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In a conversation with French New Wave film director François Truffaut, Hitchcock explained the difference between surprise and suspense. Let us suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it […]

Anton Chekhov once famously advised: Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there. This is […]

Hollywood doesn’t like to make westerns anymore, and audiences don’t much like to watch them (save those written by Quentin Tarantino). Perhaps that’s a good thing – for westerns. We’ll always have John Ford and Louis L’Amour. But both audiences and studios are a little keener on the western-in-disguise: post-apocalyptic science fiction. Red Denver welcomes […]

What if the Earth was invaded by aliens that fed on human emotions and the only people safe were those with boring lives? My first thought was that just by trying to stay alive in such a weird world their lives would no longer be boring, and thus no longer safe, so… game over for […]

Another day, another disappointing indie military sci-fi novel.  The author sums it up best near the end of the book— “Goddammit, Deac!” [a soldier] growled.  “I told you to can that sci-fi shit!  I’m sick of you talking like we’re in some damned movie!” “Come on, Sarge!”  Deacon whined.  “Think about it…We’re on another planet, […]

For one minute Hugo wondered what would happen if he told the colonel to shove it. Shove it all. Shove the Zero and shove the Service. But the moment and the feeling passed, leaving in its wake a flush of shame. Why? My first problem with Zero: An Orbit Novel was that I didn’t know […]

Are spoiler alerts necessary for something that was written in the 14th century?  In the case of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with its twist ending and potential appeal to modern fantasy readers, the answer is a definite yes.  So this review will stay away from the spoilery stuff. In my previous post, we […]

There is a difference between Arnold Schwarzenegger and the British Indian actor who plays an astrophysicist in The Big Bang Theory. And that’s why the Austrian-born American was so successful in 1990 with Total Recall while the latter is now making big money with a sitcom. But let’s imagine that somebody wrote a book completely […]

If you have chronocompulsive obsessive disorder (COD) like me, you have to start a series at the beginning.  The very beginning.  For us CODs, reading Lord of the Rings doesn’t begin with The Fellowship of the Ring, The Hobbit, or even The Silmarillion.  We are forced to start with Norse mythology and The Saga of the […]

As you can see from the cover art this is a collection of short science fiction stories that are not exactly of the serious hard science fiction type. It’s summer after all. The first two are about scientific experiments gone wrong. The third is a quick visit to a psychiatrist. And the last one is […]

If you read a short story and you wish it was not a short story, has the author failed? The book’s Amazon page states that it’s just 18 pages long (estimated) and it’s priced at $1.19. This is just one quick science-fiction adventure of a hit man.  As soon as he finishes this one last […]