The Plot
After the death of her mother, Yeine is summoned to the capital of the world, the city of Sky where her grandfather rules. She finds herself installed as his heir — one of several who might inherit his position — and thrown into a situation where the politics only get murkier the more she finds out. She attempts to stay alive while she pursues her own agenda, to find out who murdered her mother.
Continue reading “The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (N.K. Jemisin)”
The Plot
Miss Mina Murray has been tasked by the mysterious M to collect a group of the world’s most famous ‘heroes’ to work on behalf of him (and perhaps the British government) in reclaiming the stolen wonder-item cavorite. But said ‘heroes’ are reluctant to join in or cooperate with anyone and things do not go as smoothly as they might.
Continue reading “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Vol 1) (Alan Moore)”
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill and some other people has a really good premise. England? In the 1800s? Well-known fictional characters forming a band of super-agents for the British government? What’s not to like?
Unfortunately, the execution leaves much, much, much, MUCH to be desired. I recall being intrigued by the movie, and liking it fairly well. Though it did have problems, even if I can’t now necessarily put my finger on the problems. Well, the comic/graphic novel has a lot of problems.
Plot: Wilhelmina Murray (whoever she is) takes on the mission of assembling a team. First she tracks down Quartermain (whoever he is.. I gather some sort of long-lived, possibly immortal, dead? adventurer dude) and together with Captain Nemo, they get Dr. Jekyll and the Invisible Man. Then they set out to find some substance called ‘cavorite’ that’s some anti-gravity substance. And if they don’t retrieve it, the evil Chinese will take over the world. Or something.
Continue reading “J’s Take on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1”
Sometimes there are books that two of us want to read, but one of us isn’t really interested in. In that case, instead of a triple take, we’ll do a doubletake instead.
The Plot
The year is 1624 and a plot has been hatched to kill the Prince of Orange. Gilda Beresteyn, the former fiancee of the lead plotter has inadvertently found out about their plans, and in order to prevent her alerting the authorities, the conspirators hatch a scheme to force her silence. Hired for the job: Diogenes, penniless mercenary, otherwise known as the Laughing Cavalier.
Continue reading “Doubletake: The Laughing Cavalier (Emmuska Orczy)”
Spotted on the BBC’s News site today:
UK researchers have developed a device to drag space debris out of orbit.
They plan to launch a demonstration of their “CubeSail” next year. It is a small satellite cube that deploys a thin, 25-sq-m plastic sheet.
Residual air molecules still present in the spacecraft’s low-Earth orbit will catch the sheet and pull the object out of the sky much faster than is normal.
Read the full article, Tiny cube to tackle space debris.
