Ashley Edward Miller

I think I said in a review of another book that you should never mix first and third person narrative, but there are of course always exception to the rules. In this book every chapter starts with a journal note from Colin (and sometimes they show up in other parts of the text), written in first person, but the book is told in a more omnipresent third person narrative. It worked great.

This book was good! I liked the characters, liked getting to know Colin, and I liked the mystery, finding out how a gun ended up in a high school caféteria. Maybe the ending shouldn't have been hinting that much at a sequel, but other than that a great, quick read.… (mer)

We first heard of this movie at the end of Iron Man 2, when the S.H.I.E.L.D agent drives out to a desert local to where a hammer fell from the sky. We've been seeing trailers since last fall. We went to see it tonight.The movie was way better than I had any right to expect. For a movie like this, it's hard to get a sense of how good the movie is going to be from the trailers. But generally this is the sort of movie we'll go to see unless the reviews are really bad. I didn't bother to read any review of this prior to going to see it because it looked like it would be fun. And it was great fun. Taking a quick look over at Rotten Tomatoes it looks like in general the movie is getting good reviews.

The movie also has some talent involved. It was directed by Kenneth Branagh. Natalie Portman plays 'that mortal woman', and Odin is played by Anthony Hopkins (although he doesn't have much to do beyond looking god-like). Chris Hemsworth plays Thor as sort of an all-powerful frat boy who comes to realize that with great power comes great responsibility (OK, that was corny). The only thing I've ever seen him in was the Star Trek re-boot where he played Captain Kirk's father. I had to look that up.

It's going to be a block-buster summer, if you like that sort of thing. We saw trailers for Conan the Barbarian (not sure a remake of this was needed, but we'll be there), Captain America, Green Lantern, X-Men:First Class, and Cowboys & Aliens. We're looking forward to them all.… (mer)