Dinara Tengri

Before there was Katniss Everdeen to topple an nightmarish government, even before there was Harry Potter to stop an evil wizard, there was Ender Wiggin, who had the gruelling task of saving the Earth from aliens. In his hit novel Ender's Game , Orson Scott Card tells us about a world where “buggers” – an insectoid alien race had twice tried to invade Earth, nearly destroying our civilization. The “bugger” wars would change not only the world politics and technological progress but the way of life of every family everywhere. The political map has been re-drawn between two superpowers – North America and Russia, with a fragile peace kept between them out of fear of a third bugger invasion. Card later revised the novel due to the collapse of Soviet Union 1991 to give it a more updated political profile. The fear of a third invasion not only keeps the superpowers from blowing each other up, but it also serves as means to maintain total control of the civilians, as the m...

"The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat" is the fourth episode of the eleventh season of The X-Files . Written and directed by Darin Morgan, it’s the first comedy of this season, and in a typical Darin Morgan fashion, it's deep, existential, and very, very funny. The episode centers around Reggie Something, a mysterious man who reaches out to Scully and Mulder claiming that he was once part of the X-files, and that the three of them used to be partners. The reason the agents don't remember any of it is because their memories have been tampered with by the mysterious Doctor They. Reggie claims that this Cold War scientist is behind the so-called Mandela Effect, and is responsible for people remembering certain parts of history wrong. But now that Reggie has uncovered this conspiracy, They has retaliated by erasing everyone's memories of Reggie, making him a walking example of the Mandela Effect. His proof? The first episode of The Twilight Zone that Mulder ever s...

Last week, I went to see  Blade Runner 2049 , which is the sequel to the 1982 sci fi classic  Blade Runner,  and I was genuinely curious to see what the director - Denis Villeneuve could do with this fantastical and complex world. I tried my best to keep an open mind, and judge this movie on its own merit, and not just as the sequel to  Blade Runner. One of the consequences of having been writing reviews for over two years is that when I'm watching a movie I can't turn off the part of my mind that is responsible for all the nitpicking and critical thinking. I can no longer just see a movie as a fan, as I am constantly thinking about what I'm going to write once I get home. This is a minor nuisance that can sometimes make it difficult for me to enjoy a movie. Perhaps, it's this over-analyzing that kept me from liking  Blade Runner 2049 . I have tried to keep my emotions out of this review. I've tried to keep my arguments clean and sober. Ironically, it i...

Title: Cats' Cradle Author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr. First published in 1963 by I read the SF Masterworks edition by Orion Group Publishing. Source: Malmö City Library "Told with deadpan humour & bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon &, worse still, surviving it ... Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding 'fathers' of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he's the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three eccentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness. Felix Hoenikker's Death Wish comes true when his last, fatal gift to humankind brings about the end, that for all of us, is nigh..."  " Don't be a fool! Close this book at once! It is nothing but  foma !" Cat's Cradle is a classic, and after h...

Title:  Artemis Author: Andy Weir Expected publication date: November 14, 2017  Publisher: Del Rey Source: I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.  Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first. And, I'm back! I think this was the longest I went without posting anything ever. So sorry about that. Life got in t...

Edit: This review has been updated on August 8, 2017. Welcome to the first episode of Before They Were Blockbusters , a whole new series where I review books that became the basis for popular movies and movie franchises. My goal with this series is not to compare the books with their big screen adaptations , but to discover the books behind some of my favourite movies. First book in this series is The Prestige by Christopher Priest. The book was adapted to the big screen in 2005 by Christopher Nolan. I liked the movie quite a bit, even though I found it a little melodramatic. When I found out that the movie was based on a book, I immediately wanted to read that book.  So, without further any ado, here's The Prestige .  Note, that is a spoiler free review ,   so if you haven't read the book (nor seen the movie) you have nothing to worry about.  Title: The Prestige  Author: Christopher Priest First published in 1995 I read the 2011 edition by Gol...

Title: The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #2) Author: Dan Simmons  Year of publishing: 1991 Published by: Spectra  Source: school library  You can also read my review for  Hyperion .  In the stunning continuation of the epic adventure begun in Hyperion, Simmons returns us to a far future resplendent with drama and invention. On the world of Hyperion, the mysterious Time Tombs are opening. And the secrets they contain mean that nothing--nothing anywhere in the universe--will ever be the same. The only real problem I have with the first book,  Hyperion,  is that it doesn't stand on its own, but is the first half in this two-part epic story. That's something that I didn't reflect upon when I was reading Hyperion , but it  is  something that became very obvious to me when I started reading  The Fall of Hyperion . And to be honest, I felt a little cheated. Still,  Hyperion  is a fantastic book, and it deserv...