The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

Tag: review

  • Marc Cohn in Carnegie Hall

    I am not really much of a “joiner” and I don’t have many entertainment things about which I get passionate. Long ago, however, I decided that I would pick an artist and follow them closely. I chose Marc Cohn, whom you might remember from a 1991 hit “Walking in Memphis”, which still gets significant airplay, at least on the sort of stations I listen to. 🙂 Anyway, Cohn has continued to release albums at a gushing dribble (three in fifteen years) but also tours a lot and plays intimate, small venues.

    Last night I rode NJ Transit up to NYC to catch his show at Zankel Hall, a small 600-person adjunct to Carnegie Hall.
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  • Review: Echelon

    Echelon
    a novel
    by Josh Conviser

    InstaRating: 2 out of 5

    This book\’s title caught my interest because I keep up with surveillance tech and its social implications, and ECHELON — the alleged US NSA electronic sifting program — is the monster of all surveillance programs. Although I knew this was a spy thriller, I thought there was a chance that it would delve deeply into some of the issues revolving around the invasive new technologies coming online. Alas, it didn’t pan out that way.

    More below the fold — warning: Spoilers to come.

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  • Review: World War Z

    World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
    by Max Brooks

    InstaRating: 5 out of 5

    After the debacle that was The Stonehenge Gate, I was looking for something good to read, to wash the taste of failed prose from my mouth. Happily I picked up this piece of psuedo-history. Written by the author of the offbeat, tongue-in-cheek The Zombie Survivor’s Guide, this book purports to be an oral history compiled and published ten years after the end of The Zombie War, a global outbreak of the undead as in The Night of the Living Dead.

    Spoilers and more after the break.
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  • Review: The Stonehenge Gate

    The Stonehenge Gate
    a novel
    by Jack Williamson

    InstaRating: 1 out of 5 … maybe less

    During those moments when I delude myself that I’m a writer, I pursue an odd oscillation in my reading. I like to read great works of fiction, to have something towards which to aspire. But I like to leaven that mix with bad writers, people so hackneyed or incompetent that I can realistically say, “Well, if even Writer X can get published, I have a real shot … at least my stuff is better than that.” After reading Oryx and Crake, I was in a bind, because I hadn’t read anything truly bad for a while and I felt the usual intimidation rising up again.

    Luckily, then I picked up Jack Williamson’s The Stonehenge Gate and now all is right with the world: This is a truly bad book.

    More details, including spoilers, follow the break.

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  • Review: Oryx and Crake

    Oryx and Crake (a novel)
    by Margaret Atwood

    InstaRating: 4 out of 5

    In brief: Snowman is the last (traditional) human alive in a world curiously empty. He bears the secret of what happened to civilization and slowly reveals it to himself as he watches over the successor species: humans carefully designed to thrive in the ecologically-devastated world of tomorrow.

    Spoilers and a more complete review follow.
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