Tag Archives: science ficiton/fantasy

Amy Caudill’s Reviews : Extinction

Book Reviews, , , , , , , ,
Extinction by Douglas Preston

Extinction by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author)

Amy Caudill‘s review

A technological breakthrough runs amok in this new novel by author Douglas Preston. A group of scientists have “DE-extincted” several species of dinosaurs, aka Jurassic Park, and set them up in a nature preserve in the Colorado wilderness.


When a wealthy couple disappear deep in the wilderness of the preserve, the reader is left wondering momentarily if the culprits are animal or human, at least from the short early chapters I read before the book’s official release. However, after getting a copy of the entire book I was able to quickly realize the dinosaurs were innocent. Instead, a group of unknown size had somehow infiltrated the park, a group that had insider knowledge of the security, the routines, and the hidden old mining areas underneath the park.


As Colorado Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Frankie Cash and Sheriff Jim Colcord are forced to work together to find the missing couple, they quickly discover clues to far more sinister deeds. The kidnappers have left behind videos and evidence they wanted to have discovered-evidence of murder, cannibalism, and strange, primitive rites conducted under their noses. Who are the members of this group? How are they eluding the security of the park and the manhunt of combined forces of CBI and police investigators?


Forced to work under close scrutiny of the press, the administration of the park who are being evasive, the billionaire father of one of the victims who is outraged but also hiding information, as well as the CBI and the governor; Cash and Colcord are only left with more questions and very few answers. Finally they resort to underhanded means to get inside the laboratories where the dinosaurs are made. Once there, they discover that the scientists bred more than dinosaurs.


The group of scientists actually De-extincted one of humanities’ ancient rivals, a rival species driven into extinction by homo sapiens. The newly resurrected race escape the control of the scientists, and are out for revenge. Their goal- extinction of the human race.


I was shocked at the big twist in this book; I definitely did not predict the direction this story would take. That being said, I believe it was handled in a manner that was all too plausible. Preston has a history of writing stories where technology gets the better of its inventors and this is just the latest example of his writing style. What at first seems like a re-write of Jurasssic Park turned out to be so much more, and I award this novel 5 stars.

Review: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

Movie Review, , , ,
Image from Rotten Tomatoes

Talk about underlying themes in sci-fi movies; what on the surface appears to be a time-travelling, dimension-hopping storyline populated by body snatchers is little more than a plot device for a compelling story of the relationships between parents and children, particularly mothers and daughters.

I know I’m a little late to the party reviewing this movie, considering it won a whopping seven Oscars in the 2023 Academy Awards, but I honestly just got the chance to watch it recently. 

At first, I didn’t know what to make of the story, where in the first scenes we see Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan as a seemingly ordinary couple struggling to balance a marriage with business ownership and familial relationships with a daughter and estranged father for Michelle’s character.  Yeoh is facing the struggles of most modern women; her life pulled in multiple directions at once by various demands on her time and emotions. 

Suddenly, though, that changes as another reality version of Quan takes over, warning Yeoh that she’s in danger, and suddenly fighting it out with Jamie Lee Curtis in a scene that could have almost come from a Bruce Lee movie.

It’s later revealed that Yeoh is the original version of herself in a persona that has branched out into infinite dimensions, each with different strengths and weaknesses, and that she is responsible for the creation of the being trying to destroy them all. The heartbreaking revelation of exactly who is the Jobu Tupaki, and her relationship to Yeoh’s character, as well as her response to this, is what makes this movie worthy of Best Picture. 

Yeoh, or Evelyn, is encouraged to stop the Jobu Tupaki at all costs, by her other-version husband and father, but decides that is not acceptable.  Instead she decides to learn to relate to her by becoming more like her and dissuade her from her chosen path of destruction.

In the end, friendship and love are the only tools able of stopping the universe from imploding, as well as preventing a catastrophe in Yeoh’s “real” life.

I would recommend this movie to everyone who hasn’t already seen it; it has everything from sci-fi to kung fu action, as well as romance and family feels.

Amy Caudill’s Reviews: Armada

Book Reviews, , ,
Armada by Ernest Cline

Armada by Ernest Cline (Goodreads Author)
Amy Caudill‘s review

When my son gifted me with several of the works of Ernest Cline for Christmas last year, I was definitely pleased and interested.  After all, I had seen the movie based on Cline’s bestseller, Ready Player One, twice, so I was curious about the story behind the story.

I chose to start with his lesser-known novel, Armada, and was quickly captivated.  The basic plot is that of a high school senior, Zach Lightman, who thinks he’s losing his mind because he just happened to see an alien fighter straight out of his favorite videogame flying outside the window of his classroom.

However, from this amusing but inauspicious beginning is a story that combines a coming of age with a classic science fiction/adventure and a sprinkling of romance.  Zach discovers quickly that he is not crazy, his boss at Starbase Ace, a videogame store, is actually a field agent for the “fictional” Earth Defense Alliance, also from the game, and here’s the big one, (spoilers!) video games are training tools developed by world governments to prepare citizens to fight against real aliens.

I was quickly reminded of both Tron and Ender’s Game, as true to nature Cline peppers his text with pop cultural references, though this particular book limits those somewhat to science fiction movies and video games, and classic seventies music, more so than in his other works.

As Zach swiftly finds himself recruited to serve in the EDA due to his record high scores on the game boards, he learns of government cover-ups, conspiracies, and even the mystery of his father’s death when Zach was just a baby.  He will have to decide for himself just who is right and who is of the wrong opinion, and to what extent he’s willing to go to prove his father’s theories.  The fate of the whole world literally hangs in the balance.

I enjoyed the bulk of this book very much.  The pacing was good, the action drove the story but there was plenty of bi-play between the various characters to help further the plot.  The story only really faltered for me near the end; I thought the resolution contained too much of a science fiction cliché.  I think such a good story deserved a more original ending.  Still, overall, I think this novel deserves four stars for creativity and humor, as well as all those references that are like a trivia goldmine to science fiction fans.