Merideth, John, and I went to see Speed Racer last night. Here’s a my mini-review:

If you overlook the simplistic plot, trite clichés, and the not infrequent wooden acting, it was a visually spectacular. Eyeball laceratingly spectacular. Don’t go see Speed Racer if you can be induced to vomit just by watching bright colors in motion. Do go see Speed Racer if you want to see the closest thing to a live-action cartoon (yet).

I ran across an article in physorg.com about orphan stars and this made me think of one of book that I quite enjoyed. So I thought I would go back and find a mini-review (transplanted to the wiki) that I wrote on Against A Dark Background by Iain M. Banks back in 1993. Here it is:

A profoundly dark book. Banks kept me on the edge of my seat both with his intricate culture and well organized plot. Rather than giving all the pertinent details of the history and character backgrounds he leaves them lying like small mental land mines. As I made my way through ”AADB” I found myself stumbling over these cunningly crafted bits of information and each time I experienced an explosion of implication that would light up the background only to fade away leaving a spectral images of potential. An excellent read.