Hasta La Vista, Lady: Is Sarah Connor a Female Action Hero?

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Any film which includes a woman suddenly busting out a roundhouse kick or making a withering remark about penis size risks getting hailed as a beacon of feminism, even if her character is otherwise paper-thin or disposable. Sarah Connor, played by Linda Hamilton in the first two movies in the Terminator franchise, is sometimes held up alongside Ripley from Aliens and GI Jane as an example of a female action hero. But is the fact that ‘there’s a woman in it and she kicks some ass’ really enough? At first blush, it doesn’t seem that Sarah Connor has any of the qualities you’d expect of an action hero. Her value lies not in what she herself is going to do, Read More

How to Tell If You’re in a Wilbur Smith Novel

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You have made a fortune and lost a fortune, not necessarily in that order You aren’t racist. Definitely not. In fact, you have a close friend who is a noble son of a local tribe. He is tall and noble, with absolutely no sex drive. His profile is very noble, and despite knowing a lot more than you about the terrain, your mission and the local wildlife, he is always happy to do what you say. You have been given a name in the local language that means something like ‘lion who strikes with a closed fist’ or ‘falcon who is right about everything’. You frequently marry women who die shortly afterwards. You frequently sleep with women who are probably Read More

Watching Every Episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation for the First time, Part One by C T Thorbens

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With the launch of the latest Start Trek big-screen adventure, could there be a better time to finally get round to watching Star Trek: TNG? Well, pretty much any time in the past 20 years would have made more sense. During my preteens and adolescence, the show seemed to be on every week, requiring dogged persistence and ingenuity on my part to avoid watching even a single episode. And remember, this was 1990, a time when my house had access to only four TV channels and no internet. I didn’t avoid it out of a lack of interest in the genre (I was entering peak sci-fi interest years, and by the end of ST:TNG’s run on British TV, would have Read More

Your Week Ahead For Myers-Briggs Types

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ESFP – The Performer Stop worrying that everyone remembers that you joke you told at Sam’s birthday brunch, which was followed by ten seconds of awkward silence. All your friends are ever thinking about is the much, much worse thing you did ten years ago, a memory so psyche-shatteringly humiliating that you have successfully repressed it, and now have no idea it happened at all.  But they all know. Oh yes they do. ENFJ – The Teacher This week, you will receive a letter from the school nurse – turns out it was you who was responsible for the headlice outbreak in the Sixth form. You should stop trying to hang out with them, BTW, and not just because they’re Read More