Lost to Eternity is the latest Star Trek novel by Greg Cox and is definitely one of the better releases in some time. The novel is a little complicated because there are three story threads interwoven throughout the pages until the common threat comes to light. It serves as a sequel to the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, but it’s more of a treat than just that.

It begins in the present year of 2024 with a true podcaster named Melinda Silver who has decided to examine the peculiar circumstance surrounding the disappearance of marine biologist Gillian Taylor, who disappeared almost four decades earlier. Of course, the aforementioned film reveals that Dr. Taylor joined Captain James Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise who had hijacked a Klingon warship, traveled through time to retrieve a couple of humpback whales to communicate with a probe that was tearing Earth apart in the twenty-third century. None of that is known to Melinda as she interviews several witnesses that tell her of a strange man who jumped into the whale tank, a Russian who was captured on a United States naval vessel that same day, and an old woman who grew a new kidney while at the hospital.

In the year 2268, Captain Kirk and his crew are sent to find an apparently abducted Federation scientist who is also being sought by the Klingons as well. The search takes them to a primitive world where a mysterious man is ruthlessly trying to achieve immortality.

The next mission takes place in 2292 and has Captain Kirk and his crew to participate in an effort to convince an ancient race known as the Osari who have decided to come out of isolation and interact with its galactic neighbors. The Osari are also interested in meeting the Romulans and the Klingons. The diplomatic mission seems to have a promising start until one of the Osari is apparently killed and a familiar Starfleet officer and Romulan subcommander are missing and presumed dead. Yet again, a secret adversary is manipulating the crisis, and the quest for eternal life has continued but at a fatal price.

I can sometimes be critical of Star Trek novelists spending too much dredging up sequels of old episodes or films, but Cox actually does it pretty uniquely here. He turns some of the extra bystanders into real characters here. I was actually motivated to rewatch the film a few days ago to identify the potential characters who Melida interviewed. Of course, it’s a fun movie overall.

The adversary is a new threat to the crew and their missions, so that was most welcome.

Cox does get a little overindulgent on referencing prior episodes at times, but for the most part, this contribution hits all the right marks. The main characters are depicted pretty accurately. There is an appropriate number of space battles and phaser fights.

Books that are tied to television or film franchises are often hit or miss, but Cox hits what could be a metaphorical bullseye here.

After my brief return to the twenty-third century, my next read will bring me to Tibbehah County, Mississippi where Sheriff Quinn Colson has some fixing up to do in The Broken Places by Ace Atkins.

Cuckoo is a science fiction horror film, written and directed by Tilman Singer, that happens to be one of the more fairly interesting additions to the genre in recent cinematic history.

The cast includes Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, Jessica Henwick, Marton Csokas, and Greta Fernandez.

The film begins with a young girl stepping outside into the night to escape the disturbing sounds of her arguing parents. A peculiar shriek emanating from the woods triggers a seizure in the girl, and she suddenly sprints off into the night.

Most of the film centers on a teenager named Gretchen who is moving with her father and his family to the German Alps because he has accepted a job to construct an updated resort. Gretchen meets the owner who has employed her father and is offered a job at the front desk of the current hotel. It does not take her long to notice women vomiting suddenly in her lobby. She also has a younger sister who also suddenly becomes prone to seizures especially when an unusual shriek is blaring out of the woods. A strange, hooded woman has started stalking her. Time loops start occurring around people when the shriek cuts loose. Gretchen is not happy to be away from her home, especially since her mother had recently died. These mysterious occurrences and troubling cries do little to reassure her.

The film has some interesting twists that are unexpected. This isn’t really a ghost or monster story. There is an unexpected science fiction element that comes to light

The performances are pretty good. Hunter Schafer does well in the lead role of Gretchen. The cast is not that well-known, which I think helps with immersing yourself into the story.

The film is a little overhyped in the advertisements. I don’t think it’s the latest horror masterpiece, but it does have some uniqueness to the story. It does well with exhibiting that distinctive European favor, and it does have a bit more originality than what has been released in the past few years.

Fans of the more macabre corners of the cinematic scene will likely find some welcome chills here. Although I doubt that this will be a film I will sit through multiple times over the next few years, it is one that has a pretty engaging premise and is one of the better cinematic experiences of this past year.

Borderlands is a science fiction action-comedy film based on a video game that does not quite reach mediocre status. Yeah, I should have researched this one a bit more before wasting my time.

The film is directed by Eli Roth who also co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Crombie. It’s based on a video game released by Gearbox Software. The cast is not without talent, but it would be fair to question their judgment for their participation. Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Ariana Greenblatt, Edgar Ramirez, Florian Munteanu, and Jamie Lee Curtis are included in the cast.

On some planet in the far future or something like that, Lillith, a cynical and effective bounty hunter, is contracted to retrieve some rich guy’s daughter who was apparently kidnapped by one of his own mercenaries. She reluctantly returns to her home planet known as Pandora because that is where the trail leads. She meets the rogue soldier known as Roland, who is played by Kevin Hart. Apparently, the precocious and bomb-lobbing girl, Tiny Tina, is actually not all that keen to return to her father’s clutches. Lillith decides to ally herself to Roland and Tina in their efforts to open something known as Pandora’s Vault. It becomes more evident that Lillith’s past is the key to this ragtag group of treasure seekers and renegades staying alive and unlocking the Vault.

There are a couple of merits to this film. I enjoyed Greenblatt’s antics as Tiny Tina. I wouldn’t mind seeing her in something else that has a better script. The special effects and action scenes were kind of fun. The casting itself wasn’t too bad. Even Kevin Hart managed to carry some credibility in his fight scenes. Hart gets ribbed a bit for being rather short, but he is a pretty fit guy and can pull off a fairly convincing fight scene.

The problem is that most of the wisecracks did not land all that solidly. The story is rather stale. This is another circumstance where a video game just fails to translate all that smoothly to the cinema.

I did notice that the Rotten Tomatoes score is extreme low, and the film does deserve most of the hate. I did not find the film to be all that terrible. Greenblatt and Jack Black, who is the voice of the obnoxious robot almost make it watchable at times.

I actually didn’t find the film to be the most terrible one I have endured, but the mediocrity and wasted potential was quite evident and rather exasperating.

Better luck next time, Eli.

Karin Smirnoff is the latest Swedish author who has taken the baton of continuing the Millenium series started by the late Stieg Larsson, and she may be running off a pier with it if The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons is anything to go by.

Just to recap a bit, Steig Larsson wrote the first trilogy featuring the dangerous and unusual Lisbeth Salander beginning with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. He passed away not long after publication, so he never really got to enjoy the acclaim that was displayed. David Lagercrantz was commissioned by the estate to produce another trilogy starting with The Girl in the Spider’s Web. His contribution was not as good as the original author’s obviously, but it was pretty good.

Now, we have this Smirnoff woman taking a crack at it, and the first effort is not that encouraging.

Crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist is heading north to see his daughter get married. He is in crisis because his beloved newspaper is getting into the digital age and dumping the print edition. His daughter’s fiancée seems to be in cahoots with some rather dubious power brokers. Meanwhile, Lisbeth Salander has been prospering as a partner in the security firm for which she had worked when introduced. Salander is made aware of a niece who is the daughter of an unsavory sibling who tried to kill her some years ago, and she has been named guardian to this young girl. Svala has some unique gifts of her own and is a little cleverer and more precocious than most thirteen-year-olds. There is no question that she is family. A shocking kidnapping occurs, and Lisbeth and Mikael find themselves working together because both of them have family in danger from some powerful and corrupt people.

I had a hard time being drawn to Smirnoff’s version of Lisbeth. Lisbeth did not seem quite as intriguing as she was presented by Larsson. Even Lagercrantz was able to retain some of the mystique and dark humor that was unique to Lisbeth.

Svala was supposedly just as strange and perceptive as Lisbeth, but she didn’t hold my interest. When the big kidnapping occurs, things pick up a bit, but I found most of the story just sort of dragged up until that point.

Smirnoff isn’t necessarily an awful writer, but she just didn’t replicate the spark provided by the deceased Stieg Larssen. I am curious enough to see if she can redeem herself once the second novel comes out. That has yet to be announced, but it is known that she is contracted to do a trilogy. Anyway, maybe others found more to enjoy than I did, but it seems Salander was in better hands with the two dudes who preceded this current author.

I think it’s time to return to the Starship Enterprise under the command of James T. Kirk with Greg Cox’s latest contribution to the Star Trek range, Lost to Eternity.

Trap is the latest thriller written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, and it requires a massive amount of suspension of disbelief to get any measure of enjoyment. Josh Hartness is in the lead as Cooper, a seemingly doting and average father who is taking his daughter to a concert put on by the pop star portrayed by Saleka Night Shyamalan. The cast also includes Ariel Donoghue, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills, and Jonathan Langdon.

Cooper is a loving father and is accompanying his daughter to a major concert and notices an unusual amount of security. An indiscreet booth worker informs Cooper that the whole venue has been turned into a trap for a notorious serial killer who is believed to be attending the concert. It’s not a major spoiler to reveal that Cooper is indeed the target of all of this attention. The problem is that the police and FBI agents really have no information regarding his identity. Cooper begins an effort to engineer his escape without ruining his daughter’s night. He also has to outwit a supposed master profiler played by Mills. This sounds like a pretty intense plot and should be kind of fun to watch.

The problem is that the basic premise is more ridiculous that most of Shyamalan’s ideas. This is the guy who did a movie about invading aliens who attacked a planet this is made mostly of water, which was their kryptonite. Anyway, the whole concept was kind of silly and seemed to be lacking any effort to discover what police would actually do in this situation.

In spite of the distraction of a very weak plot, there was a couple of bright spots. M. Night’s daughter actually is a pretty decent actress. There was quite a bit of her musical talents on display, and the concert scenes were fine. She apparently wrote the songs that were performed, and she is not noticeably terrible as a pop performer. The performances from the cast overall were actually pretty good. I guess they were making the best of a pretty bad story premise. It was cool to see Hartnett in a major film role. The chemistry between him and the daughter played by Donoghue seemed pretty genuine. The casting is something to which I have no real objection.

I guess I can buy Hartnett in the part of a serial killer, who is the master of wearing the mask of normalcy, but the whole concept of the FBI trying to track him in an audience made up of about 20,000 people just seemed so ludicrous. Although there may be some good reasons to question the competence of our federal law enforcement agencies these days, I am doubtful that they would engage in a maneuver like the one depicted in this film.

Shyamalan often has some interesting ideas, but this is one of those films that misfires too noticeably to be forgiven easily.