Reviews

How many episodes should a series need to work out what it’s about? No, I don’t mean the audience working it out, but the show itself. The Orville can’t seem to decide what it is going for. Is it a spoof? ...

I went on a journey with Blade Runner 2049. As it started, I thought this uncalled-for sequel might hold some promise. Then I revised that to think it was competent but ultimately unnecessary. Then I had a growing sense of ...

There’s a lot to be said for a strong authorial voice. Jeanette Ng’s debut novel, Under the Pendulum Sun is set in an alternate Victorian world where the fae are real. To match the setting, Ng employs a gothic voice akin ...

The new Star Trek films baffle me. They have proved popular despite their obvious lack of quality. They are incomprehensible to newcomers because they rely so heavily on material from the established franchise, and they are a slap in the ...

I have rarely been so disappointed with a film. Not only did I love Kingsman: The Secret Service but the sequel opens with a fight scene played out to Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy. How could a film that used Prince ...

Mother! is the worst sort of film to review. Not because it is bad: those are great to dig one’s teeth into. No, Mother! is problematic because it benefits from knowing as little about it going in as possible. Therefore, ...

I seem to be getting a healthy dose of Stephen King this year. Now we come to the considerably more anticipated adaptation of 2017’s offerings, It. As with the execrable Dark Tower, I have a passing knowledge of the property ...

Alec Worley’s collection of three novellas covers Judge Anderson’s first year on the job. Unfortunately for Worley, the book also reads like his first year on the job. Anderson is constantly told she is exceptional, some kind of psychic genius, ...

Now this was certainly an odd one. I saw the trailer for The Limehouse Golem and was not anticipating much. Just a blazé Jack the Ripper knock off with some decent names and overly moody lighting. However, having left the ...

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. So begins the sprawling interdimensional adventure series The Dark Tower, written by Stephen King. This dauntingly large story from one of the most successful mainstream authors of our ...