Sep 19 2008
Book Request
What are some well-known books that have major flaws? We’re looking for books to use to help our readers improve their writing, so I’d especially appreciate books that are superhero-related, fantasy or sci-fi.
Our RSS Feed- Captain Marvel Review: 1.5 Stars Out of 51. I don’t know where to start with Captain Marvel. So many things went so wildly wrong that we’d need a presidential commission to get to the bottom of it. It’s like the Chernobyl of superhero movies. 2. If at any point you feel like your action movie would benefit from a character whose main […]
- Spider-Man: Far From Home Review (1 star out of 5)1. My main knock against the series is that this version of Spider-Man is a useless toolbox who actively avoids doing interesting things, and what he does attempt is usually wimpy and/or incompetent. 2. Unlike most main characters, his choices don’t really matter much. For example, he chooses to leave his supersuit at home (but […]
- Rotten Tomatoes Score Dataset UpdatedWe’re up to 72 superhero movies since 2000 (current as of November 2017). You can download the full data here. Some observations: R movies are making up the quality gap with PG-13 movies. Superhero movies are improving. Over the last 5 years (2013-2017), the average superhero movie is averaging 70% on Rotten Tomatoes, up […]
- Letters from DeadpoolHey DeadPool, You are a funny guy. How did you become a super hero? What do you do when you’re not doing anything? Do you like being a superhero? Why do you wear a mask? Why do you wear red and white? Are you Canadian? Getting superpowers is sort of a long story. Some people […]
- Preliminary review of Dr. StrangeI feel like a marketing executive put a gun to the screenwriter’s head and said “I don’t CARE what the movie is about, put New York City, London, and Hong Kong in it. Just do that thing where the villain is trying to collect plot coupons around the world in places that happen to be […]
- Calling All Supervillain StoriesDen Warren, (K-Tron, Metahuman Wars) is issuing a call for 3k-5k word submissions for a superhero prose fiction anthology titled, The Supreme Archvillain Election. Each submission will be a supervillain sitting at a huge table explaining why they should be voted as the Supreme Archvillain, then they go into a story, etc. Reprint excerpts and […]
- Man of Steel Review1. This movie is about as bad as Catwoman but, in Catwoman’s defense, it had okay action scenes. 2. Man of Steel particularly struggled with family dialogue. E.g. Clark’s Kryptonian parents take 3 minutes to describe their plan to send him to Earth and say their goodbyes. It’s pretty bland stuff, e.g. melodramatic intonations like […]
- Captain Marvel Review: 1.5 Stars Out of 5
Lord of the Rings. The characters are extremely bland, the writing is longwinded and occasionally aggravating, and the flaws of practically every character are blamed on a ring; no one seems to have flaws of their own accord.
Good call on LOTR! I had considered it, but initially demurred because I feared that a negative review would anger its fans. Still, what you said about its insufferable long-windedness and characterization is dead on. I’d lay at least half of the terrible fantasy writing out there at Tolkein’s feet… particularly those scenes where people sit around and eat.
One of Christine Feehan’s books. Anyone whose readers are that defensive is obviously up to no good.