LITERAL REMAINS

The scientists on the reality television show “SeaLife” are real scientists, for the most part.  Some were hired for their looks by the show’s producer, Cynthea Leeds.  Cynthea even hired a phony crew and relegated the Trident‘s real crew to the background.  It all has to look good for the viewers at home.  There are some [...]

Okay, I may have officially become one of “those” people.  Don’t snarl your nose up at me, every single one of us becomes one of “those” people one day.  My day has come.  I guess you could say I’ve jumped on a bandwagon.  I have become somewhat trendy.  I am a Stieg Larsson fan.  I [...]

I enjoy video games.  Some of the movies based on video games, not so much.  I think the only good Resident Evil movie was the last one.  I don’t like those old Mortal Kombat movies.  I liked the Silent Hill movie.  There is a considerable number of people out there in the world, both critics [...]

There is a killer loose on the streets of Seattle, dubbed, gruesomely enough, the Street Butcher.  The Street Butcher seems to strike at random.  For newspaper photographer Nick Wilder, it hits close to home.  He never expected he would be the one to make headlines, but that is just what happens when someone attacks him [...]

Legend of the Jade Dragonis the second book in Yasmine Galenorn’s Chintz ‘n China series, and, believe it or not, it’s actually better than the first. Emerald O’Brien is having an ordinary, run-of-the-mill day at her business, the Chintz ‘n China Tea Room.  Ordinary, that is, until a man named Daniel enters the shop.  Daniel [...]

A Note From the_novacula-  Last year I read the book A Harvest of Bones by Yasmine Galenorn, part of her Chintz ‘n China series.  I didn’t care too much for it.  Here’s my review of it.  Well, Chatty Kathy read it, and she liked it.  She liked it so much, she read the entire series.  [...]

Let me make a couple recommendations.  Three, to be precise. Just a few days ago I stretched out and watched my DVD of The Wolfman.  The unrated director’s cut of the film, yo yo yo.  If you will allow me, don’t watch the director’s cut.  I was hoping, as in some cases (e.g. Rob Zombie’s [...]

In the world of Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International, monsters are real.  Just as real as you, me, and the monsters in all the other stories and movies about monsters and the dedicated men and women who devote their lives to hunting them so that you and I don’t have to.  It’s better to fight [...]

One unassuming, ordinary, morning, the people of Walden, Virginia wake up and discover their town has been plunged into darkness.  The electricity is down, cell phones have no signals, and the televisions and radios have no reception, only dead air.  And as dark as the town is, it is nothing compared to the absolute black that [...]

Former Khmer Rouge Rath Preap has built a hunting lodge on an isolated island in the South China Sea.  It is a vacation spot for the rich, primarily for the rich and criminal.  It is also an Earthly vacation spot for the Predator.  Luckily, Rath doesn’t own the island, he just rents it. On this particular hunting trip, Rath’s [...]

I haven’t read a lot of love for Michael Crichton’s first posthumous release, Pirate Latitudes, but don’t let that discourage you from reading it.  It’s actually pretty good, a rollicking good time in fact, and I think more than Crichton fans will cling to it.  Yeah, it feels a little underdone, but it’s far from half-baked. When [...]

Jacob Steiner is a military commander aboard the United Star Systems Valiant battlecruiser.  They are given orders by Admiral Ralph Jamison that is meant to lead them to their deaths at the hands of the Seperatists.  Steiner is one of the few survivors of the battle.  He intends to avenge the death of Captain McKillip, leader [...]

Ignatius Perrish wakes up one morning with a hangover to discover he has horns growing from his forehead.  He can remember doing some terrible things, like taking a leak on a Virgin Mary figurine, but the booze has muddled and fuzzed his mind.  He is pretty sure that to wake up with the Devil’s horns [...]

You want a good time?  Buy this book, sit down, drink some tea, and read it.  Hallie Ephron’s Never Tell a Lie isn’t big on surprises, and the twists aren’t too twisty and shocking, but it’s such good fun and Ephron writes with such joy, it doesn’t matter.  And it doesn’t keep the story from [...]

All right, Caleb Carr’s The Alienist came out way back in 1994.  I wasn’t going to review it here, just put it under the Buried Treasures and Guilty Pleasures category, but, for me, it doesn’t belong there.  So, since it took me so long to finish the damn thing, I thought I would rate it [...]