That Hideous Strength is the final book in Lewis's science fiction trilogy.  The first book, Out Of the Silent Planet the main character, Ransom, visits the planet Malacandra (Mars) and discovers an extensive and vibrant life outside of Earth which is referred to as the Silent Planet.  In the second book, Perelandra, Ransom travels to Perelandra (Venus) to stop another evil plot by Doctor Weston.  In contrast, the third book remains entirely on Earth.  In the third book Ransom is again called to thwart evil.  This time he is stopping an invasion of earth by the alien forces that exist outside Earth's protective shell.

 This is another of those fantasy books from the 80's that I somehow missed. The other notable entry in that list was the David Eddings Belgariad series that I reviewed a few months ago.  Daggerspell was better and more interesting that the Eddings books but it still had a few problems.  Or maybe just quirks.  I'm really not trying to be all that critical but some things just stick out like sore thumbs.  After reading Eddings, this book, and some old Shanarra I think I'm beginning to understand why people have always looked down a bit on the fantasy genre.  This book wasn't that bad though.  As I said, just some quirks.

There are a few actors who we know are "hit or miss".  Sometimes we like their movies and other times we don't.  Adam Sandler is one of those actors.  It seems that he is more "miss" than "hit" for us but we thought that maybe the newest movie, Zohan, would be one of the rare exceptions.  We were wrong.  This was one of the worst movies we've seen in a long time.  There were a few funny parts but those were minuscule compared to the overwhelming junior-high level humor.  

Prince Caspian is the second movie in The Chronicles of Narnia series which is following the books in the "as written" order rather than the chronological order.  This movie version was excellent -- far better than the first movie.  Just as with the first movie in the series, the story was followed fairly faithfully with only minor alterations to make it more appropriate for a movie.  However, the quality of the writing, acting, and movie making jumped up to a new level.  

In The Journey of Man author Spencer Wells puts forth a description and explanation of how modern man descended from a single man located somewhere in Africa around 60,000 years ago.  In more detail Wells describes the actual migration routes over the millenniums showing how man moved from one continent to another and eventually spread to every corner of the globe.  Wells is able to come up with these astounding details through the clever use of genetics, in particular the Y chromosome, and statistical analysis. 

Unfortunately there are many many details left out and lots of gaps that make the whole premise much less solid.  As I read through the book I found myself frequently scratching my head and wondering how the conclusion could possibly follow from the facts presented.  There was also very little description or explanation of how Wells obtained the genetic data that he bases the entire premise on.  

While reading the paper today I came across an interesting quote.  I was reading the latest news concerning the Democratic primaries.  As expected, Hillary is continuing with her dreadful performance.  The article was focusing on some of the women's groups who are irritated and angry with other women for "abandoning Hillary in favor of a 'rock star' candidate".  The sentiment is that women are all leaving Hillary and jumping on the Obama bandwagon just because he's popular and all that.  Who knows, that could be the case.  If so then I can see being annoyed over that.  It never makes sense to me that people would vote for someone just because he (or she) is the most popular.  It does seem that the current election is becoming more and more like that.  But that's not my point here -- I'm getting distracted.

The Mammoth Book of Fantasy is yet another anthology that I read.  This time, I'm happy to say, there were a few stories in the collection that I thought were interesting.  Many of the stories in the book were not what I would call fantasy though.  That's probably because I have a limited or narrow definition of fantasy.  I think that I should really be looking at "heroic" or "epic" fantasy.   

The Last Unicorn is considered one of the top fantasy books in the last 100 years.  Written by Peter S. Beagle in 1963 it boasts sales of over 5 million copies and translation into 20 different languages.  At least one animated film has been made from the story and there is rumor of a live-action film in the works which has garnered a lot of excited attention from the fans.  So I'm a bit baffled that I found the book somewhat lackluster.  It was mildly interesting but not extraordinary.