Top 10 Favorite Sci-Fi Novels

I don’t read a lot of science fiction novels but when I do I usually really enjoy them but mostly near future sci-fi and not so much of the distant future variety.  This being said, unlike with horror novelists whom I kind of stick to, my sci-fi reading is all over the place.  For this “Top 10” list I’ve put together a list of novels many of which I’ve read several times and even if they are not all the best they are ones I really enjoy.  Make sure to leave your comments and don’t forget to post your own list:

      1.       Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

      2.       The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

      3.       Sphere by Michael Crichton

      4.       Loop by Koji Suzuki

      5.       2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clark

      6.       The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells

      7.       Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

      8.       Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle

      9.       Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

     10.   Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Top 10 Favorite Books

It is hard to create a list of favorite novels especially considering that I have more favorite authors than novels so some of my favorites will inevitably get left off which is why with this list of favorite novels I will explain why I love some of these novels and the writer that wroth it.  Enjoy!  I would love for you to list your own “Top 10” and post them and don’t forget to comment of this list.  The list is in no particular order and don’t for get to check out some of my other Lists:

      1.       The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

      2.       The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

      3.       Sacrament/Weaveworld by Clive Barker – I can’t really choose between these two as they are both some of the best written modern fantasy I’ve ever read!

      4.       Congo/Sphere/Airframe by Michael Crichton – He is my favorite author of all time so it’s hard for me to decide which of these three are my favorites but Airframe does get elevated a bit higher as it is the one I’d love to direct as a film

      5.       The Exorcist/Legion by William Peter Blatty – The Exorcist is the better novel but Legion was the first novel of his I ever read which prompted me to go out and look for his other novels.

      6.       Ringu/Loop/Dark Water by Koji Suzuki – All three are equally magnificent (as are pretty much everything he writes) but Loop does edge out the other just a little as it has such an amazing premise with some heady themes and ideas like a Crichton novel

      7.       The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

      8.       Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri – I absolutely love her writing and think she can do no wrong and even though I think all of her work are masterpieces this is one of the few anthologies I think every story is a masterpiece

      9.       The Stepford Wives/Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin – A tie with these two as it’s hard to decide which is the better novel.

      10.   Misery by Stephen King – This may not be his best novel but it is the novel from which if I had never read it, I would have never read anything else he did.  This is the first book of his that I ever read in high school and I’ve been a fan ever since.  Even after all the other novels of his I’ve read I can still remember my first experience reading this one when most of the other novels I’ve forgotten the experience.

Film Review: ROSEMARY’S BABY (2014)

Agnieszka Holland directs the television remake of Rosemary’s Baby (2014) as a two-night four-hour event.  Holland does more than a capable job of handling the original novel from Ira Levin which was most famously brought to the screen by Roman Polanski in 1968.  Writing this version is Scott Abbott and James Wong and they’ve brought the story to the modern era with style and relevance.

Zoe Saldana plays Rosemary Woodhouse who has just experienced a miscarriage.  She and her husband Guy (Patrick J. Adams) are middle class citizens.  Guy suffers as a writer so he teaches as a university so that he has time to focus on his novel.  When her purse is stolen by a thief, she manages to catch the thief who happens to have been a habitual purse thief and she finds herself in possession with another woman’s purse.  When she returns the other woman’s purse, Rosemary meets Margaux Castevet (Carole Bouquet) a member of the elite class whom takes a liking to Rosemary and soon her husband.  Rosemary and Guy soon meet Margaux’s husband Roman (Jason Isaacs) and soon their lives are turned upside down.  The Castevet’s give them a new home completely furnished in their apartment building after a kitchen fire leaves Rosemary and Guy homeless.  Guy’s luck soon changes when he gets a better life at work and he soon gets his novel finished when he had previously been suffering from writer’s block.  And soon, Rosemary finds herself with child once again!  This would all seem great if Rosemary didn’t have suspicions that their good fortune comes at a cost which is usually other people dying.

The deeper Rosemary tries to discover the truth about the Castevets the more she discovers an elaborate ruse and she becomes to believe that the Castevets are part of o Satan worshiping cult that wants to kill her baby.  Rosemary will stop at nothing to protect her unborn child but the truth of what is going on won’t be fully revealed until after the baby is born.

Abbott and Wong craft a relevant and modern take on the material that actually works not only under the guise of a Satan worshiping cult (or as an secret cult society in general) but also with themes of class struggle and division and the motherly bond between mother and child.  The film also delivers the goods when it comes to the horror aspects as well but it is Holland’s assured direction that really allows this film to stand apart from Polanski’s original film.  This is one of the best remakes to come along and I suggest it to anyone who enjoyed the original.  There is enough contained in this version to fully be appreciated and there is no padding.  There was probably no real need for a remake but this version definitely makes a case for itself.  I would even be interested in Levin’s sequel novel “Son of Rosemary” to be made into a film as long as this same creative team is reunited.

Film Review: DEVIL’S DUE (2014)

There are a lot of things that newly wedded couples can fear but suddenly becoming pregnant is somewhere at the top of the list.  This is part of the premise for the film Devil’s Due (2014), a film that is a modern day retelling of the classic Ira Levin story Rosemary’s Baby by way of a found footage film.

Zach and Samantha McCall (Zach Gilford and Allison Miller, respectfully) have just gotten married.  Everything is perfect on their honeymoon except that at a party they drink a little too much and things get out of hand.  When they return home they discover that they are pregnant despite taking all precautions against it.  At first the idea of Samantha being pregnant is a godsend until, Zach discovers that she is acting strange and he starts to see strange men in the shadows watching over them.  As the day of birth looms ever so closer, Samantha believes that something “else” is going inside her and that the men in shadows want her baby for their own reasons.

With Satanic cults, demonic babies, and men in shadows there is a lot of ground that this treads that has been seen a hundred times before in other films.  The idea of doing this story as a found footage film is a novel one except that it wears its welcome off really fast.  What starts off as a genuine story tactic for the first third of the film (depicting the marriage and honeymoon) comes off as forced for much of the rest of the film and takes you out of the story.

Unfortunately, this is a problem with most found footage films (and films that copy the style) in which the overall story just doesn’t require the style for the duration of the film.  There’s an interesting idea to be had in this modern day version of Rosemary’s Baby but this was probably not the best way to go about it.