Carl Alves's Blog

We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen

We Have Always Been Here is a slow moving science fiction novel that has some mystery and intrigue but more often than not did not deliver. In the novel, a crew is sent to explore the planet Eos, where strange things were reported from two humans and an android that landed on the planet, by the ISF—an organization that could best be described as corporate overlords who control all things and people. Some of the crew experience waking nightmares where they feel as if they can’t control their bodies, and the androids start to become sentient and do things beyond their programming.

There are several things that don’t work for me. One is the characterization. None of the human characters were particularly compelling, including Park, the main character who was sent by the ISF to monitor the crew and report back to them. She has no personality and very little likeability. It’s hard to get into a novel when the main character is so dull. The other part that made it hard to get into the story was the constant switching back from the present to flashbacks of the other crew in Eos to Park’s backstory. It was hard to ever get into the flow of the story with all of the switching. Also, the writing felt plodding and tedious at times. On the good side, there was a lot of intrigue in trying to figure out the big mystery of the story, and the concept behind the planet they were inhabiting and the effects it had on both humans and androids was interesting. All in all, this was a solid but unspectacular novel.

Movie Review: The Watchers

I wanted to watch this movie because it was M Night Shyamalam’s daughter’s directorial debut. Since I’m a fan of Shyamalam, I wanted to give his daughter a chance. I saw that there were mostly negative reviews and did my best to ignore it. Perhaps it was the low bar that made me like the movie more than the critics, or maybe the critics are just stuffed windbags who don’t know what they are doing. Who knows?

In The Watchers, Mina is an American in Ireland who finds herself stranded in the woods where she encounters a group of strangers who must take shelter in a house from these strange creatures who observe them each night after the sun goes down. There are many rules that they have to follow in order to keep the Watchers happy and not kill this group of strangers. Mina, as the newest arrival, wants to find a way out of this captivity as the strangers begin to lose their sanity.

What I mostly liked about the movie was the building of suspense and mystery throughout the movie. There’s good tension, good build. The reveal of the Watchers comes about three quarters of the way through the movie, and it would probably have been better served for this to be the end of the movie. I don’t think the final part of the movie was as good as most of the movie, but there was an even deeper explanation of exactly who these Watchers are and then the final twist at the end. This twist wasn’t quite at M Night Shyamalam levels, just like this movie wasn’t as good as his best films, but way better than some of his clunkers. My final verdict is that this movie is worth watching but not worth rushing to the movie theaters to see it as I did.

We Could be Heroes by Mike Chen

In We Could Be Heroes, Jamie and Zoe both have superpowers and no recollection of their past life. Coincidence? Of course not. Jamie uses his memory reading and brain stunning power to rob banks that are FDIC insured, while Zoe prefers to use her superstrength, speed, and flying ability to stomp mudholes into bad guys. Both of these strategies have their merits—and problems. Naturally, behind these superpowers and lost memories is a vast conspiracy. As far as conspiracies go, this wasn’t so bad. I think the apt message here is beware of people who think they are trying to save the world because their idolatry and zeal for their cause will wind up steamrolling anyone who stands in their path.

I thought what made this story work is that the two main characters were very relatable, very much like ordinary people who just happened to be thrust into this situation. Both are very flawed. While Jamie is a little more refined, Zoe is more rough around the edges. But they worked well together. It was good to see them fail and overcome and fail and overcome. I felt the author was keeping it real with how two people like this would act given these extraordinary powers.

The story’s villains were just okay. There was a lot of predictability in terms of how things would turn out with the villains. I would much rather have had them take a darker turn than how the author handled it. I also felt that the ending had a bit of a deus ex machina feel to it. It didn’t kill the novel, but it could have been better. All in all, this was a fun read that I would recommend.

Night Warriors by Graham Masterton

Night Warriors features an interesting premise with three strangers (and later a fourth one) who are drawn together when they uncover unnatural, killer eels coming out of a woman’s abdomen when they find her on the shore one morning. It wasn’t a coincidence that they happened upon her, however, when they later learn through an emissary of a supreme being that they are descendants of an ancient group of warriors who have powers in the world of dreams. They are tasked with stopping a being that is the equivalent of the devil, who is impregnating women with these eel offspring to wreak havoc on the human race.

As I mentioned, I thought the concept of this novel was pretty cool, but the execution was lacking. Mostly, it was the quality of the writing that I thought was subpar. I’ve read many Graham Masterton novels, and the writing in this novel just doesn’t stack up against his later work. It seems cruder and more amateurish compared to his later writing. The characterization is solid but not great. I thought some more work could be done to develop these characters. Probably the strongest part of the novel is the world building, back story, and concept of these warriors having super powers fighting through dreams against the dark forces of the world. Although this isn’t a bad read, there are definitely better books written by Graham Masterton that you will want to check out.

Witch Wraith by Terry Brooks

After reading the final book in the Dark Legacy of Shannara trilogy, this series has to rank among the better ones I have read from Terry Brooks. It’s a similar story that he’s told before involving descendants of characters he has written in the past in similar situations with similar stakes and similar talismans. Even though he’s not breaking any new ground, and I wouldn’t give this series or this novel high points for originality, it was well written, entertaining, and compelling. It was also a good bit darker than most of Brooks’s other works. Many characters died in the series, and a heavy price was paid even by the survivors.

As far as this novel goes, the weakest part of the book involved Railing Ohmsford seeking out Grianne Ohmsford in an attempt to rescue his brother. That seemed like the least consequential part of the novel that was designed to give Railing something to do. The better parts of the novel involved the Straken Lord and his army of dark creatures escaping the Forebidding and trying to conquer the Four Lands. The battle scenes were well done. Also, the Ellesindil sisters trying to save the Ellcrys was also well done. The build was strong as was the finale. There is everything that you would want in a Shannara book and series represented here so if you like Terry Brooks, you will enjoy reading this.

Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel

I thoroughly enjoyed the first two novels and eagerly anticipated finishing the series, which was probably why I was so disappointed with Only Human. This novel fell flat and instead of ending the trilogy with a bang, it ended it with a whimper. It’s hard to say exactly where the novel went wrong, but so much about it annoyed me. I didn’t care for how the main characters reacted to both their time on the foreign planet and then their return. I wasn’t buying how the people of Earth reacted to the aftermath of the alien robots arriving on the planet and killing so many, with the establishment of concentration camps for those who had a higher concentration of alien DNA. It just didn’t make any sense to me. And whereas I enjoyed the style of storytelling, through journal entries and interviews, in this novel it got ridiculous at times. There would be situations where the characters are being chased and shot at but were still dictating a running commentary of the situation. It felt artificial and trite. Oh, and the use of alien words that I didn’t understand was utterly pointless.

That’s not to say that the entire novel was bad. There was some level of intrigue to it, but mostly it didn’t work. In particular the robot fight at the end was just dumb. If you read and enjoyed the first two novels, you would be better off not reading this and coming up with your own ending.

Waking Gods by Sebastian Neuvel

I really enjoyed the first book in this series. With the bar set high, Waking Gods, did not disappoint. The book takes place a number of years after the end of the first book. It starts with the robot giant, Themis, touring around the world, and preparing just in case aliens invade the planet—and they do. This book features robots coming to Earth, and Themis engaging them in fights. It’s readily apparent that Themis can’t possibly fight all of them. As people die by the millions from these robot encounters, the humans need to find an alternate way of dealing with the situation—a way to prove to the aliens that humans are worthy of surviving as a species.
The quality of the writing in this novel is strong. Although most of the time I didn’t mind the nontraditional storytelling method of using mission logs, journal entries, and interviews to tell the story, sometimes it gets a bit wonky. Like when there is a life and death situation, and the person is narrating real time what is happening. That makes absolutely no sense, and it is clearly a vehicle used to tell the story. In a real life situation, that would never happen. But the story telling is good enough to overcome that. Overall, it was a fun read, with some good twists and reveals along the way. The author is also not afraid to kill off big characters, which can be very risky for the author, but it also often pays big dividends. This is a good novel that I would recommend.

Movie Review: Dune Part 2

I thought the first Dune movie was a decent movie, but I wasn’t enthralled by it. Part of the issue was that I don’t think the movie did a very good job of explaining the intricate world building in the movie, and that if you weren’t a book reader (which I am not) you were going to miss a lot of it. Prior to watching the second movie in the series, I watched a five minute video explaining the first movie, which I thought was great because it explained many things that I didn’t understand or realize besides just recapping the plot.

I was ready to go for the second movie, and I thought this was much, much better than the first Dune movie. Part of it, I’m sure, is that I understood the world of the story better, but I also thought the plot itself was far superior. The characterization in the story is good. The intrigue of the houses along with how they intersect with the Emperor and the witch women, the Bene Gesserit was interesting and well developed. I wasn’t much into the relationship between Paul and Chani. I thought both the character of Chani and the performance by Zendaya left a lot to be desired. What I thought really worked was Paul’s transformation into the Muad’Dib and his interaction with the Freman people and their prophecy of a messiah. The buildup to the final battle was excellent but the actual battle fell flat with the exception of the knife fight between Paul and the representative from House Harkonnen. The cinematography and special effects were very good. This, overall, is a movie well worth watching.

Sleeping Giants by Sebastian Neuvel

Sleeping Giants is a really cool book in a lot of ways. I’m generally not a big fan of novels that are not written in a traditional manner. The whole experimental style is usually not my thing since I think often times it is a gimmick being used because the writing is subpar, but that is clearly not the case here. The book is written as a series of news reports, journal entries, and interviews by a nameless, faceless, yet very powerful governmental agent. It’s done in a clever manner. An easy comparison for this novel is World War Z, but I thought the way this story was told was far superior to the way World War Z was told. With World War Z it wasn’t a continuous narrative that you could follow from beginning to end. It felt more like bits and pieces scattered. In this novel, I could follow the story entirely, despite the non-traditional narrative style.

The novel had an interesting and unique premise. Various parts of a giant robot, far technologically superior than anything we have is scattered around the world. The US puts together a team of scientists and military to find these pieces, put them together, and learn how to use this robot, all in a way that threatens a world war. Despite the lack of a traditional narrative style, the characters are well developed. There are about four or five main characters, and they are all distinctive and have strong personalities. There are also some interesting twists and turns along the way.

All in all, this is a refreshing and creative novel that I would recommend.

Bloodfire Quest by Terry Brooks

It appears that Terry Brooks is getting darker in his old age. The second book in the Dark Legacy of Shannara trilogy is a good bit more grim than most of his writing. I don’t remember him killing off so many of his characters in previous novels and certainly not in such violent ways. This novel has more of an apocalyptic feel to it than his other work. It continues right after the first novel ends with a group of druids and the Ohmsford boys, and a company of others accidentally going into the Forbidding searching for the missing elf stones. They encounter the demonic creatures who live in this land, who had been locked away with Elven magic in the form of the Ellcrys, which is dying, allowing the magic protecting the Four Lands from the Forbidding to weaken.

Although I certainly don’t mind my fantasy being dark, it seems odd coming from Brooks. I have read so many of his novels, and this seems a bit of a departure for him. All the same, the writing is strong, the pacing is good, and the action sequences work. There are almost too many characters to keep track of, but that problem gets solved with the author killing off many of these characters during the course of this book. Perhaps that was the reason he started off with so many characters to begin with. Although I didn’t like this as much as book one, this was a good sequel, and I look forward to reading the final chapter of this trilogy.