Butterfly In The Dark

The Perfect Girl
Gilly MacMillan
Hachette Australia
March 2016

It’s easy to forget—considering there are generations that have grown to adulthood knowing no different—that the internet of things is still new to humanity. Certainly in terms of laws and regulations, the internet is still something of a frontier with the frontier mentality of “anything goes”. Because what are the consequences of misbehaving, really?

Continue reading

Who Dunne It

GONE GIRL

Gillian Flynn (Phoenix Fiction, 2013) ISBN: 978-0-7538-2766-6

I’d apologise for the title, but Gillian Flynn has got to have had that pun in mind as she wrote this much talked-about thriller.  Centred on the disappearance of beautiful Amy Elliott Dunne and the increasing suspicion on her husband Nick, the story truly does beg the question, pun and all.  The alternative title was even worse, so consider yourselves lucky.

Gone Girl is, despite its popularity, not something I would typically be drawn to.  I wrote in my last review of my aversion to Midsomer Murders and I am sorry to report the taint has spread to cover pretty much the entire mystery genre.  I’m not entirely sure why I dislike the genre so much, but I don’t enjoy reading mysteries or watching procedurals.  Still, I’d heard many good things about Gone Girl before my mother, a fan of mystery novels and procedurals, said I should read it.  The film adaptation starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, opened early last month and has achieved not insignificant box office success.

Continue reading

Special jellies

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILLdayearth

Dir. Robert Wise Perf. Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal. Twentieth Century Fox 1951 Film

Dir. Scott Derrickson Perf. Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly. Twentieth Century Fox 2008 Film

Out of everything they might’ve given us, the aliens from The Day the Earth Stood Still decide to bestow the revelation that we’ve put ourselves on the way to destruction.

We know that!

Continue reading

  • You might also like

    • Space Zombies!

      Illuminae is a visual wonder piece of science fiction narration. It straddles the undefined landscape between novel and graphic novel in a way that is almost cinematic in its execution. Rather than a story told in a series of words, what we have are words presented as in a dossier; … Continue reading