Books, Games, and Movies

A Great New Online Games

Hello all!

I would like to recommend a new online game which just came out called Lord Empires. The game is very deep, with allot of thought going into the game mechanics. You take on the role of a ruler in the middle ages and your goal is to build up and develop your city. Unlike Sim city though, progress mainly depends on how well you collaborate with your neighbors (which are human players). You can do several things such as trade, connect roads and also go to war.

We just got back from seeing The Last House on the Left. In one word: Brutal.

I enjoyed this movie very much; a lot more than I thought I would. It looked interesting from the previews, but the main reason we went to see it is that we had seen pretty much every other movie at the theater already. I'll hide spoilers for those who haven't seen it yet, but I just had to talk about this movie. It's so intense!

Only go see this movie if you're okay with extremely graphic violence. When I say this movie is extremely graphic, I mean close-up and in your face. The action is riveting. The acting and direction are spot-on. This movie held my attention fully from beginning to end. If you're okay with the graphic violence, you will most likely come out of it satisfied. At the end, I was left with feelings of satisfaction, excitement, and a bit of, "What the heck did I just watch?" My overall impression when it was over was, "That was a great movie!"

The HostFinally, a sci-fi book I could get into!

The Host, by Stephenie Meyer, grabbed my interest on page one and didn't let go.

In my opinion, most sci-fi suffers from one or more of these three fatal flaws: It sacrifices the story to make room for the science; it’s a regurgitation of 1000 other stories I’ve already read or seen in the theater; and/or it has the old negative cliché theme of “You think life sucks now? Well, in the future, people are just as shortsighted, self-serving, and unwise as they are now…but in the future, the robots are pissed off”.

I admit I was expecting more of the same after reading the back cover synopsis of The Host (There’s an alien invasion of Earth! Humanity may be doooomed! And all that.)

I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find the story to be more like a combination psychological thriller, drama, social commentary, and romance novel. And, oh yeah, it happens to take place in the future, and there is an alien invasion. Fatal flaw count: 0.

The Host is sci-fi that’s really “fi-sci” because the fiction is far more important to the story than the science. And that’s so refreshing, especially after reading three or four “life sucks and you think you got it bad now, just wait” novels in a row.

So, THANK YOU Stephenie Meyer for a new perspective for the genre. There may be hope for the human race after all.