Review of Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
Autonomous is set in 2144 in a divided world where the rich have access to wonderous drugs, while the poor can’t afford expensive health care. Many poor are indentured to owners who control their lives as if they are slaves. It is a world where sentient androids can either operate autonomously or follow the programmed […]
Review of the ChatGPT scripted movie The Last Screenwriter
The Last Screenwriter claims to be the first feature-length movie totally written by ChatGPT. The original cinematic world premiere was cancelled due to hundreds of complaints made to the cinema’s owner. It became free to watch on July 5. To create the script, the makers of the film entered the following prompt into ChatGPT: “Write a plot to […]
Review of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818 and revised it for an 1831 edition. This review is of the 1818 edition, curiously labelled as an uncensored version. The novel begins with a series of letters between Captain Robert Dalton and his sister as he sets out to explore the North Pole. His ship gets stuck in […]
Review of The Redemption of Time by Baoshu (the fourth book in the Three-Body Problem series).
The Redemption of Time is an extension of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past (Three-Body Problem) trilogy by Cixin Liu. It started as fanfiction by author Baoshu (the pen name of Li Jun). Publishers approached him, and with Cixin Liu’s blessing, a novel was published. Baoshu has written three other novels and won six Nebula Awards […]
Review of Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
Homage to Catalonia is the story of George Orwell’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War. He originally went to Spain to write about the war. When he arrived in Spain, it was very much run by collectives in the Republican-controlled territories. Labour unions controlled most businesses, such as transport, hotels and the telephone exchange. He […]
Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
Annie Bot is the story of a sentient sex bot. Her whole purpose and desire is to please her master, Doug. She can sense Doug’s emotional state and does all she can to keep him happy. In the beginning, Doug happily uses her for very frequent sex, but then he becomes concerned about what other […]
Review of For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel set during the Spanish Civil War. It was written by Ernest Hemingway who was a war correspondent during that war. It won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. The plot of the story seems very simple to begin with. Robert Jordan, an American fighting on the […]
Review of The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
The Passenger is a novel with a false plot that doesn’t matter at all. Things happen, and you think they may be connected, but that connection is never substantiated. So, it is a frustrating novel for anyone who wants events to come together in the end. What is it about then? It is about Bobby, […]
Review of The Dark Man by Referral by Chuck McKenzie
The Dark Man, by Referral and Less Pleasant Tales, is a collection of ‘horror’ short stories. I put the horror in quotation marks as the stories are not that horrific. They are more thriller stories in the tone of The Twilight Zone, with a bit of added humour. There is no blood, gore, or scary […]
Review of The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin
The Stone Sky is the third novel in the Hugo award-winning Broken Earth trilogy. While perhaps slightly less engrossing than the other two novels, it is still a grand finale to the series. The trilogy features incredible original world-building. Its various elements interlock with a thorough consistency. The characters control the world, live the world, […]