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David McK (3716 KP) rated The Mandalorian - Season 3 in TV

Apr 25, 2023 (Updated Apr 29, 2023)  
The Mandalorian - Season 3
The Mandalorian - Season 3
2022 | Sci-Fi
Season 3 episode of Disney's 'The Mandalorian', which seems to move the focus away from Grogu and Din Djarin somewhat to focus more on the fractured Mandalorian society as a while, in particular with a heavy emphasis on the character of Bo-Katan Kryze.

For anybody who expected the crux of the series to be Din's quest to rejoin his culvert after being previously kicked out for revealing his face in public, that arc in particular is actually resolved with almost indecent haste within the first couple of episodes - there's also no mention of how Grogu is back with Din at all at the start of the first episode of the series (you need to watch the last couple of episodes
 of The Book of Boba Fett for that), although I had thought it would be a good opportunity for the opening crawl that the movies have to explain his reappearance. There's also an episode here that feels like it has been lifted and ported over almost wholesale from Andor, set on Coruscant and delving into the bureacratic New Republic.

While I have since heard that season 4 is already planned (presumably after Ashoka), the series does also end in an episode that could wrap up the entire thing of that was not to be the case.
  
A good and extremely informative read about the female computers at NASA who were behind a lot of the theory behind space flight, and were integral to getting rockets into space and to the moon.
I did enjoy reading about these women, but I did find some of it extremely heavy going with a lot of the information being around maths and science. But it was a lovely read to find out more about the women who have been hidden for so long and not had the credit and recognition that they deserve in the history books.
I will say, that this may be one of the only times that I have actually preferred the film to the book. And I think that might have been because it flowed better as a story rather than how Margot Lee Shetterley presented the facts. I think the film showed just how much the women had to endure with segregation and made it a lot more shocking than reading it in the book. While it was shocking in the book the extent of things, I don’t think it quite hit as hard as seeing it on screen.
But overall, a very interesting book if you want to learn more about how these women helped shape space travel as we know it today.
  
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Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2488 KP) rated Fallen Star in Books

Nov 26, 2025 (Updated Nov 26, 2025)  
Fallen Star
Fallen Star
Lee Goldberg | 2025 | Mystery
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Body in a Barrel
LA County Sheriff Detective Eve Ronin and her partner are called to the scene of a body found in the Malibu Lagoon. Of course, it couldn’t be a body floating in the water. That would be too easy. In this case, the body was found floating in a fifty-five-gallon drum. What’s even more shocking is that Eve recognizing the victim. With his ties to some of the most powerful people in the county, can she find the killer without getting impacted by the politics of the case?

This book does contain some heavy spoilers for earlier stories in the series by necessity, but there is enough background you could jump in here. And what a wild ride it is. The plot spins in some unexpected directions, but I believed it all on the way to the logical climax. The characters are a little thin, but I do care about them. And I appreciate the depth we did get for Eve. The banter between the characters was fun, and the locker room humor was kept to a minimum. The violence was a little more than in the books I typically read. I’m ready for the next already, and fans of the series will be glad they picked this one up.