Nick (LackingZones) > Recent Status Updates

THAT'S "Quantum of Solace"?!

I withdraw any complaints I've voiced about the James Bond films stealing titles and character names from the books and using nothing else. Fleming just tricked me into reading a whole story about 007 getting marriage advice at a dinner party.

I was reading this for a book club that meets at the end of March, so we'll see if I pick this back up before then. I probably won't. So far, this is the worst sci-fi novel I've read in recent memory.

The characters, including the MC, don't behave like humans, but rather petty tweens from Disney Channel sitcoms. And the scifi elements also suck. Where is "Planet X"? Why doesn't anyone have *any* astronaut training?

I don't think I've been this disappointed in a book so quickly after starting it in a very long time. This might be an almost immediate DNF.

Within a couple pages, the author went from denouncing peace activists to praising James Webb, the NASA director who participated in the Lavender Scare at that agency and the State Department. The book was already the most tedious take on the space program I've read – it's even harder to get though knowing the author's politics suck.

Thank you, Margaret Atwood, for ensuring I'll never run out of nightmares.

Just when you start to accept the weak part of a story, it turns out the characters are too stupid to live.

"Northanger Abbey. Rebecca. Mrs. Dalloway. What good had they done me?"
Bold to mention other things I could be reading while introducing me to a protagonist I immediately can't stand.

Northanger Abbey. Rebecca. Mrs. Dalloway. What good had they done me?

Bold of you to mention some great books while introducing a protagonist I immediately can't stand.

*Wipes tears away from eyes.* Christ, Marguerite Bennett, I wasn't expecting to find the most touching autobiographical essay I've ever read.

These stories are only palatable if you imagine Michael Caine reading them to you.

"Corazón; y esta amargura seria, de donde nace?

Amarga mucho el agua de los mares!"

"The Colour out of Space" is excellent, if extremely Lovecraftian.

Pictured: Jabba the Hutt

A Sherlock Holmes spinoff by a 19 time NBA All-Star? I'll bite.

The rhyme scheme of a song that the main character, a bard, sings with the patrons of a tavern matches that of the theme song of the early 2000s PBS cartoon Dragon Tales. And now I've got that stuck in my head.

Thus far, Cinderella was nearly stabbed by her stepsister, but the assassination attempt was thwarted when Sleeping Beauty busted through the door wielding a giant crossbow. I already love this book.