Holiday Reading: On Stranger Tides and The Lions of al-Rassan

I feel that I let myself down slightly this year on holiday, as I only managed to get through two books in the week we were away. In my defense we did fill the time with a lot of activity, including (but not limited to) Laser Tag, Quad Biking, a lot of boardgaming and ice cream. All good stuff. But in between all of that I did manage to get in two books, one of which I've been meaning to read for years, and don't have any real excuse for avoiding, and the other I'd not got around thanks to the terrible pirate movie of the same name. But I've read them now, and really enjoyed both, so lets talk a bit about them. 

Documentary Review: Going Clear

Literary Science Fiction fandom has long had a slightly wry and embarrased relationship with the Church of Scientology. After all, it's found L Ron Hubbard cut his teeth as a writer for the pulps, and when I was growing up it wasn't uncommon to find his books on the shelves of the local library's SF&F section. I even read a load of them - and yes, even then I knew they were pretty terrible. At University, the SF&F Society got a steady stream of leaflets and so on from them, although we never really worked out if some previous members are registered with them for real or for a joke. But certainly in the circles we moved in, it was a joke, and its still slightly strange to me that out  in the real world Scientology is a serious, and slightly sinister thing. The Church has a reputation for being extremely litigious and aggressive and controlling, and it's this side of the church that new documentary Going Clear aims to address.