cydonia, Starlight, Time Is Running Out, Plug In Baby, if you would.  My favourite track on the album is Undisclosed Desires, a track that is all electronic and does not sound like the Muse it's fans know and love, but is still a great track.  I was told by some friends that they had harnessed the spirit of Freddy Murcury and while some parts of this album are reminiscent of Queen, i wish they had stuck to this throughout the album, instead of going for a more classical piano stream of consciousness (don't get me wrong, Bellamy is a modern day master on the piano, but there is a little too much, such as the Chopin tune he plays in United States of Eurasia).  Don't get me wrong, this album is still a great listen, but Muse just seemed to hit it right in 2006's Black Holes and Revelations, and this seems more like a step backwards for the band.  I would recommend this album for fans of Muse and british rock in general.  However, if you are a new Muse fan, go and get a copy of Black Holes or Origins of Symmetry.
A good outing, but not their best.
4296936
Regardless of the polarizing reviews, this is an interesting more "modern" commercial effort, and one that I applaud as a good adventure.  There are times when Groban's voice is in starkly naked form and sounds truly "honest" for lack of a better descriptor.  Unfortunately, there are other times when his more classical sound pulls fairly far back into the throat and loses a good deal of beauty and point in the process.  Groban's voice is still readily identifiable and full of the expected color and mannerisms that make it what it is, but there are several moments that needed a retake after some adjusting for vocal placement.  London Hymn in particular is nearly painful to listen to.  Odd choices in diphthong handling in Bells of New York are also a bit off-putting. I am concerned that he seems to be using more and more glottal releases in the classical production and trying to generate a darker tone than his core sound.  There are moments that you can hear studio "manipulation" to brighten some of the more oddly produced sounds.  Not a bad album, but rather inconsistent at times.  I REALLY am enjoying the lighter pop style on most of the tracks though.
4393760
I'm going to take a different tack from most of the reviews thus far, as I found this a decent novel.

It's a generally accepted fact that Dan Abnett is one of Black Library's very best authors. Indeed, until the entry of Aaron Dembski-Bowden into the Horus Heresy series, I considered Abnett the series's undisputed champion. At present, the two are roughly equal in capacity, and have for the past several years divided their labors: Abnett's Horus Heresy novels focus exclusively on the loyalist legions, and Dembski-Bowden's books focus only on the traitors. The Unremembered Empire is another Abnett work that highlights the loyalists.

This book takes place almost entirely on Maccrage, capital world of the Ultramarines, and takes its leads from several prior novels in the series, notably Know No Fear, Vulkan Lives, and the short stories on the Night Lords. Not one, or two, or three primarchs, but five of them throughout the course of the novel. Guilliman, the Lion, and Curze take center stage, and the interactions between them are very interesting; in particular, the verbal play between the first two, both of whom are loyalists, highlights the fact that the Horus Heresy has strewn seeds of doubt even between those of the Emperor's sons who have remained loyal to him. I found the presence of the primarchs to be the most entertaining part of the book, and Abnett continues to do a wonderful job of giving character to Guilliman.

Now, there are certainly a few issues with this book. Chief amongst these is the surfeit of mindless action. While this comprised almost the entirety of Abnett's Know No Fear, that could be forgiven in light of the fact that said novel focused in its totality upon the Battle of Calth. It was both surprising and disappointing, however, to see it consume so much of The Unremembered Empire as well. It was unusual to see this from Abnett, who has, in his entries to the series thus far, been very able to balance action with finer development of story and characters. That he failed to strike that balance in this novel made the story very slow at times, as much of it was consumed with repetitive combat scenes.

Equally unfortunate and surprising was Abnett's resort to the presence of an overly-powerful villain, namely Konrad Curze. Dembski-Bowden did a fantastic job of developing Curze's characters in the former's short stories on the Night Lords, and Abnett builds on this. But whereas Curze and the Lion were fairly well-matched in those stories, as primarchs should generally be, The Unremembered Empire sees Curze single-handedly take on three primarchs and an entire city of loyalist space marines and come out fairly unscathed. It was unfortunate to watch Guilliman and Lion so minimized, and it was irksome that this happened purely as a plot device; there would have been no real plot at all had Curze not been able to unrealistically run circles around overwhelming opposition.

That said, the insight that this novel gave into numerous primarchs and their legions made this a worthwhile read for me, even if it was a weak offering by Abnett's standards. I wish I could give it a 3.5, but that rating does not exist on this website; in deference to Abnett, who really has done so much for the Horus Heresy series, I'll round it up to a 4. Readers shouldn't expect to be blown away, but the novel is a quick and entertaining affair.
1870159
Every piece of this book is enjoyable and reasonably well put together, but I didn't really love any of it. The twists were pretty easy to see coming, but not badly executed. The space opera tropes were all in the right place and used reasonably effectively. Some of the characters were pretty fun, or at least interesting to dislike. A decent little popcorn read, which is an odd conclusion to come to when a book is about space fascists and the nature of being human.
2002260
Don't get me wrong, I like this album and listen to it on a regular basis. Standout tracks for me include A Mother (1) and Living Free (2). To me, both have a good solid and deep foundation which is more than I can say for a few others on this record. In my opinion, the tracks Spellbound (3) and Give My Soul (4) would be tunes you would more likely expect to encounter playing a Playstation (one) car racing game and not from the dual creators of an album as justified as K & D Sessions. Anyways, for me this album is one of contradiction and juxtaposition. Where the deep, dublike qualities of (tracks) 1 & 2 (and 5) embody all that is right and good about this album, 3 & 4  do the opposite with their tinny, hollow and repetitive beats. Similarly I liked Revolutionary Pilot (5) but not (6) In to deep or (7) Kauna, the remainder I found to be quite cool, but nothing to rave about other than (13) Que Dolor and (17) DJ Kicks, which I liked marginally better than the rest. Overall, not bad but it is this man's opinion that K & D Sessions leaves this album in it's wake.
217148
This game is an experiment I believe. It's not a pure racer like past Forza titles but not a purely open world street racer, a la Need For Speed Most Wanted, Burnout Paradise or Test Drive: Unlimited either. Instead, what we get is a hybrid effort, think of it as the love child between NFS: Most Wanted (2012) and Forza 4.

Unfortunately that leaves us... somewhere in between. It's not quite deserving of 4 stars somewhere past 3 and a half as well.

It certainly can look like Forza 4, the race line is there, the cockpits are there, the visuals are excellent, but it plays like NFS:MW - without cops. And that's bad.

You'll drift like NFS, you'll survive head-on collisions at 130 MPH; someone will talk to you in a bluetoothy sounding voice as you do things that would kill everyone on the road including you. But it's never quite as ridiculous as Most Wanted, and that's good.

Well, good to an extent. There's some charm to the ridiculous.

Anyway. The point of the game is that you're in an open world that you can explore as long as you stay on the road, and you enter into the "Horizon Festival" in Colorado. Of course, this is all fictional, even the Colorado part. Fortunately, the cars are real enough and there are some great one to be had here. Everywhere you go you will be greeted by the excessive. It's like everyone who plays Call of Duty in collage has the month off and all made it down to this massive, state wide party. There's concert stages in the background, nightly fireworks and though there are never any beer can's on the ground, the whole thing reeks of the "dude, bro" lifestyle.

There are plenty of different race types to try and keep things interesting and a lot of hidden items to find, but it never really keeps itself from getting stale - but that's fairly common with most racers. Granted, they do try hard; you'll find yourself in challenges against hot air balloons, biplanes, WWII fighter planes and helicopters - which is a neat ideal and works decently, though I never have figured out how they determine who wins those races. It is exciting though, so there's that.

The Rally expansion is an excellent addition and does a lot to refresh the game. If you like RallySport Challenge you'll want to pick up that DLC.

The soundtrack, by the way, is touted as some big deal but I will tell you this - I think it's pure rubbish and after several tries to just get used to it, finally turned it off completely.

So should you buy this game? Well, if you like racers, yes. If you like Need For Speed, yes. If you like Simulations then no. However if you like terrible indie pop electro music and cars then yes.

It's a good game, and it does a lot of things well, it's just not a particularly great game. It's like when you date someone and you like them well enough but for some reason you still find yourself looking at porn afterwards. Yeah, I guess it's somewhat like that.
4512027
Overall good Brock fare...he does not stray far from the Hawkwind motif; included is a variation of 'love in space'; although there are forays into techno that work rather well..
Imagine dancing to Hawkwind?  It's here.
A few 'filler' songs, but overall worth collecting.
1118386
I did enjoy this book pretty well. The story moved along apace, without being really thrilling or suspenseful. There's quite a bit of espionage subtlety, like the difference between MI 5 and MI6, and interesting historical context-- the Cold War, the earliest energy crisis, labor strikes, elections of people whose names I know only from Beatles songs--but  all is probably better appreciated by a native.theres a lot here for discussion groups to debate and discuss: ethical, moral, sexual dilemmas; not to mention the novelty of a male author writing in a female voice.
1461235
The Iron Sun is an extremely interesting look at the possibility of constructing a black hole (a series of them actually) of about ten solar masses roughly one light year from the sun and using them (and the presumed "white hole") on the other end as a means of interstellar travel.  Given that his book was written back when the study of black holes and the theories about them was literally in its infancy, the science appears quite good.

Berry admits there are huge things he is not sure of or that even if an "Einstein-Rosen Bridge" is even possible.  And he is quite candid in acknowledging that there is absolutely no way at this point to estimate where a hypothetical "white hole" might emerge and even less knowledge about if a black hole constructed at a distant location in the galaxy would produce a "white hole" emerging anywhere near Earth.

But the book does convey the scientific optimism that was still alive in the 1970s before all but cratering in the years since.

Definitely worth buying an reading.
1124926
CAPTIVE PURSUIT is a nicely understated episode featuring some solid performances from the regular cast and crew.  The first season is still young, so it's good to see them focusing on individual characters rather than trying to cram everyone into the mix, regardless of how well they fit a particular episode.
The first alien from the Gamma Quadrant accidentally finds himself journeying through the wormhole and arriving at the Deep Space Nine station.  Although he comes from the other side of the galaxy, he looks pretty much the same as most other types of aliens that we see in Star Trek; it's up to Scott McDonald's performance to put some feeling of otherness into the creature, and he succeeds admirably.  O'Brien attempts to gain the alien's confidence to learn what he is up to as well as opening ties to life-forms from the other side.  The alien, who describes both his species and himself simply as "Tosk", is reluctant to talk, sparking discussion among the station crew that he may be an escaped prisoner or a wanted fugitive.
I liked how relaxed the first contact with an alien from the Gamma quadrant was.  I'd imagine this same story taking place on the Next Generation ship would have involved a lot of pomp and circumstance, and it would have stretched over two commercial breaks, punctuated with long speeches delivered by Patrick Stewart.  Here, O'Brien just wanders up to the guy and asks if he needs any help fixing the ship.  The two characters work well together, and the episode's most successful scenes are those of the pair trying to learn about each other's culture.  It really is standard science-fiction stuff, but the two actors make even the more hackneyed dialog sound fresh.
This could very easily been a rather bland episode, but it's rescued by good performances and some clever dialog.  For me, Star Trek is often at its best when focusing on the smaller-scale stuff, when it remembers to allow the characters to have some depth.  And that's just what we have here.
886715
Revered by many (at least some of whom likely found this a good return to form after the techno/rock blast of "Nerve Net", released two months prior), "The Shutov Assembly" is sort of a business-as-usual ambient album in the Eno catalog.  I've often found that Eno's ambient catalog is a bit mixed-- some of it is pioneering, exciting, and worth attention, and some of it is treading water.  This is an album I largely put in the latter category.

Essentially ten pieces composed over a five year period that all have a unified approach, this sounds like a series of ambient experiments that never quite reached fruitition-- for each track, one could picture that an entire album could have been constructed in the same vein, and for some of the better ones ("Alhondiga", "Stedelijk"), this may have been a worthwhile endeavor.  But for every interesting piece, there's a whatever pieces ("Markgraph", "Francisco", "Innocenti").  They're not bad, they're just rather hard to feel very excited about.  Musically, most of the pieces include a brief loop (1-2 seconds in some cases) over which either longer loops or understated melodies are performed.

As one would suspect, this remaster is crisp and well balanced, although the artwork is not particularly exciting (it may be expanded, I don't have the original), no liner notes are included.  Probably best left for fans and collectors, interested parties in learning more about Eno should start with "Discreet Music".
1664730
Another album that's suffered unfairly in the face of critics in the lexicon of '80s Miles Davis, "You're Under Arrest" isn't exactly a masterpiece, but it's a whole lot better than most people give it credit for.  Their biases are based on a distaste for pop music and Miles Davis' decision to cover a pair of contemporary pop songs.  But I've always felt that digging below the melody you're hearing, "You're Under Arrest", while a bit uneven, has a lot of really fantastic material.

Let's not shy away from discussing the pop songs outright though-- Davis made the controversial decision to cover Michael Jackson's "Human Nature" and Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time", two highly successful contemporary pop songs.  What's curious is the universal distaste for this action-- in the '50s, Miles Davis established his reputation by, among other things, blowing covers of contemporary pop ballads.  While he'd stopped doing that in the '70s, the criticism has always felt to me based on a musical snobbery (and this is coming from a self-professed music snob).  Davis' chops were not what they used to be-- years of drug use and a several year layoff are not kind to brass musicians-- the instrument's demands to physical conditioning are high.  But what Miles lacked in chops he never really lost in emotive quality, and nowhere is that more obvious then in his optimistic reading of "Human Nature" and his yearning on "Time After Time".  In playing modern pop ballads, he seems to have rediscovered some of the fragile beauty in his playing he largely left behind with the advent of fusion.

Is it for everyone?  Not really, I get that, but I'd think it'd be the choice of instrumentation rather than the selection of material that would be most difficult to digest.  Then again, the dislike of electric instruments is another case of jazz snobbery, but I digress...

The point is, both pieces get great readings and are critical parts of the Davis lexicon.  The balance of the originals on the album are a bit weak, there's a trending towards and electric reggae that, while it seems to get quite decent playing out of Davis ("Something's On Your Mind"), it's nothing that stops me in my tracks.  It's this inconsistency that stops me from recommending the album highly-- it's inconsistent, with snippets of spoken word (opener "One Phone Call/Street Scene") and dodball interludes ("Katia Prelude").  None of it's awful, but it makes for an inconsistent record.

The bottom line is though, "You're Under Arrest" is a whole lot better than people give it credit for-- newcomers to late Miles should start with the excellent&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Tutu/dp/B000002LAB/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Tutu</a>, but this is not necessarily a horrible second stop.
1774121
I enjoyed the 2017 volume of John Joseph Adams'&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Best-American-Science-Fiction-and-Fantasy/dp/B01912OTUE/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy)</a>, but I will not claim that it has something to please everybody. There's no space opera (though there are two stories that take place entirely in space, one of them a darkly humorous riff on choose-your-own-adventure pieces), no hard sci-fi (unless you count a near-future story about a full-immersion VR experiment gone awry, by Genevieve Valentine no less), and no high fantasy. On the other hand, Adams and guest editor Charles Yu have selected a good collection of short stories that are edgy, genre-bending, and/or offbeat, including there are three or four strong, serious pieces about new media/social media; two tense stories about alien migrants/refugees whose get less than warm welcomes to the 'burbs; two very different and wry takes on the Narnia-style door-into-another-reality trope; two reasonably fresh takes on supernatural teen outsiders; one funny-poignant Catherynne  M. Valente piece on global warming; one gently wise piece of cultural appropriation by Peter S. Beagle; a barbed piece about aspiring Asian American writers in a time haunted by monsters, by Alice Sola Kim; a feminist parable about witches; and one darkly humorous (and meta) piece on the impossibility of being a black hero who does not get shot by the police.

The three stories that made the biggest impressions on me were:

* Debbie Urbanski's "When they came to us.": Hapless blue alien refugees arrive from somewhere or other. We don't like them much, and we're not even sure why not. Except for those of us who love, love, love them. Good things do not happen.

* Catherynne M. Valente's "The future is blue." This has nothing to do with blue aliens and a lot to do with rising ocean waters. Tetley Abnego is not a big fan of the f**kwits who threw away the world, creating the floating island of garbage that she lives on, but she is also an incurable optimist who raves about the beauty and awesomeness of scraps of the past like mostly-dead AA batteries and ancient Twinkies. She has made an awful sacrifice for her people; was it worthwhile?

* Joseph Allen Hill's "The Venus Effect" begins with "Apollo Allen and the Girl from Venus." Apollo (who we soon learn is black) meets the Girl from Venus at a party. She flies away. He gives chase ... and in his focus on the girl he fails to notice a policeman who yells at him to stop and draws his gun and before Apollo even recognizes what's happening the policeman has shot him three times = dead. Hill restart's Apollo's story multiple times, but can't seem to keep him alive. What gives?

In any event, there are no true duds in this collection. If you're keeping up with current trends in sci-fi and fantasy, and you're not aligned with the "Sad Puppies" (don't ask), there's a good chance you'll find this collection stimulating and (at times) funny. Recommended.
2184681
Stephen Hawking is hardly a man who needs an introduction. His reputation as a scientist specializing in physics, astronomy and mathematics speaks for itself. The Earth (five billion years old) and the universe (multiply by three) need not an introduction either.
In A Brief History of Time Hawking attempts to offer the reader a synopsis of the topics needed to help the novice understand the relationship between time, space, earth and the universe and to do so without the use of formulae - he cheats once. His attempt at simplicity does not necessarily ensure a simple read, however, and topics like The General Theory Of Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Event Horizon, Black Holes and The String Theory come fast and furious at one like a super particle at CERN. The cover of the book gives Hawking's main trajectory away hastily, although it discusses them and everything in-between as succinctly as possible.

Ironically describing not only the 'history', but also the future the book reaches into science, fact and theorem to illustrate its knowledge, which is incidentally a good time to note the existence of a subsequent version featuring pictures and graphics to better illuminate its contents. Several pages are allotted to characters like Einstein, Newton and others as a means of introduction in addition to Hawking's discussion of god and theology and his refutation of common beliefs in this regard. Otherwise, having noted Hawking's not-so-subtle allusions to himself and his achievements one is reminded of the depth and vastness of the scientist's knowledge and the probable justification for the self-referencing.

A Brief History of Time is twenty years old at the time of this writing and several books by different authors have followed it. Such is the nature of technology today that mankind has since augmented its knowledge, although whether in the context of several billion years that is truly a concern is up to the reader's discretion. Not an easy read; not a simple matter, but a topic anyone with thirst for knowledge needs to delve deeper into. This book would be a good beginning.
3983880
I'm not a huge a Star Trek fan, but I have enjoyed the movies as well as the Next Generation TV series.  As such, I found this latest movie to be an enjoyable and comfortable entry in the series.  Continuing the trend of the even number movies being better, Nemesis (#10) is arguably better then Insurrection (#9).  Plus, many favorites pop up in cameos.
The Plot: An apparent coup d'etat occurs on Romulus, and the Enterprise is sent to investigate.  When Picard meets the new leader of the Romulans, he's shocked to see a striking resemblance to himself.  The Enterprise crew try to work with the new leader, but suspect treachery.  The special effects are not particularly impressive, especially in light of other recent sci-fi movies, but then Star Trek has never been just about the f/x.  The movie explores issues of cloning in a relatively interesting, but precursory, manner.  The DVD includes many deleted scenes, which help explain some of the underdeveloped plots (e.g., Troi's mind-melding) and underused characters (e.g., Dr. Crusher).
Overall, a pretty good Star Trek movie that is likely to appease fans of the series; non-fans are likely to be a bit bored and unimpressed.  Patrick Stewart has said that this movie is the last for the Next Generation crew, so enjoy!
3342867
I just finished this book last night and feel like it was one of the better books I've read in the last year.  It's not great literature.  It has some plot holes and characterization problems.  I'm not even sure it would make a good movie.  But it read easily and quickly and kept me engaged.  And I thought the ending was satisfying.  That can be hard to find sometimes.  My main gripe with the book was the author seemed to be trying TOO hard to pander to the geek crowd by including SO many geek TV/music/game/hardware references.  Because the story is pretty good and he actually managed to make several scenes believable and suspenseful, I'm willing to give it the 4th star.

But be aware that this is not too different from watching an episode of "Big Bang Theory" where the show has characters use so many geek references in conversation (in a way that no geek or nerd I know actually does) in an effort to "prove" its geek cred and thereby actually underscores its lack thereof.  Yet, in the same way that BBT is not necessarily less entertaining because of that (if the comedy is of your liking, that is), this book is does entertain.  It just starts to feel a bit much, as if the author has done a ton of research on what geeks love and regurgitates it all into this book.  I think the story would have been better served by a bit more subtlety, but the story is still good.

In spite of that, it is kinda fun as a 30-something to have TV, movies, and games that I remember fondly from my 80's childhood play a prominent role in the story.  I couldn't help but feel some connection to it, as a result.  I do wonder if readers without personal knowledge of those things will find the references helpful or distracting.  It could very easily slow the story down for them.  But I think in the end, the book is worth the time spent to find out.
768296
Right Ascension (Edge of Apocalypse) By David Derrico

I won't say I loved this and I won't say I hated it. It sort of falls between and definitely falls short of what I expected from the description. And unfortunately it's one of a few that I have to agree with the assessment of many that it seems like a rewrite of some of the popular Sci-Fi out there. But if you enjoy the lighter softer side of Sci-Fi it can be an enjoyable read.

Perhaps the biggest problem for many people who found objection is that it doesn't quite live up to the standards of those softer lighter Sci-Fi and even the description it gives itself.

I think also it was a bit jarring to have it start the first chapter with two characters that were probably the most engaging characters and then kill them off immediately. (That's a bit of a spoiler and I'm sorry, but this is an important difficulty with this story.) Chad and Krystal have this thing; two hotshot pilots that are almost on opposite ends of some dipole and yet have this potential chemistry. I got invested in these two and felt really bad when the rug was pulled. Having that happen somehow negated the sympathy I should have felt for the characters who lost these two people. (Well in this case the one who lost Chad since there is no back or forward story involving Krystal.)

The writing is not bad. There is always room for improvement, but honestly it was not anything I felt needed massive amounts of work. It was good and solid with some half way fleshed out characters and some interesting ideas. But I would also agree with people that there are elements too familiar in the makeup of the crew that keep steering the mind to known characters of known Sci Fi.

Also we have a, to be blunt, death-star only owned by the supposed good guys and of course this is a key point in the plot because it is supposedly the death-star that has garnered some superior alien attention. The massive ship Indominable with the doomsday weapon (the omega cannon) that destroys entire  planetary systems. Since it's existence causes the mysterious alien race to attack Earth it's key to the plot.

There are a number of elements of this story that are familiar to Sci-Fi fans so the real meat for this novel is the issue of the Moral part. The question of what if everything you have been told about the war with the Korgian Star System was not quite true? What if heroes in the war had to make judgement calls and they weren't the best calls? What if the heroes that saved the day come out smelling a bit tainted? This is what makes this story unique and better. The problem is that it's glossed over too quickly and never fully addressed and then the holier than though people who are taken aback do something later that might actually seem almost but not quite as bad as their predecessors. And that transgression seems to go right over their heads.

 We won't even mention that so far as the reader is told these aliens who attack might not know what has been done with this weapon and are only concerned about what it  might be used for. And a bit later we do have to ask the question of why they waited 40 years to do something.

 If felt like many plot possibilities were missed and many glossed over too quickly for this to come out well as a moral tale. This might be disappointing to people expecting the moral tale to be the bulk of the originality of the story.  Perhaps book two will delve into this issue with more clarity.

Sci-Fi fans who like the soft side and don't mind close resemblance to popular fiction should enjoy this as light Sci-Fi and Fantasy. It could have been better and might be in book two, I'm just uncertain where the author is headed with the plot and moral issues. The only way to know for certain is to read the next one.

It is a shame to see some people have left reviews saying they couldn't finish the book, I didn't find it to be bad enough to throw it  down and not finish.

  J.L. Dobias