My old friend and fellow Westlake fan Dave Locke recommended this amusing made-for-cable adaptation of Donald E Westlake’s novella A Travesty (published together with another story in a book titled Enough, in case you happen to want to look for … Continue reading
If you’re not familiar with the Discworld series of novels by Terry Pratchett, it concerns, naturally, a flat but otherwise vaguely Earthlike planet riding on the backs for four elephants who in turn stand on the shell of an immense … Continue reading
The late Donald Westlake is best known as a writer of crime fiction, some serious and hard-boiled (including a series he wrote under the name Richard Stark) and others very funny, notably those starring John Dortmunder, a professional thief with … Continue reading
Ricky Gervais is a British-born New York dentist who’s content to be friendless because he finds other people pretty consistently annoying. When a near-death experience leaves him able to see and hear ghosts, the apparitions don’t strike him as the … Continue reading
This is an entertaining history of the idea of a hollow Earth, from what at the time was serious scientific speculation (concentric Earths supposedly explaining why the magnetic poles don’t line up with the geographical ones) to crank theorizing to … Continue reading
I enjoyed the Mars novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs when I first read them in my early teens and retain a great deal of affection for them still. Flawed they certainly are, with preposterously flowery dialog, implausible, formulaic, and coincidence-driven … Continue reading
This is a book full of surprisingly interesting water trivia but with a serious purpose, describing how in many places ready access to fresh water is becoming increasingly difficult. Of course, you’d expect someone named Fishman to know something about … Continue reading
Like The Polar Express (2004) and Beowulf (2007), this film uses computer-generated animation based in large part on motion capture of live actors (which explains why the credits this animated film include stunt performers). This is of course an adaptation … Continue reading
David Barton is a pseudo-historian popular with some members of the Christian right because he claims that the United States was intended to be a Christian nation and the Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, were orthodox Christians who wanted Christianity … Continue reading
Here’s yet another film based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, this one set mainly in present-day India and done Bollywood style, complete with elaborate production numbers. It was directed by Gurinder Chadha (of Indian ancestry but born in Kenya … Continue reading