Lena’s Comments (group member since Nov 17, 2014)

Lena’s comments from the Spells, Space & Screams: Collections & Anthologies in Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror group.

A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa Wong ★★★☆☆
A sad story of sisters who cannot escape a violent fate no matter how often they go back and try.

Beachworld ★★☆☆☆
Post-apocalyptic war snippet in the middle of the desert.

The Reapers Image ★★★☆☆
A mirror may show the grim reaper.

Nona ★★★½☆
A spree killer story with ratty twist. Likely an unreliable narrator story, or worse.

The universe shifts and changes: suddenly you understand, you get it, and are filled with a sense of wonder. That moment of understanding drives the greatest science-fiction stories and lies at the heart of Engineering Infinity. Whether it's coming up hard against the speed of light - and, with it, the enormity of the universe - realising that terraforming a distant world is harder and more dangerous than you'd ever thought, or simply realizing that a hitchhiker on a starship consumes fuel and oxygen with tragic results, it's hard science-fiction where sense of wonder is most often found and where science-fiction's true heart lies.

Night Teeth! Woohoo, Netflix is bringing the vampire coolness for October!

I thought maybe I had missed something about the Butler and listened to it again, but no.

The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands ★★★☆☆
A man cursed in foreign lands with a deadly ability comes to a lovely end.

Ah, when I looked up ubris I got a design magazine.

It was in the intro. Cain Rose Up was published in what looks like a design magazine. Weird to think of 60s housewives picking furniture then landing on that story.

Word Processor of the Gods ★★★★☆
A delicious little fantasy of What If’s? Can two sentences change your life? They can with the right computer.

King was pretty proud when he got a story in Playboy. I’m reading that one right now.

Tasha’s second death was even worse than her first. She never had it easy. It was a shocking episode but it underscored that space was dangerous and it doesn’t only kill red shirts. One of my least favorite things is still Long War Arches where no character you care about dies. It’s war. You don’t have to go full GOT but dangerous things like space exploration, extreme sports, and war should not be portrayed as “free.”

Canavan wrote: "Lena said:
The Jaunt ★★★★½>
I was totally unsurprised by your high rating of this story, Lena. It seems to be one of King’s favorites. Almost everyone loves it. It probably says ..."

🤣 I have my share of unpopular opinions. Sometimes I even get mean comments on my reviews. I erase them unless there is a point. I’m fine with a point, even if it is mean spirited.

The Raft ★★★☆☆
Now I know the inspiration for Star Trek’s Skin of Evil. RIP Tasha Yar.

The Shining was one of those books where it was a horror before the scary stuff even started. It had an all-to-real deep dive into alcoholism and its effects on family. I’ve been extremely drunk maybe once in my life and I can’t imagine trying to make a life through it.

I guess there was also a bit of Nietzsche vs Hegel, a question of what was wrong or what was right and if it even mattered. Should he have taken the awful risk to his family and fought on into that good night of tentacular terror? I guess since there were not “good” answers and yes, some emotional torture, it was a memorable kick in the gut that the story was not.

I liked them evenly as I did with The Shining. King would strongly disagree there too, lol.

Paranoid: A Chant
★½☆☆☆
Just a lil’dollop of crazy.

The Wedding Gig ★★☆☆☆
A musician witnesses some gang violence.

Canavan wrote: I’ve always preferred the latter, particularly when it comes to the ending.

In the everybody vs. a few, yes, the original has the darkest possibilities. But (view spoiler)[

You’ll be 105 and have forgotten your own birthday before you forget that ending. There is an article I would love to link -
WHY YOU’RE STILL NOT OVER THE ENDING OF ‘THE MIST’ 8 YEARS LATER - but GR is being a bitch.
“According to Cinemablend, King stated, "Frank wrote a new ending that I loved. It is the most shocking ending ever and there should be a law passed stating that anybody who reveals the last five minutes of this film should be hung from their neck until dead." Well damn, Stephen.”
(hide spoiler)]

The Jaunt ★★★★½
I was wondering about the sweet family trip to Mars, but then the story had a stopover in Providence and I knew where we were going :)

Black and white movie on race and possibly other things: Passing
It has the feels of The Hours.
GR has not been letting me embed links today.

Le beauté sans vertu by Genevieve Valentine ★★★½☆
High fashion gives us these strange, beautiful, unforgettable moments. But the costs can be brutally high.