This is a story about an astronaut named Mark Watney who is accidentally left behind on Mars after his crew believes he is killed during the emergency evacuation of their base camp on Mars (I know I already said Mars, but omg Mars) in a freak windstorm. Our hero has to figure out how to survive with his available resources, ration his remaining supplies, and try to get back in contact with Earth, knowing that his food will run out before they can rescue him. The author, Andy Weir, […]
Hooray for Complex Teenaged Characters
Sometimes when I decide to read a book, I don’t read the synopsis on the back cover or the specific praise from various newspapers or book review sites inside the front cover. Sometimes I just really like (one of) the authors*, and I read that someone on Pajiba liked it better than The Fault in Our Stars and was up-voted seven times, and I find it at the store when I’m feeling impulsive, and I just read it with no plot information whatsoever. (*I love John Green. […]
Connie Willis writes books for book lovers
I’m a little sad that I only heard of Connie Willis this year, of course from all the glowing CBR6 reviews of To Say Nothing of the Dog, which might be my new favorite book. After reading two more by Connie Willis, she is definitely my new favorite author. Connie Willis writes books that acknowledge and build on the wealth of information that already exists in the world. She writes about scholars, researchers, scientists, and historians. She writes about people who read extensively, people who know their librarians by their […]
Allie Brosh is the hero we need
A while back I was listening to this Marc Maron podcast in which he interviews our beloved Allie Brosh. First– we all know and love Allie, right? Oh my god you guys, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go to her webcomic/blog immediately, please! You won’t be sorry. She is hilarious and brilliant and illustrates stories from her life with a paintbrush program and it’s amazing. And the really special thing about her comics is that she can talk about serious topics– like self-esteem, introversion, […]
My brother wrote three novels and I read them, with mixed results
A few years ago, my brother Nick made a movie called Bomb Squad about four siblings who discover they have super powers. The story was based on one we imagined as kids, basically the answer to “what if the four of us had super powers?” Which ones would we have? What would our names be? What would our “hero” names be? What battles would we fight? My bro got into filmmaking and just went ahead and made the film. He wrote the script, storyboarded, got friends and colleagues […]