Philippe du Fresnay

« Housewives of Ontario » with a couple monsters somewhere along

Revisado: 08-09-23

I couldn’t go through despite all my efforts. Im sorry to say I learnt nothing about primeval creatures. This could have been interesting since they are not fictional (they did exist at some point): we could have learnt about their habits or even how they look like precisely (“muscular” doesn’t cut it) .
Forget about learning interesting facts about Canada history as well (more on the gold rush please?) or geology, let alone geography (the fog covers everything all the time…bummer!).
Instead, because there was still a lot of writing left, I learnt how so many men (sorry, « bros ») can be such drunk, violent, greedy, treacherous, mysoginist big babies. Except the handsome widowed hero who thrives in his fusional relationship with his equally wonderful son.
Some scenes are almost absurd: the conservation officer that goes tracking the monster but decides to bring her rifle « next time » because it’s too heavy; or who takes the time to berate her captors while they know the monster is coming to them; the whole session about her drying her hair instead of picking up the phone that doesn’t add anything to the story; and this long backstory in a « day of the jackal » sort of way about the mercenary that..dies as soon as he’s on-site..! No way I’m buying season 2 :(

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I know why they picked this narrator

Revisado: 06-24-23

…because he does a decent Al Pacino voice, for a probable millionth of what would be the real Pacino’s salary. The downside of this is his tone: Remember Liam Neeson in « taken », when he threatens the kidnapper over the phone?now imagine him reading you an ENTIRE BOOK with the same tone of voice. It completely screws up Mann’s work.

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Scam-don’t buy!

Revisado: 03-03-23

Appalling. Name-dropping, fact-twisting, statements taken out of their context, apocryphal attributions of endorsements that inevitably remain vague…
This piece is so bad it could be laughable if it wasn’t clearly targeting people who are in a state -temporary or not- of vulnerability.

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Hard to define AI, I guess…

Revisado: 03-03-23

I agree with previous comments:
-scattered: it goes in every direction by mixing AI with pretty much everything: space, economics, Internet…but also philosophy, cinema etc…to the point that it feels it needs to also describe each of these themes, which prevents it from going deep into the original topic of AI.
However, maybe the concept of AI itself is scattered by essence: it must be difficult to give a direction to the concept of intelligence.
-sometimes a bit boring somewhat, maybe due to the reader’s voice that sounds a bit like a 1930’s radio news anchor.

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Many shortcuts (warning: spoilers)

Revisado: 08-29-22

Another lost city that decides to disappear just when it’s found, despite waiting for millennia. Ok there is sort of a time bomb with some uranium decaying in London, but it doesn’t explain why the perfect storm happened just when they found the archeological site in the desert. But then otherwise they couldn’t save the world (or the Arabian Peninsula-they’re not sure themselves as they just McGyver it).

A couple of redundant characters (notably the main character’s competitor’s brother’s friend). It also makes the end a little Scooby-Doey.

Kudos to whoever was smart enough to bring jet skis in the desert. And to the telepathic elderly Amazons who live a nomadic life in the desert for millennia, but diligently explain they also trade in oil futures. And that they will keep ruthlessly their secret except in one case: Pillow talk (good thing they reproduce mostly asexually!).

Bad guy polite enough to warn “I still have the detonator” after falling, but no one knows if it’s still a threat or a “don’t worry” thing.

Several topics could be explored more, esp. scientifically (the self-propelled boat, the animal taming, the human parthogenesis are barely explained-but then it’s the same convenient phenomenon that allows all of those-and, unfortunately- that also fades off eventually).

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A good prequel to Aliens

Revisado: 06-19-22

A decent build-up of the suspense, many little details that help answering questions from Aliens, good acting…maybe too much useless dialog (long talks about ice cream, many sentences repeated endlessly). I liked it, though.

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Un des meilleurs Lupin

Revisado: 06-17-22

Tout y est: énigmes, cachettes, mystères…quelques longueurs dans l’action parfois, mais une de ses meilleurs histoires, même s’il n’y apparaît que vers le milieu.

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Squeezed between « alien » and « aliens »

Revisado: 06-15-22

A good effort to justify squeezing this story between 2 movies without Ripley remembering living it…a good use of the canon themes (tricky AI, evil company, distrust of infected companions…but also resourcefulness and sense of sacrifice). A lot more could topics have been explored (fuel cell technology, mining practices, self-adapting computer code…). Even fiction-wise, it might have been interesting to read the authors’ vision of the planet origin, or the discovery of the nest…

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One of Grisham’s best

Revisado: 06-07-22

Different aspects of a lone wolf lawyer’s work facing the daily challenge of balancing his private and professional life.
He’ll fight (literally) with his treacherous ex-wife, crooked cops, one maffia boss, one Hannibal Lecter-type serial killer/pathological liar all that while arranging MMA fights from his custom van.
All in all, a complete and diverse novel. Looking forward to reading the sequel.

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A compilation of John Grisham’s (still good) tricks

Revisado: 06-07-22

This is like a compilation of Grisham’s best elements of story:
Federal penitentiary with white collar inmates: check
A deal brewing between inmate #1 and the FBI: check
Inmate #1 suddenly recovering his freedom: check
A long, complex and subtil plan, prepared for months, that finally allows inmate #1 to buy the life he never could have had: check

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