Peter G. (247 KP) rated WarGames (1983) in Movies
Sep 18, 2019
If you can look past the cluncky and very old hardware and the story in isolation there is a very tense and enjoyable us versus them government conspiracy chess game that moves at pace towards a satisfying but typical 80s conclusion.
Broderick and Sheedy make great protagonists and were great cast choices, it's rather cheesy now but for me a great look back at 80s cold war paranoia.
Consider Phlebas
8.0
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The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the...
"The Culture"
Smiley's People
Book
The concluding part of John le Carré's celebrated Karla Trilogy, Smiley's People sees the last...
The Unprofessional Soldier - Memoirs of a Foot Soldier in the Mesopotamian Campaign of the Great War
Book
Are lessons ever really learned? Incredibly detailed and highly emotive, The Unprofessional Soldier...
David McK (3932 KP) rated Moonraker (James Bond, #3) in Books
Jan 30, 2019
James Bond does not go into space.
At least, not in the novel on which that film is (very loosely) based - or, more accurately, from which they took the title.
Instead, we have a Cold-War era spy thriller, with the Moonraker of the title really more of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (an IBM) rather than the Space Shuttle of the movie. Nor is there CIA involvement, nor a battle-in-space, nor a madman setting out to wipe out all life on Earth ... you get the picture.
There are, however, elements of the novel that make it into future Bond movies, in particular the facial reconstructive surgery of 'Die Another Day' clearly picking up it's cue from the background given to the central antagonist of Drax, and just what happened to him during the war.
The Quiet Australian: The Story of Teddy Hudleston, the RAF's Troubleshooter for 20 Years
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Teddy Hudleston was a pilot of immense skill and talent whose wisdom and resourcefulness in both war...
Varina
Book
In his powerful fourth novel, Charles Frazier returns to the time and place of Cold Mountain,...
Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders and Cover-Ups: Six Decades of Espionage
Book
In "Treachery", noted intelligence authority Chapman Pincher makes a compelling case that Roger...
Donovan Wylie: North Warning System
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North Warning System is Donovan Wylie's third and final book of photographs on the themes of vision...
The 1970s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction
John McLeod, Nick Hubble and Philip Tew
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How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1970s shape Contemporary British...