CRITICULT – Telling you what's up since 2003.
Reviews, Commentary, and Shenanigans!
The basis for both the 1951 movie The Thing From Another World and John Carpenter’s much more faithful adaptation, 1982’s The Thing, (the less said about the 2011 remake/prequel the … Continue Reading Who Goes There? – John W. Campbell, Jr.
“This is how it will be when you drown.” Dead in the Water by Nancy Holder is about a ghost ship and the horror that befalls shipwreck survivors who board … Continue Reading Dead in the Water – Nancy Holder
A review is really unnecessary here. Just go buy/check out/borrow/steal Furiously Happy and get to reading. It is incredibly funny, incredibly moving, and really, really, REALLY funny. Did I mention … Continue Reading Furiously Happy – Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess)
Shirley Jackson’s last full length novel is a startling and unsettling peek behind the curtains of the house at the end of the street that is always dark. The one … Continue Reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson
Elmore Leonard doesn’t write mysteries, not really. The reader knows what is going on ahead of all the characters. The fun is in watching the characters learn the truth, seeing … Continue Reading Riding the Rap – Elmore Leonard
The Fold is a hugely entertaining science fiction novel in the tradition of Michael Crichton’s Sphere as well as the Lincoln Child novel Deep Storm. Centering around scientists and very … Continue Reading The Fold – Peter Cline (Now with more review words!)
Pel Dalton spends his time by day as a supervisor of IT staff at a library, er, make that Learning Center, at a large University in England. By night he … Continue Reading Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About – Mil Millington
Armada is a summer blockbuster in book form. It’s entertaining, it moves fast, and it’s a fun ride. It’s also not nearly as smart as it thinks it is. Armada … Continue Reading Armada – Ernest Cline
“Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead…” Southern Reach Trilogy is a smart and scary … Continue Reading The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance – Jeff Vandermeer
Nine short stories make up the Fire in the Hole collection (previously called The Women Come out to Dance) and are a great introduction to Elmore Leonard’s easy style of … Continue Reading Fire in the Hole: Stories – By, Elmore Leonard
Erik Larson writes non-fiction that reads like a novel, enthralling the reader and keeping them up page-turning with the same intensity as a beach read thriller. Dead Wake: The Last … Continue Reading Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania – Erik Larson
There are few things I enjoy more than a well crafted scary short story. As a kid cutting my teeth on Stephen King I loved his short story collections more … Continue Reading Trigger Warning – Neil Gaiman
The Bees is an enthralling and gorgeously written tale in the tradition of Watership Down. The frightening realism coupled with the brilliant world-building makes for an experience that will haunt … Continue Reading The Bees – Laline Paull
Even if you personally have a hand in a battle against good and evil that shook the very pillars of Heaven, when the smoke clears and the evil is vanquished … Continue Reading The Bone Clocks – David Mitchell
Another Grammy awards come and gone. I enjoyed not watching it. Hard rock has been pushed in to the un-televised award ghetto and the classification for “rock” is so bizarre … Continue Reading The Grammys Hate Us
If nothing else, Marc Eliot’s biography of Jack Nicholson reminded me why I don’t typically read biographies of still living people when the subject has no involvement with the book. … Continue Reading All Fluff and No Substance Makes Jack’s Biography a Dull Read
CRITICULT - Telling you what's up since 2003.