Movie Review: Jaws 2

Chief Brody contemplates the sea and its creatures.

Movie Review: Jaws 2 (1978) directed by Jeannot Szwarc It has been four years since the island community of Amity suffered a series of attacks by a great white shark. Most of the people have recovered, and things are looking up, with a new Holiday Inn ™ opening, and Len Peterson’s (Joseph Mascolo) real estate business… Continue reading Movie Review: Jaws 2

Book Review: Outlaws of the Atlantic: Sailors, Pirates and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail

Book Review: Outlaws of the Atlantic: Sailors, Pirates and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail by Marcus Rediker Disclaimer:  I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway for the purposes of this review.  No other compensation was offered or requested. During the Age of Sail, the deep ocean sailing ship was one of the… Continue reading Book Review: Outlaws of the Atlantic: Sailors, Pirates and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail

Book Review: The Infinite Arena

Book Review: The Infinite Arena edited by Terry Carr Science fiction, in a way, is a very broad genre, that can easily contain stories of other genres within itself.  Thus space westerns, fantastic romance, star war novels and so forth.   In this case, we have a sample of sports stories set in science fiction… Continue reading Book Review: The Infinite Arena

Book Review: The Sea-Wolf

Book Review: The Sea-Wolf by Jack London Today is an ill-omened day.  It began with a heavy fog in San Francisco Harbor, and the ferry carrying literary critic Humphrey Van Weyden colliding with another ship.  He managed to get into a life jacket, but was swept away from the other survivors by a freak tide… Continue reading Book Review: The Sea-Wolf

Book Review: Flying Colours

Book Review: Flying Colours by C.S. Forester This is the third book in the Horatio Hornblower series as they were originally written, but the eighth in internal chronology.   For those of you who somehow have not heard of these books or their media adaptations before, Hornblower is an officer in the British navy during the… Continue reading Book Review: Flying Colours

Magazine Review: Pirate Stories November 1934

Magazine Review: Pirate Stories November 1934  Some of the pulp magazines went for very specialized subjects, so it’s not a surprise to find one dedicated entirely to stories about pirates.  As this was the first issue, there’s an publisher’s note indicating that there will be stories about pirate of the past, present and future (it… Continue reading Magazine Review: Pirate Stories November 1934

Book Review: Billy Smith Shanghaied Ace

Book Review: Billy Smith Shanghaied Ace by Noël Sainsbury, Jr. William “Billy” Smith, noted teen aviator, has been called to Australia by a wealthy banker, Mr. Clafflin whose daughter Janet was on the missing passenger liner GLORIA (sic).  The banker believes that the ship was not sunk, but is stranded off course somewhere in the… Continue reading Book Review: Billy Smith Shanghaied Ace

Book Review: The Pirate Princess

Book Review: The Pirate Princess by Tawn Krakowski Penelope Puffinstuff is the ninth child of the royal family of Pufftania, so everyone calls her “Princess Penny.”  She’s a sweet, well-behaved girl, but is feeling slightly bored with the life of a princess.  So when it turns out that a centuries-old prophecy requires her to acquire… Continue reading Book Review: The Pirate Princess

Comic Book Review: Showcase Presents the Great Disaster Featuring the Atomic Knights

Comic Book Review: Showcase Presents the Great Disaster Featuring the Atomic Knights by too many to list.  Trust me, a lot of great names. Between the late 1940s and somewhere in the 1990s, one of the most pervasive fears of the American public was atomic war. For the first time in known history, humans were… Continue reading Comic Book Review: Showcase Presents the Great Disaster Featuring the Atomic Knights

Manga Review: Vinland Saga Book One

Manga Review: Vinland Saga Book One by Makoto Yukimura It is the Eleventh Century C.E., and Europe trembles in fear of the raiders from the north, who we would call Vikings.  This is the story of one such Viking, the youth Thorfinn Thorssen. This thick volume opens with a battle in the Frankish Kingdoms (later… Continue reading Manga Review: Vinland Saga Book One