The Week in Womble aka this fur suit is warm

Hellooo! Not a bad week and one more thing off my to do most for 2019 – a new car with less chance of needing large repairs!  A busy weekend saw me helping a friend move to a new house and then a Sunday in an Elizabethan home. This relaxing thing is really something you should all try!  The one downside – so warm and humid my hay fever has maxed out and even worse my reading speed has been really slow!! I m in one of those moods where I seem to be moving from book to book and not settle.

These days I tend to have several reads on the go; a train read, a reading project and an evening read (plus a few that I’m just dipping toes in for later). Uusally one really grabs me and that’s it for the day but this week not the books but definitely me having difficulty finding a book I could get sucked into when head is stuffed

What I’m watching

Films

Doctor Strange – Marvel re-watch continues and I recall at the cinema I enjoyed this visually it really hasn’t a great rewatch factor. Rachel McAdams seems awfully wasted as the intelligent woman who tries to help Strange at the start and her role just peters out. Possibly as otherwise the movie would only have had one woman in it the Ancient One is Tilda Swinton and really this felt incredibly dubious casting when so many people of colour could have taken the role. I do think the end resolution of the ending is quite smart and the use of Inception style graphics is pretty but it really doesn’t add much to the franchise. Let’s hope next time they try to be a bit more daring.

TV

Another week another Farscape and that was it!  But soon my obsession with Wimbledon starts…

What I’m - Listening to

Managed not to be in mood for horror but there is a fantastic interview in Breaking the Glass Slipper with Sarah Pinborough talking about her writing career that is a really intelligent

What I’ve Reviewed

Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo Del Toro and Cornelia Funke – rather impressive novelisation of a great movie that manages to add to the story. Easily building on the script to give a richer and deeper experience. If you enjoy magical dark fairy stories and their retelling you need this.

The Record Keeper by Agnes Gomillion  - a very unusual slice of SF dystopia that examines, slavery, racism and colonialism. I loved the quite sadness this novel had and the brave choice to have a lead not immediately on the side of the angels but after protecting herself. A writer to watch out for.

The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind By Jackson Ford – hugely entertaining thriller with a sarcastic lead who happens to have telekinesis. Funny, smart characterisation with a lot more going on under the surface of the lead. Really liked this and looking forward to more in the series.

Bubbling under

Europe at Dawn by Dave Hutchinson – the last (gulp) in the near future spy series that seems to have predicted the last few years in the UK…

Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky – the sequel to one of the best SF novels and I don’t even mind the spiders!