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On a Cold Dark Sea
On a Cold Dark Sea
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Yes, this is yet another novel about the Titanic, but I request you not click away just yet. Instead, please read my latest review on my blog that answers the question: has Elizabeth Blackwell found an angle to this old story that sets her novel apart from all the rest, or has she, like so many before her who are transfixed with this story, fallen into the same mundane traps? Find out in my review of “On a Cold Dark Sea” on my blog, here.

https://tcl-bookreviews.com/2018/03/31/portraits-in-survival/
  
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James Marsters recommended Blade Runner (1982) in Movies (curated)

 
Blade Runner (1982)
Blade Runner (1982)
1982 | Sci-Fi
8.5 (75 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Of course taken from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick, a short story, and like a lot of his books, it paints a world where technology has vastly outstripped our morality. We can create artificial beings that are every bit as human as we are, to any measurement, and yet we still treat them like a machine. What does that say about how human we are? I think in the age of cloning and bio-medicine that is exploding right now, with every month, it seems there is some new problem that is jeopardising our morality as human beings. It just seems like we should be very careful in the next hundred years. Philip’s very clever in saying this is what is going to happen, if we’re not careful. I also think it’s the best noir that doesn’t have to have gumshoes ever. He’s successfully made a noir in a new setting. One of my favourite things is the flying blimp with the picture of the Asian lady taking the pill in close-up. How perfect is that? We’re seeing those commercials now, where they say the side-effects maybe your hair falling out and so on. How they talked to Coca-Cola about the product placing on that building, I’ll never know. "

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Selected Ambient Works 85-92 by Aphex Twin
Selected Ambient Works 85-92 by Aphex Twin
1992 | Rhythm And Blues, Techno
7.7 (7 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I remember first hearing 'Xtal' - that is the sexiest ambient electronic song for me. I remember being in my first year of university in Brighton and moving away from home and being a bit lost and lonely in some ways, in this tiny little halls of residence room. This album, Ambient Works, was just constantly on my Walkman and I'd been exploring Björk, The Black Dog, Aphex Twin and Boards Of Canada, all this electronic music, this world that was opening up to me from the early to mid-nineties, which I was discovering it a bit later. I'd actually at that point bought a QY-70, which is a Yamaha sequencer - I remember reading Björk had written Debut on it and Tricky had one. Listening to Ambient Works, for the first time it seemed possible that I understood how those things were layered up - beats and beautiful little melodies and there was no singing on it, which for me at the time was great because I was very shy about singing. I remember just hearing that and then going to my QY and hearing little synth sounds that sounded similar. Although Aphex Twin's synth sounds were, in hindsight, put through loads of pedals - I can hear that he's got field recordings layered on top of stuff and probably synths he's made himself - but it made sense to me and encouraged me to go and make my own ambient songs. I remember meeting Aphex Twin around that time at a Björk Vespertine concert. I'd met him once before and I went up to him with my MiniDisc player, which I used to put things I'd produced on, and I played him a song at the bar. I kind of knew him at the time a little bit by face, I think we'd met at some nights he was doing at a warehouse in London and me and my boyfriend at the time liked dancing and going out, and I played it to him and he said: ""I think it's really good. The production's quite good for a girl"". [laughs] That's what he said to me! I didn't take it as a bad thing. I was just like, ""cool"". I mean, Aphex Twin liked my production skills, so whether I'm a girl or not, it's fine. But I just remember thinking how funny that was - but I took it like ""that's a real stamp of approval for me"". I do think he's been a really pivotal figure and an important person in my life, because he does electronic music and it's really sexy and emotional. It wasn't cold like some of the other people, like Stockhausen, but I felt like he understood the dance movement and got the loved-up aspect to ambient music. There's a darkness to it, and a light, but a real twisted, disgustingness in what he does, like 'Come To Daddy' and 'Windowlicker', this rank Englishness, [adopts croaky drawl] ""come to daddddyyyy!"", all that weird shit. He's got a sense of humour and just seems to be one of the modern day composers of our time that understood emotionalism in electronic music. Dirty, disgustingness and kind of surreal, how to fuck with your mind, and his body of work is huge. So, yeah, I think he's a dude."

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Servant: The Awakening (Servant, #1)
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I had to force myself past the first few pages due to their confusing descriptions and use of wording. Once I passed those, however, the novel went by fairly quickly.

First off, I would like to say that you can tell Fantasy/Sci-fi are not Ms. Foster's usual territory. It seemed that she was so focused on developing the romance part of the novel that she completely forgot that there was suppose to be plot development, too. She did bother to come up with a plot but it was neither creative nor original. A doctor abusing patients for their own purposes? A female heroine with special powers trying to stop an evil while a man who is her exact opposite is somehow attracted to her and demands that she do as he says to keep her safe? Nope, not original at all.

I was also annoyed by the complete lack of character history. I felt that Ms. Foster purposely made Gaby an abused victim to foster home with a lack of education. It worked out for Foster seeing as that Gaby as an educational unintelligent person who lack major social skill fit into the story rather well. I just wished that Foster had come up with a better background than that. It just seemed to like a lazy way out. Not to mention that she barely mention's Mort's history, and Luther's is just non-existent.

All in all, the story didn't seem original or well developed but I couldn't stop myself from reading it. I admit it's not a great novel, or even good for that matter. I still must also admit that I liked it and couldn't put it down. I bought the book for the paranormal aspect but ended up reading it for the romance. I just had to see if Luther and Gaby hooked up. However, Gaby's personality and mouth made it hard. I understand that they way she talked and acted was part of the character that was Gabrielle Cody, yet all her foul language and agreeableness made the novel unpleasant to read. I am not offending by cursing, but Gaby's was excessive to the point of annoying. Growing up where I have, it was unbelievable, however.

An interesting book if not taken seriously.
  
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Justin Hawkins recommended Powerage by AC/DC in Music (curated)

 
Powerage by AC/DC
Powerage by AC/DC
1978 | Metal, Rock
8.7 (3 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I think that most people got into AC/DC because of Back In Black and that happened to me as well, but I really wanted to explore the Bon years because Highway To Hell was a great album too. So I wanted to go back from there. I loved all of it actually. I was completely obsessed with AC/DC for a long time in fact, but the one album that really for me was head and shoulders above the rest was Powerage. It’s got songs like ‘Down Payment Blues’ and songs that people would say, ”Oh that’s my favourite AC/DC song”, because they’re trying to be cool and try and talk about their poverty and their roots and that sort of stuff, but it shows that it has a deeper poetry to it – the fact that people want to think of Powerage that way. For me it’s also got the best Angus solo of all of them. It’s on ‘Up To My Neck In You’. It goes on for ages and it’s essentially the same solo twice, but played a bit harder the second time around. It’s really good: him using proper dynamics. He has a lot of phrases that he often goes to, but it’s just the way he uses them on that solo that makes it really special. I’m definitely a Bon enthusiast. I went to Fremantle near Perth in Australia to visit his grave. I’d never been to visit any famous graves before, and we only did it because we were in Australia and had the day off, but you have an expectation of what you’re going to see tribute-wise from other people that had gone to visit it. And there was one guy had written something that had really stayed with me. You can imagine that it’s sort of like a pilgrimage out of town – there’s nothing really around the graveyard. And there’s a bench on the concrete and you can just imagine this guy there with a Sharpie going, “hmmm, now what can I say that really sums up my feelings at this point?” And he had just put: “Love your work Bon.” Ha ha, it was really powerful."

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The Forgotten Girls
The Forgotten Girls
Owen Laukkanen | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Received an ARC from First To Read for an honest review:

First, I like many others it seems, did not know from the blurb that it was book 6 in a series. That scared me just a tiny bit when I started it, but as I read the book I realized it definitely also works as a standalone.

Second, I'm not big on crime novels that are not of the "cozy mystery" variety. That being said, the more violent scenes in this book were not...bothersome. It worked it's way up in intensity, but there was nothing that forced me to step away from the book and take a breather.

That being said, though, the book was full of amazing scenes beautifully described that you couldn't, as a reader, NOT picture, even if you didn't want to. Lines like: "Even the sky seemed static, just a blank wall, a paint swatch, 'chronic depression gray'." were scattered throughout, and they place you in the wintry, desolate, desperate situation of the characters so that you are right beside them, experiencing what they are, for better or worse.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book, even though the content was not a topic of my normal choosing (sorry, serial killers hunting women freak me out).

Extra bonus for the techy geek stuff I didn't know about the "cloud" that I had to double check with the more "techno-advanced" member of our household about. Definitely makes me think twice about the idea of even donating a used phone.
  
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Kate (355 KP) rated Stormblades in Apps

Mar 21, 2019  
Stormblades
Stormblades
Games
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
App Rating
I as saying it is alright - I have only just started playing it though, The main character is a small mouse which is quite cute but and here is the big but, you have to collect stars to carry out quests in order to carry on with the story just like many others, in this case the maximum level of stars you can obtain per level is 3 but so far the minimum number of stars neeed to fulfill a task is 7, so work that out. Will see how it progresses before I get too bored.
  
Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
2007 | Action, Mystery
A great, stand out action film that delivers all the good stuff from the other Die Hard films....and even a few ideas from some other top action films. We get a cool relevant story for the present day about hackers getting in to control just about everything in the country, lots of great action scenes not overly reliant on CGI, great fights and some humour as well of course. John McClane is definitely one hard to kill guy, kicking bad guy ass just as well as ever. This is all out action you can't fail to like!!
  
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Rian Johnson recommended Paper Moon (1973) in Movies (curated)

 
Paper Moon (1973)
Paper Moon (1973)
1973 | Classics, Comedy, Drama
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"I’m a film school nerd, so I’ve got about a hundred favorite movies. I’d feel like I was cheating on all of them if I narrowed it down to five movies. But con man movies I can do. In no particular order, I guess the first one I’d name is Paper Moon, which, for me, is just a perfect film. It’s also one of the first con man movies I saw that was less about the mechanics of plot and more about the relationships between the characters, and this father-daughter relationship, which is really beautiful. Just a pretty wonderful movie."

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