Jordan

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Husain Kothari

FRNK

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Luis Javier Campos nieto

The story of The First Formic War continues in Earth Awakens.Nearly 100 years before the events of Orson Scott Card's bestselling novel Ender's Game, humans were just beginning to step off Earth and out into the Solar System. A thin web of ships in both asteroid belts; a few stations; a corporate settlement on Luna. No one had seen any sign of other space-faring races; everyone expected that First Contact, if it came, would happen in the future, in the empty reaches between the stars. Then a young navigator on a distant mining ship saw something moving too fast, heading directly for our sun.When the alien ship screamed through the solar system, it disrupted communications between the far-flung human mining ships and supply stations, and between them and Earth. So Earth and Luna were unaware that they had been invaded until the ship pulled into Earth orbit, and began landing terra-forming crews in China. Politics and pride slowed the response on Earth, and on Luna, corporate power struggles seemed more urgent than distant deaths. But there are a few men and women who see that if Earth doesn't wake up and pull together, the planet could be lost.

Earth AfireBy Orson Scott Card and Aaron JohnstonA Review by Eric AllenIn my review of Earth Unaware, the first book in this prequel series, I stated that I have waited more than twenty years to get the story of the First Bugger Invasion from Ender’s Game. It was a part of the backstory that highly intrigued me. I was rather disappointed that the first book, with the subtitle “The First Formic War” was not that book. It was a great book, and highly entertaining in its own way, but it was not the book it promised to be. HOWEVER, Earth Afire is. It is the book I have waited the majority of my life to read, and it was everything I could ever have hoped it would be.Leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, the Formic ship plows through the Solar System toward Earth, disrupting communications so that little word can be sent ahead of it to warn the people of Earth of the danger. With little effort, the Formics shrug off every attack thrown against them upon reaching Earth and send down landers to southern China, where they begin killing everything in sight and stripping the land bare.Disobeying orders, Mazer Rackham, future hero of the Second Invasion races to one of the landing sites to help with the evacuation and finds himself alone, behind enemy lines, unarmed, against an entire army of aliens, whilst special forces try to sneak into China against the wishes of the Chinese government to help. Meanwhile Victor has a plan to take out the Formic Mothership in orbit, and must ally himself with the man who murdered his uncle in order to accomplish it.The Good? The characters are all very likeable, and well written. Card understands how people think, act and interact with one another. He’s always been very good at creating relatable, realistic characters with real moral dilemmas that pull you in and are every bit as exciting as his action scenes. There are a lot of nods to books that happen later in the Enderverse timeline that fans of the series will likely find highly enjoyable. Normally such things are rather distracting, but Card was able to incorporate subtle winks at his readers throughout the book without it being oppressive or distracting.Card has really captured the horror of invasion by an utterly alien species that has no understanding of humanity, or care for it. The way the Buggers, a.k.a. Formics, act is consistent with their behavior in later books, and believably alien. Their motivations make sense once the characters sit down and think about them, but on the surface they’re completely nonsensical and utterly alien. This is something that Science Fiction writers rarely get right. Aliens are usually either beasts, or so close to human in behavior that they might as well be human. Card realizes that an alien race is going to be alien and does a very good job of conveying it.The Bad? In Ender’s Game, the First Invasion is portrayed as a primarily space based conflict, with a few mentions of landers in China. In this book, it’s pretty much the other way around. It’s just a nitpick, but it doesn’t fit with pre-established continuity. Nor does Mazer Rackham’s role in this book. He was the hero of the Second Invasion, an unspecified number of years after the First Invasion, but the implication in Ender’s Game is that it was several decades later, especially with the advancements in technology as described in Ender’s Game when talking about the Second Invasion, which was definitively a space conflict. There’s just a lot of continuity issues with the original source material. It’s nothing that anyone but the most avid of fans will really notice or care about, and it probably won’t take away from anyone’s enjoyment. But, while I was reading it, I was constantly thinking about how a lot of things didn’t fit with pre-established continuity.The Chinese are not portrayed very well. I believe that Card was going for showing how proud a people they are. However, it does come off as subtly racist. I'll leave you to decide for yourself whether he's calling China as he sees it, or whether he's being quietly racist. It's a pretty fine line to walk. In conclusion, this book was pretty enjoyable. It does have some continuity issues with later books in the Ender Saga, but they don’t really detract too much from enjoyment. The characters are well written and interesting, and the aliens are sufficiently alien. The horrors of war are very well described, and things come to a very good climax, followed by an excellent lead-in to the next book.  Check out my other reviews.***Edit*** Removed rant about Card from the review. I felt that it was too political, and have actually received several death threats over it. At the time that I wrote this review I was working for a local newspaper as an editor and columnist. I wrote the review to be published in that paper, and word came down from above that I was to include a condemnation of Card's views in the review, as the paper had taken the opposite stance as Card on the issue, and I shared their views on the matter. Looking back, I feel that it was somewhat inappropriate to repost here on Goodreads, and have removed all traces of it from the review. I apologize to anyone who may have been offended by what I had to say, but at the time that I said it, I felt that it was something that needed to be said. The wonderful thing about mistakes, though, is that, even though you can't always remove them with a few clicks, you can always strive never to make the same mistake again in the future. I have also wiped the comments section, as there was some rather heated, and not very civil discussion on the matter.

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  The mining ship El Cavador is far out from Earth, in the deeps of the Kuiper Belt, beyond Pluto. Other mining ships, and the families that live on them, are few and far between this far out. So when El Cavador's telescopes pick up a fast-moving object coming in-system, it's hard to know what to make of it. It's massive and moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light.El Cavador has other problems. Their systems are old and failing. The family is getting too big for the ship. There are claim-jumping corporate ships bringing Asteroid Belt tactics to the Kuiper Belt. Worrying about a distant object that might or might not be an alien ship seems not important.They're wrong. It's the most important thing that has happened to the human race in a million years. The first Formic War is about to begin.\


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Tony Montana manages to leave Cuba during the Mariel exodus of 1980. He finds himself in a Florida refugee camp but his friend Manny has a way out for them: undertake a contract killing and arrangements will be made to get a green card. He's soon working for drug dealer Frank Lopez and shows his mettle when a deal with Colombian drug dealers goes bad. He also brings a new level of violence to Miami. Tony is protective of his younger sister but his mother knows what he does for a living and disowns him. Tony is impatient and wants it all however, including Frank's empire and his mistress Elvira Hancock. Once at the top however, Tony's outrageous actions make him a target and everything comes crumbling down.

In rural Texas, welder and hunter Llewelyn Moss (

2007 film directed by Ethan and Joel Coen

The murderous Bride is back and she is still continuing her vengeance quest against her ex-boss, Bill, and taking aim at Bill's younger brother Budd and Elle Driver, the only survivors from the squad of assassins who betrayed her four years earlier. It's all leading up to the ultimate confrontation with Bill, the Bride's former master and the man who ordered her execution!

F.B.I. trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) works hard to advance her career, while trying to hide or put behind her West Virginia roots, of which if some knew, would automatically classify her as being backward or white trash. After graduation, she aspires to work in the agency's Behavioral Science Unit under the leadership of Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn). While she is still a trainee, Crawford asks her to question Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Sir Anthony Hopkins), a psychiatrist imprisoned, thus far, for eight years in maximum security isolation for being a serial killer who cannibalized his victims. Clarice is able to figure out the assignment is to pick Lecter's brains to help them solve another serial murder case, that of someone coined by the media as "Buffalo Bill" (Ted Levine), who has so far killed five victims, all located in the eastern U.S., all young women, who are slightly overweight (especially around the hips), all who were drowned in natural bodies of water, and all who were stripped of large swaths of skin. She also figures that Crawford chose her, as a woman, to be able to trigger some emotional response from Lecter. After speaking to Lecter for the first time, she realizes that everything with him will be a psychological game, with her often having to read between the very cryptic lines he provides. She has to decide how much she will play along, as his request in return for talking to him is to expose herself emotionally to him. The case takes a more dire turn when a sixth victim is discovered, this one from who they are able to retrieve a key piece of evidence, if Lecter is being forthright as to its meaning. A potential seventh victim is high profile Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith), the daughter of Senator Ruth Martin (Diane Baker), which places greater scrutiny on the case as they search for a hopefully still alive Catherine. Who may factor into what happens is Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald), the warden at the prison, an opportunist who sees the higher profile with Catherine, meaning a higher profile for himself if he can insert himself successfully into the proceedings.

The lead character, called 'The Bride,' was a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, led by her lover 'Bill.' Upon realizing she was pregnant with Bill's child, 'The Bride' decided to escape her life as a killer. She fled to Texas, met a young man, who, on the day of their wedding rehearsal was gunned down by an angry and jealous Bill (with the assistance of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad). Four years later, 'The Bride' wakes from a coma, and discovers her baby is gone. She, then, decides to seek revenge upon the five people who destroyed her life and killed her baby. The saga of Kill Bill Volume I begins.

Henry Hill might be a small time gangster, who may have taken part in a robbery with Jimmy Conway and Tommy De Vito, two other gangsters who might have set their sights a bit higher. His two partners could kill off everyone else involved in the robbery, and slowly start to think about climbing up through the hierarchy of the Mob. Henry, however, might be badly affected by his partners' success, but will he consider stooping low enough to bring about the downfall of Jimmy and Tommy?

The Godfather "Don" Vito Corleone is the head of the Corleone mafia family in New York. He is at the event of his daughter's wedding. Michael, Vito's youngest son and a decorated WW II Marine is also present at the wedding. Michael seems to be uninterested in being a part of the family business. Vito is a powerful man, and is kind to all those who give him respect but is ruthless against those who do not. But when a powerful and treacherous rival wants to sell drugs and needs the Don's influence for the same, Vito refuses to do it. What follows is a clash between Vito's fading old values and the new ways which may cause Michael to do the thing he was most reluctant in doing and wage a mob war against all the other mafia families which could tear the Corleone family apart.

1972 American film directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Six thugs, who are strangers to each other, are hired by a crime boss, Joe Cabot, to carry out a diamond robbery. Right at the outset, they are given false names with the intention that they won't get too close and will concentrate on the job instead. They are completely sure that the robbery is going to be a success. But, when the police show up right at the time and the site of the robbery, panic spreads amongst the group members, and two of them are killed in the subsequent shootout, along with a few policemen and civilians. When the remaining people assemble at the premeditated rendezvous point (a warehouse), they begin to suspect that one of them is an undercover cop.

1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino

American author, vlogger, and science communicator

Ten years before Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise, the USS Discovery discovers new worlds and lifeforms as one Starfleet officer learns to understand all things alien.

American television series based on Star Trek

ALTERED CARBON is set in a future where consciousness is digitized and stored in cortical stacks implanted in the spine, allowing humans to survive physical death by having their memories and consciousness "re-sleeved" into new bodies. The story follows specially trained "Envoy" soldier Takeshi Kovacs, who is downloaded from an off-world prison and into a combat ready sleeve at the behest of Laurens Bancroft, a highly influential aristocrat. Bancroft was killed, and the last automatic backup of his stack was made hours before his death, leaving him with no memory of who killed him and why. While police ruled it a suicide, Bancroft is convinced he was murdered and wants Kovacs to find out the truth.

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