A total and complete abomination! The jacket says that Al Sarrantonio has won several awards -- he won't win any here! A 200-page book with 61 chapters??? First indication that something was wrong. Such a blatant and direct translation that he might as well included the camera angles and lighting instructions. Two saving graces: 1) 50 cents went to the Brooklyn Public Library for this purchase. 2)No one else will ever take this book out again. |
The best (?) from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest to write the worst opening line to a fictional novel. Numerous bad puns, wildly inappropriate imagery, and clever wordplay. Amusing read, though reading too much at one sitting lessens some of the humor. |
Very enjoyable. A keeper. Based on the series pilot (which I didn't see -- I only saw 1 or 2 later episodes). The story starts with Longinus and the Crucifiction, jumps 400 years and shifts to Ireland and spans another 25 years. The story has solid characters multiple interwoven storylines that don't all end with someone dying. A little open-ended, but it was a series pilot, so that is to be expected. Well-written, especially for an adaptation. |
Starts with a day-after "Prologues", jumps into a 1970s timeframe and ends without really refering back to the prologue and without an epilogue to close what's left hanging. Explores the Area 51 story, centering on Brackish Okun and introducing Dr. Isaccs along the way. Nimziki, a major player in the beginning, fades away fast, though he pops up occasionally. Good read as long as you didn't hate the movie, but it contradicts some of what the author wrote (and what the characters would seem to know) in ID4. (Stupid acronym, by the way.) |
Better than Goblins (whatever it was called -- read it years ago), but that doesn't say much. Real like a complicated episode, which never would have had this kind of budget to be made. As good as the average Trek novel. (Hmmmm, that doesn't say much either.) |
A Highlander-type adaptation, only much faster to read since I saw the movie. One day on the train, I read 150 pages (a lot more than I usually read). Good story, could have been a much better read. |
Much better than the Higlander adaptation. And possibly improves upon the movie. It gives better background and doesn't belabor the onscreen action and dialogue. Great read. Explains a few things that the movie leaves you guessing at. (If you hated the movie, or had problems with it, you'll hate the book, too.) I enjoyed it and might pass it on. I have the sequel to read. |
Never saw the movie. Didn't even remember it when Highlander 2 came out. Clumsily written at first and annoyingly so at the end. It reads like a direct adaptation of the script with very little added. Worse, some of the visual gags seemed to be painfully drawn out. No quick takes in writing. So to get into, but I knocked off the last 200 pages this past weekend. I recycled it back to the bookstore. I don't think it has anything of interest to anyone who saw the movie. |
True story of an Italian immigrant housewife, who is nothing like Meryl Streep, who has an affair with a traveling photographer for National Geographic, who rides into Iowa from the Pacific Northwest in a pickup truck named Henry. He stops for directions and is sleeping with her within two days while her family is at a state fair with a prize cattle. The children find out about it when they're grown after she dies. "Literary" work turned into a movie that miscasts both roles. Quick read. Not bad. |
Samurai warriors battle Egyptian gods on the island of no return! First off, that didn't happen. Close, but it doesn't happen. (Both groups do appear in the latter half of the book -- the samurai only briefly.) The story starts Tony Miller, archeologist, and his buddy on an island in the path of a tsunami. The other guy falls and gets a concussion and Tony rescues him, tosses him in his plane, and mistakes the invasion of some foreign entity into his friend's body as the ravings of a man whose sanity is in doubt. Half the book passes before they encounter The Artifact, the destruction of which sets off the Time Blender (not Time Bender, as I originally thought when I picked up the book). He travels with a Celtic warrior woman, battles an Egyptian god, and makes his way to San Francisco, which is still where it should be despite all the other land masses and time periods intermingling. He has a fateful decision to make, but instead we get: ?! Nowhere on the cover does it say, "1st book in an exciting new series!" The copyright page doesn't list a "Coming Soon". There is no indication anywhere that this book is multiple parts. I wasn't happy. Good setting. Okay follow through. Lousy ending. I was going to pass this on -- now I'm going to chuck it out. |
A runaway boy lives on the street dreaming of his own Middle Earth, which is a conglomeration of every fantasy he's ever read. One day, he meets a fairie, and she insists that he (the boy) is the Keymaster that can bring them back. Many ill-defined or under-defined characters, like the boy's father, who hires a P.I. to find him, several of the fairies that Danny meets, and some Nazi skinheads that appear to be just stuck in there for no reason. Too many little in-jokes and scenes that go nowhere. The tone of the book changed in a couple of places. Disappointing overall. |
A year in the life, with anecdotes of the past. Interesting way to do a biography -- especially since the slow speed O.J. chase happens in the first week -- but overall it dragged a little. A straight bio might have been better but then there wouldn't have been as many "cameos" by the celebrities on his show that year. Not bad. But not great. |
Bourbon Penn 21, July 2020 (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way ...
