adventure

As book three of the Earthsea cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin, this one had some living up to do and it does. The story takes place a few decades after its prequel and involves another quest by Ged along with a passenger, a young prince, as they investigate the reason why magic is being drained from Earthsea. The atmosphere is just as harmonious as the other books in the series and the imagination, magnificent. There are a few areas that do not flow very smoothly. But, by and large, this is an excellent read.

This is the sequel to The Wizard of Earthsea and while a little underwhelming, is a nice read. The protagonist from the first book does play an important part in this book. However, he does not appear until half-way through and primarily plays the role of a mentor-like supporting figure to the central character, a young girl brainwashed by religion.

I wish the Miyazakis had made this book into a movie rather than some shambolic hodge-podge combination of the lot.

If anything could be called a seminal work, it would be Alfred Bester's "The Stars, My Destination". Published in book form in 1956 and written well before that, it's an intriguing read after all this time. While the flow and logic can be a little stuttered in spots, allowing for the age of the novel, the leaps in imagination are singularly amazing.

Read this before you die :) I would rate this only three stars lower if it had been written today.

Hunger Games is a bit like Brave New World meets Lord of the Flies meets Rambo. The flow is decent once you suspend disbelief for a good li'l while. The acting is all right and the action above par in places. However, the foundation upon which the plot rests is either inherently flawed or not explained well.

The movie was reasonably entertaining on the whole and going by the ending, there's a sequel coming soon.

"The Recollections of a Certain Pilot" aka "The Princess and the Pilot" is something of a wartime adventure-romance between, believe it or not, a princess and a pilot. The pilot, a half-breed constantly being victimised for his racial inferiority, is a highly-skilled mercenary who is tasked with escorting the rather naïve princess across 12000km of enemy airspace to unite her with her fiancé, the prince of their country. The overall plot is quite good. However, there are, as usual with anime, a number of holes and clichés in it.

I watched Pixar's Up last week and I must say that it was a big disappointment considering all the hype surrounding it. Even though it was released in May, it is currently ranked #39 in IMDb's Top 250 list which I find rather flabbergasting.

John Carter is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' (of Tarzan fame) 1917 novel, A Princess of Mars. I haven't read the book. However, keeping the age of the story in mind, this movie is highly entertaining, if very Hollywood-sy. The story is a nice blend of sci-fi and fantasy with a decent plot and a nice twist at the end. The action is mostly good, the humour mostly funny and the clichés mostly bearable. But the acting could have been better.