I have read and reviewed at least one book by author Marko Kloos in the past. I remember it only in vague terms. I DO very much remember that he wrote my favorite story from Love Death + Robots on Netflix. I was distinctly in the category of MEH when I saw a new book coming out from him. Then I read his words in “The Big Idea” and I was sold. This has the potential to be a very cool book indeed.
To blatantly self promote along with this ~ IF you like military science fiction there is another work out right now that you can get and it even has one of my stories in it! There is a plan in motion to make an appearance at Shore Leave this Friday to celebrate the new book. Feel free to come on out and see us!
Hop on over to a new tab and order up your copy of DTF: In Harm’s Way!
The family and I went to see Far From Home on this opening weekend. I’m going to hit potential spoiler stuff in here. I’ll try to avoid it, but if you don’t want spoilers you should see the movie before you read my review.
Going to see this movie felt different than other super hero movies since Endgame did what it did. This movie had a lot of ground to cover that wasn’t about Spiderman at all. In the end, it did exactly what it needed to do in that department. There was an explanation of why after 5 years these kids were still in school. There was (albeit brief) discussion of what happened when people “blipped” and found the world they returned to completely changed. It was a good thing to see these questions addressed.
It was also interesting to see the film makers continue to use “what people will believe” in the story line. It maintains all the crazy that has gone before and uses that to advantage in pushing this story forward.
Not being someone who read the comics or watched a great deal of preview stuff worked to my advantage on this film. I didn’t know Mysterio or anything about that character other than a vague recollection of a cartoon involving him in the distant past. I was able to take what was given and just enjoy the ride. I didn’t think too hard about it, and was able to be surprised at little turns the film took.
The biggest thing I can’t say I enjoyed landed right at the end in the first post credits scene. The bad guy pulls something off that did NOT sit well with me. It’s exactly the sort of thing that shows how well a character is written ~ because I loathed that it happened and wrecked the happy ending. I like heroic movies with happy endings and this dug under my skin. I could have done without it at all and been much happier.
IF you’re invested in the MCU, this movie definitely continues that work. IF you’re not, this is still a decent Spiderman movie, but you’ll miss a huge amount of the emotional impact without some background. I hope they get as many of these movies filmed as they can before Tom Holland moves on. I’m now impatiently waiting for the next one…
I posted this review to my Goodreads account first. There was something in the book that didn’t make it into that review that I think is worth considering. I want to note it here because there’s a better than fair chance that I’ll forget by the time we get to discuss this book at Watch The Skies.
The acknowledgements at the end of the book talk about the coincidental timing of the book title vs. the current political climate in the United States. I think it’s noteworthy that the author claims no planned connection. I also believe that however ‘futuristic’ a work of science fiction is, it can not ever be taken apart from the time when it was written. Science fiction is inherently commentary on the time and culture when it was written. While not planned, I don’t think this book is an exception to that.
I got this book as a free download from the publisher. I have read some Scalzi before and had a level of expectation going into reading this book.
This book was a little difficult to get into at first, but it became a quick and easy read within the first couple of chapters.
This book was a far reaching scope and still managed to pull it off. I found myself hoping that good things would come about for the Emporox and go badly for those looking to disrupt her. It took me a while to appreciate Lady Kiva, but in the end I could work around the constant “F” bombs.
I like that the story threads wrapped up in this book, but there is enough world building to make me interested in what comes next. I suspect I will be looking the next book up when it comes out.
