Reviews – Page 30

In what must truly be one of the biggest *facepalm* moments of my life, I have managed to injure my tail.

Coccyx tail bone humans — This, to be precise.

I have now successfully defeated millennia of evolution by damaging a useless set of bones – by slipping and falling down a flight of stairs with everything else intact. My doctor seemingly derived sadistic pleasure in mouthing out “Fell…on…buttocks…and…injured…tailbone” as he wrote out my prescription, despite my mumbled protestations that a chemist did not need to know that. More depressing – for the whole of humanity, that is – is that there’s even a medical term for this (somewhat common?) ailment. You’d think that somewhere between chemotherapy and Band-Aid doctors would figure out a solution for vestigial body parts.

****

Bear with me on this one. All this talk of human anatomy has reminded me of the sickest, grossest film trailer idea of all time. This is from a film called The Human Centipede, directed by the funnily-named director Tom Six. I suggest you not to click on the previous link, nor watch the following embedded trailer. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m serious. Don’t watch it.

There, there. Go back to the wash basin and wait to see if you’ll puke a bit more before coming back to your computer.

The reason why I call it merely a film trailer idea because the actual film doesn’t expand much on the ‘plot’ beyond the trailer at all. It pains me to use such a term for something so crassly glorifying human torture, but the movie is merely boring. A trailer stretched out to fill a feature-length film time.

Terrifyingly, Tom Six is planning a sequel – which he promises will be grosser. What a facepalm movie it’ll be.

Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

Rating: 5 / 10

When Michael Crichton died in 2008 it was a sad moment for all of his fans. I expressed concern back then that his estate might try to go down the Robert Ludlum path of churning out ghostwritten novels. That seems to be a real possibility now.

I got my (hardcover) copy dirt cheap – for just £4 – at a sale at WH Smith. That’s insanely cheap; cheaper than even on Amazon or the Kindle ebook version. Pirate Latitudes isn’t a ghostwritten novel, at least, that’s what HarperCollins tells us. It was a ‘finished’ novel found on Michael Crichton’s computer by his assistant / agents after his death, and it was decided that it would be published posthumously. It’s a period novel, set in 17th century Jamaica – an English colony at the time. The plot is of a band of ‘privateers’ who scheme to plunder a damaged Spanish galleon that’s stranded on an island to enrich English coffers.

Here’s the thing – when you read a Michael Crichton novel, you expect a journey teeming with information melting effortlessly into breakneck speed action. Crichton accomplished that effect in every novel of his so far – and thus, Pirate Latitudes feels like an unfinished, hastily edited novel. It feels like the first draft of a novel, with a straightforward (not typical Crichton) narrative and depthless characters.

I still remember reading his novel Eaters of the Dead (another pseudo-historical novel) and I was completely blown away by it. Eaters of the Dead was inspired by Beowulf, one my favourite among the classic epics, and was exquisitely crafted to match the tone of a traveller from distant lands fighting alongside Vikings. Pirate Latitudes, on the other hand, is an equally long novel but strangely unsatisfying.

******

Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About by Mil Millington

Rating: 9 / 10

Mil Millington gained a cult following on the Internet with his website thingsmygirlfriendandihavearguedabout.com, talking about crazy anecdotes of arguments he’s had with his girlfriend. The book isn’t a collection of those anecdotes; it’s a novel with a proper story along the same premise as his website. Mil Millington’s alter-ego Pel Dalton is a confused university library employee who tries to comes to grips with a control-freak German partner (and her unstable understanding of British culture) while dealing with ancient graves, buried nerve gas, and international crime syndicates at work. This novel is every bit as crazy as it sounds and there are guaranteed laughs every step of the way.

******

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Rating: 6 / 10

The title might lead you to believe this book discusses ‘bad science’ in general. It doesn’t. The Guardian columnist Ben Goldacre sticks to what he does best – tearing apart the frauds in the British medical industry methodically using statistical analysis and scientific reasoning. Think Freakonomics for medicine. Nevertheless, if you got mislead by the title you might end up disappointed.

There’s one chapter everyone should read, which couldn’t go into the first edition of the book. That chapter has since been released in full for free download. The chapter is about how the South African government systematically denied that HIV causes AIDS, went to great measures to stop AIDS awareness (going as far as saying anti-retroviral drugs were actually causing AIDS), and suggested afflicted patients to eat African herbs as a ‘cure’. Chilling how in this day and age, things such as this can happen.