6.22.2010

 

Toy Story 3

G, 103 min
IMdB page, Official Site
Overall Grade: B

Sequel to 'Toy Story 2'.

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 2:05 AM

6.13.2010

 

The Gates


by John Connolly, 293 pgs, hardcover
Overall Grade: A

Somehow I've failed to review Connolly's other novel 'The Book of Lost Things'. Anyway, this one is super good too. It all starts when Samuel decides to get a leg-up on the competition by starting to trick-or-treat in his neighborhood a few days early. While failing abysmally to get any candy, he and his dog observe the neighbors trying to open the gates of Hell in the basement. Unfortunately for the neighbors, they actually succeed. Now all of Hell is slowly filtering into our world, and no one believes Samuel when he tells them. Oh dear. Connolly gets bonus points for creative use of the Large Hadron Collider in a work of fiction. Subatomic particle physics is dangerous; it could open the gates of Hell!

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 10:03 PM
 

Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War


by Michael Kranish, 331 pgs, hardcover
Overall Grade: B+

In case you thought that all the interesting bits of the Revolutionary War had to do with Washington and the Continental Army, here is something to prove you wrong. While giving a brief recounting of Jefferson's life before and after the war, this book focuses on his life during the war itself. After penning the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson leaves the Continental Congress, and returns home to Virginia, where they elect him governor. Then he has a heck of a time trying to drum up his "state's" quota for the army, the militia, and just about anything else, including their defense when the British finally get tired of New England and come down to Virginia to make life miserable for the colonists. Oh, and did we mention that Jefferson almost gets captured several times while desperately running around Virginia being governor. And his wife dies, poor guy.

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 9:57 PM
 

The French Admiral


by Dewey Lambdin, 609pgs, large print hardcover
Overall Grade: B
Series: Alan Lewrie

Sequel to The King's Coat, in the Alan Lewrie series. While I enjoyed this more than the first book, I must say, if Alan gets a new sweetheart in every novel, this is going to get old FAST. When last we left, Alan was a midshipman on the Desperate in the West Indies with a captain that hated his guts. Now his ship is headed up to help subdue the rebellious colonies in America, and Alan gets to spend plenty of time stuck on land, manning forts in North Carolina, making friends with Loyalist volunteers and accidentally falling in love with their sister. Fortunately for Alan, he gets a promotion by the end, and learns that he's not as destitute as he believed.
P.S. By the way, you never even encounter the French admiral for whom the book is titled, de Grasse is one slippery fellow.

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 9:50 PM
 

The Company


by K.J. Parker, 419pgs, paperback
Overall Grade: A

Another stunning work by K.J. Parker (who wrote the Engineer trilogy). This is a stand-alone novel. During the war, A Company was a small group of men who were linebreakers, attacking the enemy head-on in front of the main army in order to break the line and cause disarray. As you can imagine, these guys are made out of more than a little brass to be able to do this for years and come out alive and with all their limbs, no less. This story picks up many years after the war, when the fifth member of their company, Teuche Kunessin, finally retires from the military and returns home to Faralia. He knows exactly what buttons to press to get the other four to drop everything in their pitiful lives and travel with him to an island he has appropriated from the government to start the farm he's always wanted. Unfortunately, if you've read the Engineer trilogy, nothing is ever so simply with Parker's stories. It turns out that Teuche has a secret he's been keeping from the others and he's not the only one with secrets either.

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 9:36 PM

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