If you’ve been paying attention, and really the business of being alive pretty demands it in one form or another, it won’t have escaped your attention that life is a big fan of unfinished moments. We, however, not so much; human beings are made for neat and tidy endings and Continue Reading
Book review: The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
A strange affliction affects a few people in an isolated college town in California before cases begin to mount and what started as a small outbreak soon becomes a major contagion, a virulent wave of disease that sweeps through the town, and thanks to the efforts of a few willful Continue Reading
The Mandalorian – “Chapter 12: “The Siege” (S2, E4 review) / Star Trek: Discovery – “Scavengers” (S3, E6 review)
THE MANDALORIAN SPOILERS AHEAD … AND ROLLICKING GOOD ADVENTURE AND DARK THINGS LURKING IN THE SHADOWS … Now this is a classic Star Wars piece of storytelling! Not that The Mandalorian isn’t universally excellent, because it most certainly is, honouring existing Star Wars lore while forging ahead to create new Continue Reading
Book review: Doors of Sleep by Tim Pratt
ARC courtesy Angry Robot Books – release date 12 January 2021 in UK and 4 May in Australia. The possible existence of a multiverse, an infinite string of worlds in which life is the same, but very much not too, in its expression, is, for many people, an entirely alluring Continue Reading
Retro movie review: Speed
You may not think that the role of a bus driver in a ’90s action thriller might be a golden ticket to movie fortune and fame but that is exactly what the role of Annie proved to be for Sandra Bullock who took a role that could’ve simply been sidekick Continue Reading
Movie review: Days of the Bagnold Summer
When you’re growing up, figuring out who you are and how the people around you matter is not always a straightforward exercise. It should be, on paper at least, a slam dunk that you would love your mother since she, in all likelihood very much loves you back but in Continue Reading
Chill to the music: Tash, Mariah the Scientist, BAYNK, Ryan Hemsworth, Lianne La Havas
2020 has been a frantic, hamster-on-an-ever-faster-spinning-wheel, groove-in-the-floor-from-running-frenetically-back-and forth kind of year. I need a break. You no doubt need a break. But Christmas holidays are some way off yet – four weeks sounds close but trust me, it is NOT close enough – and so while we wait for that Continue Reading
The best Christmas present of all – The Vicar of Dibley is coming back to our screens
2020 has been beyond a doubt the kind of year that calls out for some cleverly-written, very funny comfort food. Thankfully all those calls into the desperate ether have been answered with some very welcome Geraldine Granger-centric news, according the the good folk at Bleeding Cool: “The BBC’s classic comedy Continue Reading
Book review: Over the Woodward Wall by A. Deborah Baker
Adventures are usually supposed to be fun, giddily exciting undertakings, thekind of thing that The Famous Five or The Lord of the Rings cohort set out on (though admittedly the latter group did have the weight of theworld on their shoulders, what with ending great evil and all that) and Continue Reading
The Walking Dead: World Beyond – “Truth or Dare” (S1, E7 review) + Fear the Walking Dead: “Bury Her Next to Jasper’s Leg” (S6, E6 review)
THE WALKING DEAD: THE WORLD BEYOND SPOILERS AHEAD … AND AN ART GALLERY IN A TRUCK AND LYING FOR GOOD REASONS … Who doesn’t love a light and unburdened soul? Let’s face it, most of us will choose spilling the truth, if only to make ourselves feel better and perhaps Continue Reading