The Third Gate: A Novel by Lincoln Child
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another great single book from Lincoln Child. Fast-paced, great atmosphere, and a fun background, albeit a little improbable make this one good thriller. I flew through it, as I do all of his (just finished Utopia recently for the 2nd time and it was as good as the first time). This one takes place in the Sudd, a nasty bottleneck swap of flotsam and jetsam that has floated down the Nile, and been caught there, creating a morass of fetid smells and muck. The pharaoh’s tomb they are searching for they think is at the bottom of the Sudd, and so they have erected a huge enclosure over it to keep out prying eyes. This could be the find that eclipses Howard Carter and King Tut, as it may be the tomb of the king who united upper and lower Egypt millennia ago. Spies, curses, and paranormal activity keep this going with our hero, a prof. of medieval history and also an enigmalogist who dabbles in things that others don’t understand, like the Loch Ness monster, etc. Suspend your disbelief and you will have fun. Clean, good fun.

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Review: Born Wicked

Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first book in the Cahill Witches set. Set in an alt. universe where witches came to prominence, abused their power trying to control men’s minds, and were brought down by a close-minded group of men called The Brotherhood. In certain areas of the world, women can come and go and dress as they please, hold jobs and be educated, such as Dubai, or even Mexico to the south or Indo-China, but not in New England. Here The Brotherhood holds strong, and women are to be meek, subservient to their husbands, and by age 17, choose a husband or life in The Sisterhood, the female religious equivalent of The Brotherhood. Women or girls who are thought to be witches are arrested, tried, and if convicted, which most are, sent to prison ships to labor, to a school for re-training, or they disappear. Cate is a witch, and she is almost 17. Her mother was a witch as well, as are her two sisters. When her mother died several years before, she made Cate promised to protect and look out after her sisters. Their father doesn’t know about the fact that they are witches, as his health is frail, and even their mother wasn’t sure he could handle it and keep it from The Brotherhood without harming his health. None of the servants are supposed to know either, so they follow some basic rules, such as no magic in the house or outside, only in the Rose Garden where no one can see them,and then only limited. Cate is doing her best, but she has no guidance, until one day a letter comes for her, from a mysterious person, Z.R. telling her that she and her sisters are in danger and to look for her mother’s diary. At the same time, a meddlesome neighbor gets their father, who is often away on business, to foist a governess on them, to allow them to become ladies and be fit for marriage. But a governess, being with them all the time, might find out, and Cate is worried. She reads the diary, and it talks about a prophecy, which could change their fate, and the fate o the world. So she decides to talk to her mother’s best friend and see if she knows anything about what all this means, what the diary says about a prophecy. Complicating things are the governess; Paul, the boy next door who she has been best friends with since childhood and who has returned from the University to ask her to marry her; and the bookstore owner’s son, Finn, who was hired to be their gardener. A fun alternate look at a society which is similar in many respects to the time of the Salem witch trials, but is set in quasi-late Victorian/Edwardian times. Her characters are interesting, if a tad flat, but the plot makes up for that, and the minor characters are more interesting at times. Enjoyable, and I look forward to the other books.

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33 Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies that Could Rock Your Summer

Here are some great SF/Fantasy fare for the summer.  Oh how I envy my eighteen year old’s job at the local movie theater, which gets all the major movies and some small ones:  she gets free movies, as many as she wants, with .50 large popcorn and .50 large drink.  She goes to tons.  Sees most of the ones out there.  Whaaaaa!

33 Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies that Could Rock Your Summer.

 

This year’s summer movies just won’t let up. There’s Joss Whedon’s Avengers, Chris Nolan’s third Batman film, and Ridley Scott’s long-awaited return to space horror. Plus maybe a dozen other movies that look like they could be totally fantastic. Here’s our complete list of 32 movies coming out between now and September — including superheroes, aliens, time travel and the end of the world!

Minor spoilers ahead…

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The Sound of My Voice (April 27)
The Sundance 2011 hit finally reaches theaters. It’s an artsy tale about a cult founded by a woman who claims to be from the future, from Another Earth co-writer and star Brit Marling. Like Another Earth, this is a very character-focused, intimate story with a huge science fiction backdrop.

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The Raven (April 27)
There’s a serial killer who’s killing people according to the works of pioneering horror author Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack) — and only Poe can stop him. Quoth the Raven: WTF! Only really notable because it’s the closest we’ll ever get to the show about Poe being a detective that failed to get on the air last year.

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The Pirates! Band of Misfits (April 27)
The latest stop-motion animated movie from the makers of Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run, and it’s easily as good as their earlier works. It’s honestly much better if you think of it as being called Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists, the title of the book and the U.K. version. Basically, pirates and Charles Darwin, in Victorian England.

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May

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The Avengers (May 4)
The culmination of four years of Marvel superhero movies, this film brings Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, the Incredible Hulk and S.H.I.E.L.D. together to fight Loki and his alien army. By all accounts, director Joss Whedon brings together this huge spandex mish-mash with surprising grace, and delivers a nice, craftsmanlike film. We can’t wait.

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Dark Shadows (May 11)
Tim Burton reunites with Johnny Depp for their 500th collaboration — a remake of the 1966-1971 soap opera featuring vampire Barnabas Collins, who wakes up in the early 1970s. Judging from the trailers, Burton has gone all-out comedy with this version, which could turn out to be an excellent choice — if he can recapture the old Beetlejuice spirit. Fingers crossed.

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Battleship (May 18)
Already out in the UK, and getting mixed reviews. It’s a movie based on a board game, in which aliens come down to Earth and imprison a bunch of naval vessels inside a dome, causing them to play a deadly game… of Battleship. By all accounts, it’s pretty similar to the Michael Bay Transformersfilms, so if you liked those, you’ll like this.

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Hysteria (May 18)
A romantic comedy about the invention of the vibrator. Hugh Dancy plays a doctor in Victorian England who’s torn between the staid values of the medical establishment and his progressive new ideas. And then he gets a job working with a specialist who treats women with “hysteria,” and develops an electrifying new treatment. Meanwhile, he becomes entranced with his partner’s daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who’s a budding feminist.

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Lovely Molly (May 18)
A woman moves into her dead father’s house, and starts being haunted by painful memories — and that’s before a malevolent presence starts targeting her. By all accounts, this is a nice change from the usual “haunted house” movies, because Molly is working class (she’s a trucker’s wife and mall cleaning woman) and she’s also recovering from drug and alcohol abuse, and desperately trying to stay sober.

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Chernobyl Diaries (May 25)
The latest Oren Peli horror film isn’t, strictly speaking, “found footage” — although it still has a very DIY feel to it. Six young people take an “extreme” tour of Pripyat, a town that’s been deserted since that famous 1980s nuclear disaster. Except that they get trapped there, and maybe it’s not quite as deserted as they’d thought… because something is hunting them.

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Men in Black 3 (May 25)
Will Smith is back as Agent J, and this time he has to travel back to the 1960s to save his partner (Tommy Lee Jones/Josh Brolin) from being killed in the past by an alien (Jemaine Clement). On the plus side, the time travel element should open up some new storylines. Plus there’s Emma Thompson. On the minus side, they apparently had no script during some of the production, and it was kind of a mess. But it could still be fun.

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June

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Piranha 3DD (June 1)
This was supposed to come out last summer, wasn’t it? This sequel to Piranha 3D has the jokiest title of any movie this year, which also explains succinctly the main reason why anybody will want to see this monster fish epic. You can’t blame a movie for knowing its audience.

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Snow White and the Huntsman (June 1)
The second of the year’s Snow White movies could actually benefit from the failure of Mirror Mirror. This one features a more “badass” Snow White, played by Twilight’s Kristen Stewart (yes, I know). And the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) teaches Snow White the art of war, so she and her dwarves can overthrow the Queen (Charlize Theron). Dwarves include Nick Frost and Bob Hoskins, which is automatic win.

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Prometheus (June 8)
Even in a summer with The Avengers andThe Dark Knight Rises, this might be the most hotly awaited film for science fiction fans. Sir Ridley Scott returns to science fiction, and to the world of 1979’s Alien, for a horrifying, unsettling new adventure. Every frame that we’ve seen from this movie thus far looks like it could be your favorite new artwork, and it also looks like it brings a massive new ambition to expanding the universe we glimpsed in Alien.

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Safety Not Guaranteed (June 8)
It’s that quirky indie comedy about three magazine employees who go to interview a guy who placed a classified ad seeking someone to go back in time with him. “I have only done this once before,” the ad warns. Based on an actual newspaper ad that caused an internet sensation back in 2005. The trailer looks pretty great and clever, in that “quirky indie” way.

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The Woman in the Fifth (June 15)
Ethan Hawke stars in the adaptation of a novel about a writer and professor who goes to live in Paris, then falls on hard times and gets ensnared in some dirty business. It’s basically your standard “Ethan Hawke goes to Paris” movie that we’ve all seen before — except that it also turns into a freaky ghost story, at least judging from the novel.

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Extraterrestrial (June 15)
Timecrimes director Nacho Vigalondo is back, with another weird little science fiction movie. Sadly, it’s not the one he was planning to make about the guy who builds a ramp to jump his car onto a UFO. But it does have aliens — basically, a guy has a one-night stand with a woman who’s out of his league, and just when things are getting awkward, aliens invade and everybody has to stay indoors. This movie hits select theaters in the U.S. (including your town, if you register via Tugg.com) on June 15.

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Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter(June 22)
Director Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Night Watch) returns to vampires — with a strange alt-history take in which Abraham Lincoln not only freed the slaves, he slew the vamps as well. It’s written by Seth Grahame-Smith, based on his book of the same name. With Bekmambetov involved, the action should at least look pretty sweet.

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Brave (June 22)
Pixar hopefully returns to form after Cars 2, with the story of Merida, a princess who defies an age-old custom and unleashes chaos on the kingdom. Everything we’ve seen thus far on this film looks totally gorgeous, including some beautiful shots of the Scottish countryside. Seeing Pixar tackle fairytales, and a female lead character, should be ultra-rewarding. Plus Kevin McKidd voices Lord MacGuffin and his son, the Young MacGuffin.

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Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (June 22)
It’s Melancholia, only it’s a fun romantic comedy. Steve Carrel stars as a guy who connects with a young woman (Keira Knightley) and searches for his childhood sweetheart, before an asteroid destroys the world. The trailer is pretty hilarious, especially the bit where Patton Oswalt explains that the impending doom of the planet means that women will sleep with him without worrying about diseases — or even whether you’re related to them.

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G.I. Joe: Retaliation (June 28)
So yeah, nobody was especially impressed with the first G.I. Joe. But the good news is, this time around it’s directed by Jon M. Chu, who created the insane dance-superhero webseries The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. Plus it looks like this film picks up right where the first one left off, with the evil Zartan impersonating the U.S. President — and a movie about an evil president is always welcome.

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July

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The Amazing Spider-Man (July 3)
A mere five years after Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy concluded, Spidey’s being rebooted — but at least the new director Marc Webb ((500) Days of Summer) seems likely to bring a very different feel than Raimi. And non-organic web-shooters and non-CG swinging seem like an improvement. Plus a more quippy Peter Parker. The trailers we’ve seen so far look surprisingly cool. And yet, do we need a new Spidey origin? Especially one which focuses so much on the mystery of Peter Parker’s parents? We’ll see.

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Ted (July 13)
The Family Guy‘s Seth MacFarlane directs his first big-screen movie. Mark Wahlberg plays John, who wished for his teddy bear to come to life when he was a kid. Now, John’s a grown-up — and his sentient teddy bear is still following him around, hindering his attempts to have a normal life. Mila Kunis plays the love interest, and MacFarlane voices the teddy bear.

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Red Lights (July 13)
It’s pretty much your standard “paranormal investigators butt heads with a man who claims to be a psychic” movie — except that the paranormal investigators are Sigourney Weaver and Cillian Murphy. And the psychic is played by Robert De Niro. Sadly, we called it “this year’s biggest Sundance letdown.” Apparently it’s De Niro’s “Not the bees” movie.

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The Dark Knight Rises (July 20)
The third movie in Chris Nolan’s Batman trilogy, this one features Anne Hathaway as Catwoman and Tom Hardy as Bane. By the look of things, we’ll be seeing an older, less assured Batman, and a Gotham that’s gotten complacent after eight years of peace after the death of Harvey Dent. We’ve already seen a football field implode, and it sounds like that’s just the beginning of the insanity.

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Ruby Sparks (July 25)
A young writer struggles with writers’ block, until he starts inventing his ideal woman so he can write about her… until one day, she appears in the flesh in his apartment, apparently called into being by the force of his imagination. From the directors of Little Miss Sunshine, this film looks pretty fascinating. (Thanks to nekowrites for the reminder!)

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Neighborhood Watch (July 27)
A zany comedy in which Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill and Vince Vaughn are suburban dads who join a neighborhood watch group to get some excitement — only to find themselves the only line of defense against an alien invasion. More importantly, though, the film features The IT Crowd’s Richard Ayoade in a major role. And it’s apparently trying for aGhostbusters vibe. Fingers crossed!

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August

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Total Recall (August 3)
Colin Farrell stars in this quasi-remake of the 1990 Schwarzenegger classic, in which the hero never goes to Mars. By all accounts, Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) is trying to get closer to the Philip K. Dick source material, and delve more into the weirdness of not knowing who you really are. At the very least, let’s hope there’s some good action sequences in a cool-looking future dystopia.

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The Awakening (August 10)
This movie came out in the U.K. last fall, but it’s finally getting a U.S. release. It’s another “supernatural debunker confronts real supernatural phenomena” film — except that it’s set in 1921 and the debunker is a woman, Florence Cartwright (Rebecca Hall). It’s gotten some good reviews, and the heroine wears an awesome Captain Jack Harkness coat.

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The Odd Life of Timothy Green (August 15)
The creeptastic Disney movie about a childless couple (Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton) who write down their wish for a child and bury it in the yard… and then their dream child shows up, already aged 10. From an idea by Frank Zappa’s son Ahmet Zappa. It honestly looks kind of disturbing, but it’s clearly trying to be heartwarming — and maybe it’ll be cooler than the trailers look.

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ParaNorman (August 17)
In the latest stop-motion animated film from the studio behind Coraline, Norman can speak with the dead — which comes in handy after zombies start attacking. He also has to save his town from an ancient witch’s curse.

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The Apparition (August 24)
A supernatural presence gets unleashed during a college parapsychology experiment, and starts haunting a young couple (Ashley Greene and Sebastian Stan.) They have to call on a supernatural expert — played by Draco Malfoy himself, Tom Felton — to help deal with it. But it may already be too late to save them! The combination of “college parapsychology experiment” and “Draco Malfoy, ghost hunter” seems like a promising one.

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7500 (August 31)
Get these motherfuckin’ ghosts off this motherfuckin’ plane! Seriously, if Samuel L. Jackson doesn’t at least get a cameo where he says that, we’ll feel cheated. Basically, in this film, Jason Stackhouse is on a flight over the Pacific when a supernatural presence invades the plane. Director Takashi Shimizu previously made seven of the Grudge movies.

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The Possession (August 31)
Previously known as Dybbuk Box, this movie has been delayed for ages and ages. And yes, it’s a welcome addition to the tiny genre of “Jewish horror,” alongside that Odette Yustman movie a couple years ago. A young girl buys a box at a yard sale, unaware the box holds a malevolent presence. This August, Yiddish is the language of terror. This film features Jeffrey Dean Morgan, so you can pretend it’s aSupernatural prequel.

Sources: Film-Releases.com, The-Numbers.com, Entertainment Weekly.

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Review: Envy

Envy by Gregg Olsen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was an odd book for me – I usually read in the fantasy/SF grouping of teen books, and this was more along the lines of paranormal/teen angst. Done by an award winning true crime journalist, it’s his first book for teens, and although he comes with the credentials of having two daughters, I’m not sure all the book meshed with what teens are thinking, saying and texting. Based on a story ripped from the headlines of a young girl who commits suicide, a pair of twins, with some paranormal abilities to reach out and “see” what the dead and the living are thinking, decide to investigate why their friend, who had drifted away in HS, was now dead. Their father was a crime writer, and so they had been surrounded with death and investigations since birth, which make the idea more plausible – plus the pull they feel from the visions. The book is done in a heavy modern teen style, with interspersions of faux newspaper articles, notes, and texts – it’s the texts that bother me. While I have no idea of how and what my daughter texts, the texting language he used jarred on me – it’s not what she uses when she texts me. She usually uses fairly complete sentences and words. Some of them were obvious texting changes that even I make, others not so much, and some were just hard to figure out – you have to sound then out in your head, and in context, and that slows me, the reader, down. Teens may have no problem – I’m guessing he ran it through his daughters, but without knowing their ages, I can’t guess at it’s accuracy. One word in particular stumped me for a long while “boud” – I finally figured it was meant to be “about,” but why change the last letter? It probably means something else all together .-)

All in all, a decent “chiller” read, with another book in this series coming. I’d read it, in the hopes that I feel a little more depth from the teen characters (the adults were drawn a little deeper to me), and to see what the rest of the mystery surrounding this interesting locale, a old logging historic place town near Port Orchard and Bremerton has in store. Since this is such a topical book, and makes many references to brands, styles, and other teen things, it might date itself quickly.

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Reading list – Some paranormal books

These are some recent paranormal reads – the review are deliberately short, so as to have NO spoilers at all.  Check them out.

Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna, #1) – Blake, Kendare

4.08

Heard a lot about this book too.  It was a decent story, about a young ghost hunter, who dispatches the bad ghosts to some unknown place (I’d like to find out more about that).  Followed around the country by his kitchen witch mom and their poltergeist sniffing cat, he has few friends his own age, and prefers it that way.  Until he is called to dispatch a blood thirsty ghost in Thunder Bay, Ontario.  Nice locale, nice set of secondary characters, and if more in the series, hopefully they will be flushed out more.  Gory and scary for those who like that, and a twist on his usual ghost dispatching as he deals with an extremely powerful ghost, Anna Dressed in Blood as the locals call her.  She is more powerful than any he has seen, and he is also plagued by nightmares and problems, which culminate in a nice battle for good v. evil.  My main complaint with the book, and I think this was done for effect rather than an attempt to help the reader, was that the paper was slightly yellow white in cast and the print in a rusty red color, and not that dark.  It made reading hard, and I had to put my light on a higher setting, which makes my room hotter, and no I don’t like the new lights – the spectrum is just wrong to me.  It may just be my eyesight – It isn’t the greatest, and is also growing old.

read,paranormal,ya-fantasy

Hereafter (Hereafter, #1)

Hudson, Tara *

3.76

Sort of slow starter but becomes more interesting as we learn more about the heroine, who is dead, and how she fits into the landscape of the dead, and how and why she has a connection to a young man who almost drowns.  And then there is an arch villain to contend with, who is on the bad side of the spirit world.   Somewhat fresh in it’s take on the ghost story.  Looking for a sequel.

read,paranormal,ya-fantasy

The Skin Map

Lawhead, Stephen R.

3.68

This was a really interesting book, and also one of the strangest.  It jumps about POVs, and is part of a series.  Each book is left with a cliff-hanger, at least this one was.  It’s about a young man, bored with his life, who decided to take an alley to see his girlfriend, after all sorts of mis-haps prevent him from his usual route.  there he meets up with a strange character, his great-grandfather.  It seems his family has the ability to feel and travel across ley lines, not just in space, but also in time, going backwards only.  So they set about to find his missing girlfriend (whom he lost while trying to show her why he was late by taking her back to the “scene of the crime”).  His grandfather is on a quest to find a mysterious skin map – a map tattooed on an early explorer’s body and later preserved, of all the ley lines, and enlists the help of a 1600s intelligentsia, to help our hero find Mina.  But Mina is doing just great.  And where and how is the subject of much enjoyment.  Odd, hard to categorize but enjoyable.

read,paranormal

The Doomsday Box (Shadow Project, #2)

Brennan, Herbie

3.82

Slight book about a shadow agency that deals with psychotronic research – remote viewing, and time travel in this one.  Fairly nicely done with some good twists and turns and unexpected things, but the main four characters were slightly drawn – didn’t get a good feel for any of them, or their motivations, and they were quick to anger and meanness, and then all gone.  Of course some teens are like that.  But without an understanding of the character, it just is annoying.  But the basic premise, if done as an adult novel and fleshed out, could have been fun.

read,paranormal,time-travel, ya-sci-fi

Bump in the Night (includes In Death, #22.5)

Robb, J.D.

3.94

This is a short story collection, four of them.  I haven’t read a romantic collection in years, so it was a flashback for me.  The first was part of the Eve Dallas future cop series by JD Robb – hard to get much back story on the characters, and have a mystery, but it was a good read, about an old murder and a new one.  A little ghost activity for fun.  2nd one by Mary Blayney was set in Regency England – a basic romantic story with the addition of a “magic” coin that granted wishes.  Sweet, charming, although a little off century (uses words like sex in conversation which would NOT have been done).  3rd was by Ruth Ryan Langan, about an extreme adventurer and a exotic photographer who are flung together during their respective assignments in the remote Alaskan Wilderness. Plenty of spirits walking, on the water, and in life.  Nice romantic tale, with just the right amount of paranormal.  Last one was a cute one by Mary Kay McComas, about an imaginary friend who reappears after a young woman’s father dies. They had been partners in an accounting business, and she had forgotten how to live her own life, so the friend reappears, wearing clothes she thought were cool back when she was six, and they find a way to get her back on track as her own person.  Fun, very unusual, but lacked much detail when the real love came around.  That was short changed, although it is a short story.  All in all, not a bad apple in the bunch.  One great, but all good.

read,paranormal,romance

Angelology

Trussoni, Danielle

3.23

A superlative book on angels and those who study them.  Great setting in New York City and up along the Hudson, including a monastery, with some long forgotten and secret things to help against a growing darkness. Second book is available.

read,paranormal