Patrick Kanouse's Blog, page 47

Argo: A Review

Gina and I watched this not too long ago. I am glad we were able to catch it in the theater. The story is quite a tale, and one whose outcome we know but still find engaging and tense. In 1979, six US embassy employees escape the takeover by the Iranian crowd and eventually find sanctuary, albeit fragile sanctuary, in the Canadian embassy. The movie describes their escape. I won't get into

The Devotion of Suspect X: A Review

While looking for non-American and non-UK science fiction, I also chanced across some Japanese mystery. This novel popped up, so I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did.

This mystery is not written in the typical "whodunit" style. Rather, the murderer is known and the "mystery" is more about the cat-and-mouse game of murderer and investigators.

Yasuko's abusive ex-husband, Togashi, shows up

A Geek's Christmas

My wife always treats me so well. This year for Christmas, she really tugged at my inner geek with a Livescribe Sky pen and these t-shirts.

And she got to my writer/foodie side with some fine scotch. A local food and liquor market has a cask of Arran Malt set aside for itself. This a bottle from that cask. A mighty tasty whisky that has a hot finish.

The t-shirts and socks speak for themselves.

The Bones of the Old Ones: A Review

Howard Andrew Jones' The Bones of the Old Ones in the Sword and Sands Chronicle is a worthy successor to the first book in that series, The Desert of Souls.

We get more of the swashbuckling, historical fantasy. Asim and Dabir begin their journey when Tajya, a Persian noblewoman, arrives. She is in distress, and she needs the help of Asim and Dabir, who take on the task. An ancient and powerful

Merry Christmas: Gingerbread House

We made a gingerbread house this year. Merry Christmas,

Sci-Fi Shorts

I've been watching a number of sci-fi short films. Here are a few I've watched and can recommend:

True Skin
Seed
Payload
Arrowhead

Have you seen any good shorts?

Night Train to Rigel: A Review

I just finished Timothy Zahn's Night Train to Rigel. This is the first in a series featuring former agent Frank Compton. The book starts with a death and does not slow down. The essential premise of the book is the Quadrail, a train-like interstellar transportation operated by the Spiders. The Quadrails run at 1-light year per minute (on average). This set up allows Zahn to use a rather

Lincoln: A Review

Gina and I saw Lincoln the other day. Since I have long maintained that Daniel Day-Lewis is the best actor alive, I won't spend time in this blog gushing about his performance other than to say he gives no cause for me to adjust my thinking about his abilities.

After leaving the theater, my impression was that this is a very good movie, and that impression has held up since then. Overall, the

Skyfall: A Review

I saw Skyfall a couple of weeks ago and wrote this review shortly after seeing it.

First and foremost, I really liked Skyfall, though I enjoyed Casino Royale more. However, Skyfall excels in several ways over any previous Bond films that I can recall. Here are those highlights:

1) Javier Bardem is the creepiest Bond villain yet. Just down right icky.
2) The cinematography of the fight scene in

Kiki in The NOOK Book

While writing the new edition of The NOOK Book, I had to write a section on the NOOK HD's Profiles. And I took screenshots of that to help illustrate the process. I made several profiles. As I was reviewing some of the images, I realized that I used an image that had a Profile named "Kiki." I had named two of the profiles after our Yorkshire Terriers. The screen that featured both of them I