Read: Out by Natsuo Kirino (2005)

Out by Natsuo Kirino (2005), translated into English by Stephen Snyder.

Four women, struggling to make ends meet, venture into a life of crime and find themselves

Kirino uses the casual sexism in modern Japan to motivate the characters.

Review: Prometheus (2012)

In 'Prometheus', director Ridley Scott revisits the SF horror territory of his breakout film, 'Alien', this time with a much bigger budget. Set before 'Alien', an exploration space ship travels to a desolate planet to search for an ancient civilization that contacted our human ancestors. Of course, in this sort of film, the explorers find something much more terrible and deadly on the planet.
The first half of the film is so-so but the plot goes off the rails in the second half. Some potentially interesting threads are presented then forgotten. A lot of the setting and twists do not make sense at all. The climax and its lead up are just ridiculous and arbitrary.
Even with fairly low expectations, this is a very disappointing film.
2 out of 5 stars.

Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein (1957), Audio CD read by Lloyd James (2004)

'Citizen of the Galaxy' is one of many juvenile SF novels written by Robert Heinlein. It tells the story of a boy named Thorby. At the beginning of the novel, Thorby is a child slave on a feudal planet, who is bought by the beggar Baslim. Baslim becomes his surrogate father and teaches him the value of education and hard work. However, Baslim is more than a mere beggar and leads a mysterious second life. When the police arrest Baslim, Thorby flees the planet on a space freighter.

The early part of the story about Thorby's adventures with Baslim on the Arabian-Nights-like planet are moderately interesting. Once the boy begins his journey on the space freighter, the story grinds to a halt as Heinlein brain dumps his study of anthropology on the reader. Perhaps back in the 50s, the idea that there could be societies based on extended families was new and exotic but in this age of the multiculturalism, Heinlein's laborious explanation is tedious. At that point, I gave up continuing the story.

1 out of 5 stars.