Kilcannon

Squalid without being sensationalized. Charming and melancholy. It's hard being a human, but failure isn't as dramatic as all that.

First story is the British cousin of Catcher in the Rye, a bit.

Some of these are very slice of life, which is fine.

I first heard of this from Iron Maiden.

Good enough little stand-alone fantasy novel, with some fun magic, a genuinely shocking moment and a weird mix of bleakness and optimism.

The movie is so much a part of my life that I couldn't possibly come to this thing objectively. That's probably why I've never bothered to read it.

On the page, it feels more like a parody than the movie, in a specifically '70s disaffected white male writer kind of way. Which I like, for the most part.

I like, especially, the change in the tone of the ending.

The sequel short story chapter written decades later was a mistake, of course.

People need to judge The Toy by a different standard, because it works for suburban white kids and teaches them many things worth teaching them. And Ned Beatty is good in it.

There are a couple of other pointlessly snotty parts, driven in part by a desire to take Pryor's self-loathing at face value.

But on the whole, this is a solid piece of criticism, fueled by close readings and some good contextualizing connections. I mean, it's a bit of a stretch to shoehorn D.H Lawrence in there (especially if you're going ignore the message of your chosen quotation), but that's OK.

It was fine. Paul Magrs' story was weak, as usual, and not helped by his compulsive need to be meta.

The Eleventh Doctor is hard to write in novel form, and this book misses the mark. And it engaged in the kind of terrible time travel that the TV series usually avoids, but this range of novels seems unable to resist. I'm tempted to read one of this author's other books because she's well-liked enough that they can't possibly all be this bad.

I can see why people like this sort of thing. Reads very fast, regardless of how actually interesting it is. Like watching a prime time cop drama. Just picture some of your favorite actors as the characters and you can be reasonably entertained.

An overly generous three stars. Authentically ft like a trite, preachy episode from the era, which is kind of fun. Some Bill and Ted-style time antics at the end, but nothing too severe.

The satirical futurism was prescient (although not funny), and there were a ton of real world examples of cultural ridiculousness that I enjoyed learning about.

There was, however, no story to speak of, no characters of note, and nothing that made this more interesting than a wiki about how dumb things are and how dumb things could get would be.

Plus there was weird anti-Norwat stuff that must only make sense to Swedes.

I think Tim Powers must have been spending a lot of time with K.W. Jeter when he wrote this.

Nutty dystopian trippy icky nonsense fun with just enough pretentiousness to seem like it's about something.

A bit bloated and meandering. Also a little dour and scatalogical. And not quite what I wanted after her first book, but I can't hold that against it.

Muddled action, inconsistent characterization, unmotivated actions, shaky descriptions and questionable writing all around.

There's an interesting core in here, but it's a mess.

The difference between the 1987 of this book and the 1994 of the movie make a huge difference in how these work thematically, but both are good in their own way.

The book feels less generational and less universal. It's also bleaker. And a little more repetitive. Spab likes baseball and classic rock. There's no mention of MTV.

Still, it was worth reading.

Half-baked magical system that reads like an RPG rule set combined with weak characters and a flimsy story.

Plus some dismal, flat humor.

I'm shocked that this isn't a first novel. It's hard to believe that Sanderson wrote this after the Misborn series.

Doesn't have quite the impact of the first book, but it's still a great look into the banality of evil. Like if the hang from Last House on the Left had money.

A non-satirical, realistic, comples and psychologically observant American Psycho. But no cartoonish violence. Hardly any at all, really.

Do you want a Doctor Who novel that hardly features the Doctor, is angsty and squalid for no reason, casually kills the most important companion in the show's history and all hinges upon an extremely cliched story?

Then this is the Doctor Who book for you. McIntee may be the worst of the repeat Doctor Who novelists. He seems actively hostile to the show, to science fiction and to the idea that these books should be entertaining.

I liked his book about The Master, for some reason, but the others I've read of his are terrible.

Claremont has a knack for strong beginnings, annoying and meandering middles, and strong endings.

A little dopey, and a bit perfunctory at times, with an annoying tendency to skip over big scenes and just depict their aftermath.

I guess I was in the mood for something basic.

I liked many of the concepts and some of the characters, but the storytelling was a bit clunky and rudimentary. I gave it three stars anyway, perhaps just because I really like the other Tepper book I read.

Like a Palanhiuk book written by a wannabe Dan Jenkins.

Still, it was better than I expected, as long as I ignore the fact that Imus wasn't funny on the radio in my lifetime and was ultimately revealed to be pretty unpleasant.

The unnecessary epilogue complicates the themes a bit, too. A bit of a chickening out.

I almost went three stars, but let's not get carried away.

I read a Forgotten Realms book by Ed Greenwood in high school, and it took almost 20 years before I was willing to give Forgotten Realms a second chance.

I picked this up for a buck, and I liked one other Pathfinder Tales book well enough, so I figured I'd give Ed Greenwood a second chance. His success will continue to be a mystery to me.

Reading this, I can't imagine that it would even be fun to play a game he's DMing. Basic, boring, repetitive . . . I guess he must be good at game design, but he's no writer.

If I were a more informed fan, some parts of this would have been gold to me. Album by album and even song by song breakdowns of influences and inspirations were a bit much for me, though.

Still, much of it is compelling and engaging, even if he turns into a bit of a Lenny Bruce with his legal troubles at the end.

The writing was much better than in the first one, although it still occasionally slipped back into the clunky style that made the first one unbearable.

The style is still needlessly slippery, however, and the characters not rich enough to support the abstractions, weirdness and ideas (all of which are almost compelling).

Written with a bizarre, plodding simplicity that made it incomprehensible at times and always a slog. By the end, I was reading it in Wesley Willis' voice.

A shame, because the universe was kind of interesting.

It's disappointing that the writers originally involved with the show seem least able to adapt to this format. But, for some reason, it also seems that nobody can write a good Third Doctor book. Nobody seems to have a handle on the character, or the ability to balance the camp without adding terrible humor.