The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

Category: review

  • So long, Studio 60

    —

    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    Edited for grammar 2007 Dec 16. I just finished watching my TiVo’d copy of “What Kind of Day Has It Been”, the 22nd and final episode of Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Studio 60 was highly touted as the Next Big Thing in TV drama, opened with a stellar pilot, and then…

  • Irksome metric

    —

    by

    mongreldogs
    in , ,

    Today, there’s a piece by Maya Jasonoff in the Sunday magazine of the New York Times on the Americans loyal to Britain during the Revolution, and it has me irked. It’s not the thesis, which I agree with, that we should be more aware that the “self-evident” truths were anything but, to about 20% of…

  • Review: The Book of Lost Things

    —

    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    The Book of Lost Things a novel by John Connolly InstaRating: 5 (out of 5) This is simply a good book. I would not have thought anything would rank up next to a new book by Guy Gavriel Kay (Ysabel, which I’ll review some other time), but this one easily meets that standard. One of…

  • Lunacon (3)

    —

    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    The third in my shameless padding series on my recent experience at Lunacon 50. This episode: Sci Fi TV 101, or Why All Your Favorite Shows are Doomed. More below the fold.

  • Lunacon (2)

    —

    by

    mongreldogs
    in ,

    More on my experiences at Lunacon 50 (the beginning of which is also here at The Mongrel Dogs). This time up: Joss Whedon Must Die!

  • Lunacon (1)

    —

    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    This past weekend, I attended Lunacon 50, a science fiction convention held annually in Rye, New York by the New York Science Fiction Society. I wanted to attend “a con” this year and I chose Lunacon because, of the Northeast conventions I could find online, it seemed the most writer-friendly and writer-centric. Appropriately, for the…

  • Marc Cohn in Carnegie Hall

    —

    by

    mongreldogs
    in , ,

    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,…

  • Review: Echelon

    —

    by

    mongreldogs
    in ,

    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…

  • Review: World War Z

    —

    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    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…

  • Review: The Stonehenge Gate

    —

    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    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…