Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? by Thomas Kohnstamm:
Billed as something of an exposé of what really goes into writing a Lonely Planet travel guide, this is really more of a passably entertaining story about a guy running around Brazil doing and selling drugs. Kohnstamm's no Troost, but then again, my exposure to travel literature is limited to the books that Rebecca has finished and left lying around.

Final Grade: C-

Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card:
I only read this book last week and can now barely remember any of it -- it's that forgettable, and also suffers from "let's keep milking the villain from the previous books" syndrome. A few interesting insights on philosophy and politics dot an otherwise predictable landscape.

Final Grade: C-

Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card:
This book was a little better than the two that preceded it, (hopefully) closing off the tale of Bean, and continuing the geopolitical struggles in a more interesting manner than the other books. It does a good job of tying all of the loose ends together, and left me satisfied.

Final Grade: B-

2012:
If they had started this 2.5 hour movie 1 hour into it, I would have given it a solid B-. However, too much time is wasted building up characters that you don't really care about, even going as far as using the whole "here's a bunch of random people and they will have mysterious links together by mid-movie" approach that became so copiable after Crash. The first time things start exploding and falling apart, it's kind of cool in an obvious CGI sort of way. The second, third, and fiftieth time things are blowing up, there's really nothing to distinguish from the previous blow-ups.

Final Grade: D-