A review of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is set just over a decade after Rise of the Planet of the Apes. In that movie, a scientist experimented with a cure for Alzheimer’s on apes. The cure increased the intelligence of the apes. The apes eventually escaped and fled into the forests near San Francisco. […]
Rebooting Books.
So many movies are scheduled for remakes or reboots. In the past few weeks, I’ve read or heard that Stargate, Predator, Highlander, Gremlins, IT, Jumanji, Star Wars, Logan’s Run, Poltergeist, Videodrome, Starship Troopers, and even Police Academy – please don’t, have some mercy – are going to be remade or rebooted. With all these reboots […]
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
While writing my last post, a review of the excellent movie Edge of Tomorrow, I had cause to reflect on science-fiction movies starring Tom Cruise. He has some impressive credits: War of the Worlds, Vanilla Sky, Oblivion, Minority Report, and Edge of Tomorrow. I have enjoyed all of them. I then contemplated whether any other […]
Review of Edge of Tomorrow.
Edge of Tomorrow is a gripping, fast-paced, action science-fiction movie. It has time travel, aliens, and Tom Cruise being killed over and over again. What more could you want? It’s not exactly original, with a premise very similar to Source Code, except aliens replace the terrorists. For those who missed Source Code, think Groundhog Day, only in Edge […]
A Divine Problem
I have had a busy couple of weeks thanks mainly to the Divine website that I write for. Two weeks ago we were told by Divine that the website was being moved onto a new server, and they were taking the opportunity to archive all pre-2013 stories. Twenty-four articles of my stories would […]
Goodbye Doc.
It’s a very sad day today for me. Doc Neeson, the lead singer of The Angels, has died. He was 67 and died of a brain tumour. The Angels were, and still are, my all-time favourite band. I first went and saw them at Latrobe University in 1979 (see video above, I was there). I […]
A review of Max Barry’s Lexicon
Max Barry’s Lexicon became a must buy after I heard the author read part of its frenetic and humorous opening at last year’s Melbourne Writers Festival. The novel has a wonderful premise. It is set in a world where poets and the words they use can be deadly weapons. Poets use their words to compromise […]
The Best Science Fiction Novel of 2013 is…
I came across a post about the recently awarded Nebula awards the other day. I was curious how close its short-list of nominees for the best science-fiction/fantasy novel of 2013 matched those of other awards, so I had a look. Nebula Awards We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Marian Wood) The […]
The Budget or Mad Max, Here We Come.
I have been very distracted over the past couple of weeks by the Australian Government’s budget. I worried about what the Government might cut, and how it might affect the poor. My concerns were realised when the Government produced a horror budget that attacks Australia’s most vulnerable. Hurting the Unemployed The budget’s most appalling […]
Murdoch Versus the NDIS
It has been an interesting time to be researching an article on the National Disability Insurance Scheme in Australia, with lots of discussion about it in the Australia media and on social media. My aim is to write an article based on interviews with one or two of the participants in the scheme. So I […]