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Love: An Index

Rebecca Lindenberg

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

A man disappears. The woman who loves him is left scarred and haunted. In her fierce, one-of-a-kind...

The Truth about Kadenburg (The Kadenburg Shifters #1)

T.E. Ridener

8.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

Book

26-year-old Presley Goult's life is anything but ordinary. Her mother abandoned her as a toddler...

Paranormal Romance

Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2204 KP) rated Murder on the Iditarod Trail in Books

Aug 8, 2022

Race to Stop a Killer

The Iditarod Race, the 1100 miles dog sled race between Anchorage and Nome, is a hard a grueling endurance event, but it has never been deadly for humans - until now. First, someone falls asleep on his sled and winds up crashing into a tree. State trooper Alex Jensen is brought in to figure out what happened, but before he can make a complete determination, another body turns up dead. He takes the offer of help from musher Jessie Arnold willingly. But will that be enough to keep anyone else from dying?

I read this book on my recent Alaskan cruise, and I think that helped me get into the story. I found all the facts about the race and the various setting fascinating. Outside a couple of characters, I had trouble keeping everyone straight, but I really did care for Jessie and Alex. I did find some of Alex’s behavior unrealistic, but I do get the dramatic tension it was creating. The race takes over from the mystery as the main driver of the plot at times, but I got caught up in the action and the climax was a page turner. Overall, I enjoyed this one, and book two came home from my trip with me as a souvenir. Hopefully, I can get to it soon.

Kudos

David McK (3425 KP) rated The Mummy Returns (2001) in Movies

Sep 6, 2021 (Updated Sep 3, 2023)

The Mummy Returns (2001)

2001 | Action, Horror, Mystery

7.0

(26 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Brendan Fraser as Rick O'Connoll (1 more)

Rachel Weisz as Evie

Went down the annoying kid route (0 more)

There was a time in the mid to late 90s/early 00s where Brendan Fraser was a Bona Fide movie star, back before he took a break from acting.

A large part of that appeal was due to his (very) Indiana Jones-alike Rick O'Connell, a role he first portrayed in 1999s The Mummy and reprised in this (which is the middle of the Mummy films).

Unlike the sequel to this, this one also sees the return of Rachel Weisz as his now-wife Evie O'Connell (a role recast in the third film) alongside returning players from the first movie: Arnold Vosloo's Imhotep himself, John Hannah as Evie's no-good brother, Oded Fehr as the Medjai Ardeth Bay - here on the O'Connell's side throughout - and Patricia Velasquez as the reincarnated Anck Su Namun.

As such, there are strong links to the original move here, with this particular entry also seeing Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's breakthrough to acting, as the titular Scorpion King (although some of the later effects haven't aged all that well).

Mostly enjoyable, although (and, IMO, unfortunately), they went down the 'annoying child actor' route, with the whole plot about their child getting kidnapped that kicks the journey into motion ...

Kudos

David McK (3425 KP) rated Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (Red Dwarf #1) in Books

Jan 28, 2019 (Updated Sep 1, 2019)

Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (Red Dwarf #1)

Grant Naylor | 1992 | Humor & Comedy, Science Fiction/Fantasy

7.0

(4 Ratings)

Book Rating

Back in the late 80s/early 90s, there was a TV show on British terrestial channles, that gained a bit of a cult following: 'Red Dwarf'.

Set on a 6-mile long mining ship in deep space, the early years of Red Dwarf were centred around the odd-couple pairing of Dave Lister (the last known Human alive, who was in a stasis booth - released thousands of years later - when a radiation leak wiped out the crew of the eponymous ship) and Arnold J Rimmer: a hologram of his dead bunk-mate, and perhaps the most annoying man in existence. Added to this are the ships now-senile computer Holly and the Cat: a creature evolved from a cat that Lister had smuggle aboard (and why he was in the stasis booth in the first place).

To this, and round about season 3 (although he first made an appearance in season 2), was added Kryten: a mechanoid with an overactive guilt chip.

Some novels based on a TV show seem to pretty much just repeat the episode scene for scene; others seem to share nothing in common with hteir source material except the name. This, I felt, falls somewhere in the middle: while certain segments of the novel do indeed follow (very) closely to their source, others only use that as their starting-off point. It aslo does a better job of tying the episodes together than the TV show ever could!