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Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
1980 | Fantasy, Sci-Fi

"I think #3 would be The Empire Strikes Back. To me, clearly the best of the six, like way, way ahead of the field — the six Star Wars movies, not my list — and here we go, Harrison Ford again. Harrison Ford was like my generation’s greatest leading man. He’s going to be our Clark Gable or whatever. He was so good. That movie just had plenty of story and action, and my problem with a lot of sci-fi is that it’s all action and not enough story, not enough character development, and not enough relationships between the characters. It’s all shoot-em-up, which is good; I think guys like that. But I like my shoot-em-ups with relationships and character development and lots of story. And, you know, lots of snappy lines done really well by the actors. Another thing is, it’s the last Star Wars movie before the cute came in. And once they brought the cute, it was like “Ugh! It’s too cute!” They should have made six movies for adults and six movies for kids, and then everybody could have been happy. I’m going to get death threats now, for criticizing… I kid because I love! [laughs]"

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Reverie
Reverie
2
2.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I wanted to love Reverie by Ryan La Sala so much!

Reverie has a wonderful cover that draws you in immediately. The plot mentions a boy and a fantasy world that revolves around dreams. Everything I hoped this book would be – it wasn’t.

Kane is a gay teenager who is trying to pick up the pieces of his life back together after an attack leaves him with no memories of the past. He is in the search of who he is and who he was, and he discovers an alternate reality that he was involved in.

Reveries are worlds born from a person’s private fantasies, and once they manifest they can only be unraveled by bringing their conflicts to a resolution. Reveries have rules and plots, magic and monsters – anything you could wish for. And one wrong step can twist the entire thing into a lethal nightmare maze.

Sounds complicated already?

What if I told you that this is only from the blurb and the book doesn’t really explain these things at all?

Kane is an unraveler, together with The Others. Or at least he was, until one of The Others purged Kane of his memories. And here we are now, with Kane trying to solve the mystery and fight against evil.

I jumped into this book very eagerly, and was disappointing immediately, within the first couple of pages. The reveries and their whole concept were quite confusing, to the point of me not knowing whether the characters are now in a reverie, or in their real world.

Reverie had an amazing concept and it could’ve been done way better than this. I am just disappointed. It all seemed a bit messy and felt like it wasn’t thought through…

I didn’t connect with any of the characters, except for Kane, for the below reasons. And that was it… I didn’t care about any of the others, and there were quite a few characters.

One thing that annoyed me about Reverie, was the exaggeration of the #OwnVoices.

I am not against it, on the contrary! I love equality and I love diversity, and I share love everywhere and to everyone, and if you know me in real life, you will know this about me. We are all equal and different at the same time, and that is the unique thing that connects us all.

However, this book keeps mentioning that Kane is gay. And Kane is a lovely character. He is smart and he is brave. His memories were lost and is desperately trying to find out who he is, who he was, who are his true friends, who is good and who is evil. He doesn’t take for granted on what people tell him. He is AMAZING. Kane was so much more than just gay. But the author kept trying so hard to put an #OwnVoices hashtag on this book, that is was quite aggressive and off-putting. I love books that feature #OwnVoices, but Ryan, please – a little bit of modesty would’ve been nice.

I keep feeling this pressure of trying to write a book review that will not offend anyone, and I don’t mean to offend anyone, but I need to say that sometimes, there can be such a thing as “too much OwnVoicing” in a book. And we shouldn’t be afraid to point it out!

I am really sad about this one, guys. Honestly, I expected it to love it so bad, and now I feel down. I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you think you will love it, please pick it up. You are valid!
  
I got maybe three or four chapters into this novel. Ella seemed like a strong character with potential, and the basic plot seemed like it could have been really good. Sadly, I couldn’t get past chapter 4. There are a few reasons why.

1. Drama. Drama, drama, drama! Really that’s what most fiction boils down to, but what makes a book good is that the drama is realistic. This drama was a little overdone. Ella goes to college (running away without telling anyone where she went, which technically is impossible: trust me, I know. My university sends my parents stuff all the time with their logo on it). when she comes back, Micah is a mess, and has been looking for her everywhere.

2. Physicalities. I felt like this book was an excuse to write steamy romance… bad steamy romance at that. When Ella comes home, she still wants Micah, but she won’t admit it. And he knows it. Then he starts flirting with her, touching her, kissing her on the ear, etc. Really? The girl won’t even look you in the eye, doesn’t want to talk to you, and you can’t even rekindle your friendship before getting touchy-feely? Talk about being a douche bag. After she tells him off and leaves, he climbs into her room through the window and climbs in bed with her. C’mon. Really? Does this girl have no self respect? Then there was the factor that it wasn’t even hot. I mean, if you want to write erotica, fine. Write erotica. don’t disguise it as a New Adult novel… and at least make it good. It was just sappy and corny. Trust me, writing emotional and physical scenes is really hard: I’ve written a few now since I’ve gotten through some of my own books. But if you suck at writing love scenes, don’t make your whole book a drawn out love scene.

3. The sorority best friend. Every time this b!tch opened her mouth, I had flashbacks to this video (
). That was one thing the narrator did really well: She nailed the rich kid! And I couldn’t stand her. Maybe that was the point… but it was just the nail in the coffin for me.

So yeah, that’s why I didn’t like the book. Also, the female narrator sounded like she was fourteen, and the male narrator sounded twenty eight… So that was awkward.

Maybe if I read the book instead of listened to it, I would like it more… but as of now, I can’t recommend it.
  
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Brian Eno recommended Glider by My Bloody Valentine in Music (curated)

 
Glider by My Bloody Valentine
Glider by My Bloody Valentine
1990 | Rock
8.0 (2 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I was doing a lecture tour mostly in California and I was being driven from place to place by my friend David Snow. I bought this CD [Glider], I don't know why I brought it with me, I hadn't heard it, I'd just picked it up on the way over from England. I put this first song on ('Soon') and I never played anything else. I don't know if I ever have ever played the other songs on it. I just put that thing on and it's just such a sonic experience, and in a car it's amazing. We had a hired car with an amazing sound system, and just being inside that music actually has a lot to do with what I'm doing now with this three-dimensional thing. You get that feeling in a car where you're really inside the music, you don't really get it in a room very often. It's such a statement. I remember that experience in the car so strongly as we hadn't actually used the hi-fi before in the car and it was turned up really loud. Oh my god. It's so chaotic, and recording doesn't capture chaos very well, it usually tames it, it contains it in a way. Again, it's about voices. One of the things that I really love in that is the fact that there's singing in there but you have no idea what it's doing. You can hear that somewhere in that thicket of noise there's somebody doing something but you have no idea what it is. I thought that was great, that singing could be like that. It doesn't have to be this person at the front with all the articulation and every word clear. It can just be a person in that mess and that was a real liberation for me."

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Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life
Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life
Terry Brooks | 2003 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Real Life Stories (1 more)
Brooks' Experiences as a Writer
Preachy (0 more)
If you are planning an epic like LOTR or Shannara, you need to read this
I always wanted to be a writer when I grew up, I loved reading. I don't write much now, but when I was, I read lots of 'How to Write' books. Most are crap. This is one that is worthy of a read.
You can not deny that Terry Brooks has nailed the epic fantasy journey, better than Tolkein, it's still going strong. I love his writing and his stories. Although I didn't take as much from this as King's On Writing, I did enjoy reading it and seeing a little into the man behiind the books. This book is not just for wannabe writers, it's for his fans as well, you learn a little more about how Shannara and Landover came about.