I have tried, since stumbling out of the theater Thursday night in a bilious fury, to write an objective review of Breaking Dawn Part 2, the final movie in the Twilight series, and always ended up instead with a creative mélange of George Carlin’s seven dirty words. Today I have decided this is a movie that neither deserves nor needs my objectiveness, niceness, or professionalism.

So fair warning: this is not a review. This is a hatepost. At least once in every critic’s life they encounter a film that offends them down to their very soul. For me, this is that movie. Never in my life have I been so close to storming out of a theater before the end credits. If you want a review, please proceed to Natalie Zutter’s post. Otherwise, put on your troll hats and prepare to sound off in the comment thread. Also, spoilers.

[“Lot of red eyes around here...” Yes, Jacob, eyes red with angry, ragey rage at having to listen to you speak.]

All the momentum of the last few episodes of The Walking Dead shattered into a million pieces of boredom with “Hounded.” Good god but this was, by and large, a dull episode. Talk about setting the board. For the most part, this ep was little more than killing time and moving characters into place so Rick and the gang can make their way into the Governor’s orbit. But it did have a few good things....

[“How many people have you killed?”]

Welcome to the final episode of “Don’t Touch That Dial,” a mini-series in which I, your friendly neighborhood television addict, will break down some of the shows screaming for your attention. Previously we delved into fantasy/paranormal, horror/comics/general geekery, mysteries/procedurals, and sitcoms, so in this very special episode we’ll tackle cartoons, namely Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, and Regular Show. Be warned, where applicable these reviews contain moderate SPOILERS, nothing worse than what you’d get by checking out the show’s summary on its network site, but still, don’t come into this post expecting to keep your televisual virginity intact.

[I freely admit to seeing the Spongebob Squarepants movie in theaters. Twice.]

Welcome back to “Don’t Touch That Dial,” a mini-series in which I, your friendly neighborhood television addict, will break down some of the shows screaming for your attention. Previously we delved into fantasy/paranormal, horror/comics/general geekery, and mysteries/procedurals shows, so in this very special episode we’ll tackle sitcoms for nerds, namely The Big Bang Theory, Community, and Parks and Recreation. Be warned, where applicable these reviews contain moderate SPOILERS, nothing worse than what you’d get by checking out the show’s summary on its network site, but still, don’t come into this post expecting to keep your televisual virginity intact.Any shows you’d like me to cover? Drop me a line in the comments.

[When I grow up, I want to be Leslie Knope.]

Once again, The Walking Dead pulls off another solid episode in “Say the Word.” This is definitely a show that gets better with less dialogue. I don’t think the writers are ever going to figure out what subtlety means—every conversation is about as literal as it gets, what with everyone speaking exactly what’s on their mind without an ounce of metaphor between them—but when they stop acting like they’re taking a freshman philosophy class and get down to the zombie killing, the quality goes up.

[“Are you coming, or not?”]

Welcome back to “Don’t Touch That Dial,” a mini-series in which I, your friendly neighborhood television addict, will break down some of the shows screaming for your attention. Previously we delved into fantasy/paranormal and horror/comics/general geekery shows, so in this very special episode we’ll tackle mysteries and procedurals, namely Castle, Dexter, and Elementary.

Be warned, where applicable these reviews contain moderate SPOILERS, nothing worse than what you’d get by checking out the show’s summary on its network site, but still, don’t come into this post expecting to keep your televisual virginity intact. Any shows in particular you’d like me to cover? Drop me a line in the comments.

[We live it a world where two Sherlock Holmes TV shows happily co-exist. Truly, it is a miracle.]

Just when I thought this was going to be a dull episode....

And a good chunk of it was. Honestly, I can’t decide if I liked this episode or not. On one hand, the whole Woodbury nonsense is just last week’s leftovers reheated, while the prison stuff feels forced and undeserving of the sympathy it demands. On the other hand, Woodbury is moving some important pieces around the board to set up for November sweeps, while the prison scenes are tragic and devastating. After watching the ep twice, I still can’t decide on which side of the fence I sit.

[“Aw, man. Can’t we have just one good day?”]

Welcome back to “Don’t Touch That Dial,” a mini-series in which I, your friendly neighborhood television addict, will break down some of the shows screaming for your attention. Previously we delved into fantasy/paranormal shows, so in this very special episode we’ll tackle horror, comics, and general geekery, namely 666 Park Avenue, American Horror Story: Asylum, Arrow, Beauty and the Beast, and Revolution. Be warned, where applicable these reviews contain moderate SPOILERS, nothing worse than what you’d get by checking out the show’s summary on its network site, but still, don’t come into this post expecting to keep your televisual virginity intact. Any shows in particular you’d like me to cover? Drop me a line in the comments.

[I really want Arrow’s Oliver Queen to burst into “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the middle of an archery fight.]

After a bit of a shaky episode last week, The Walking Dead is back on steady feet with “Walk With Me.” We got our first look at the Governor, this season’s Big Bad, and man, was it a good one. It’s pretty obvious how this season’s main arc is going to play out, but oddly enough I’m not bothered by it. I’m actually looking forward to seeing the chaos and destruction that is going to be Rick and the Governor going head to head. I mean, it just has to happen (and not just because of the comics). If the writers can keep up the momentum—and if Morrissey gets to be in every ep—it should make for an explosive season.

[“So what’s your name?” “I never tell.” “Never say never.” “Never.”]

Welcome to “Don’t Touch That Dial,” a new mini-series in which I, your friendly neighborhood television addict, will break down some of the shows screaming for your attention. In this very special episode we’re tackling SFF, namely Grimm, Once Upon a Time, Supernatural, and The Vampire Diaries. Be warned, these reviews contain moderate SPOILERS for previous seasons, nothing worse than what you’d get by checking out the show’s summary on its network site, but still, don’t come into this post expecting to keep your televisual virginity intact. Any shows in particular you’d like me to cover? Drop me a line in the comments.

[“Watch Supernatural,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said.]

Oh, The Walking Dead, you continue to surprise me and then crush me with disappointment. Well, okay, so I’m being a little harsh. “Sick” wasn’t as awful as it could have been—as it would have been if it this were season 2—but it was a bit on the meh side. The action/horror scenes were as entertaining and gross as always, but I still don’t care about the fate of Rick and Lori’s shame of a marriage. At least the brooding was kept to a minimum, and it was a nice albeit depressing touch to have Maggie beg her father to just die already instead of praying he pulls through.

[“We’re all grateful for what you did.”]

When we last left Rick and the gang, a bunch of people we hardly knew or barely tolerated had just died, Lori decided her new role in the group was as the town hypocrite, Andrea was rescued by THE COOLEST PERSON EVER, and Rick discovered his inner assbutt. Rick also finally revealed Dr. Jenner’s deep, dark secret and it turned out to be super-important in the grand scheme of things but ultimately pointless for those fighting on the ground. Did I mention the arrival of THE COOLEST PERSON EVER? I have been looking forward to Michonne’s (not actually named in the ep, but she’s in the credits so I’m going with it) arrival since day one. And she did not disappoint. But the biggest change on the horizon is the prison. Those who’ve read the comics knows what goes down there, and it’s some pretty heavy stuff.

[“Only one way to keep him alive.”]

Welcome back, kiddies, to the pit of disappointment and bad puns that marks the start of a new season of mediocre television. And by mediocre, I do mean mediocre. Once again I have delved into the teeming pile of half-baked pilots and sigh-inducing season premieres on your behalf and have emerged scared and shaken but full of things to say and a platform on which to shout them. Because I have an opinion that won’t be kept silent! Prepare yourself.

[“Worst. Episode. Ever.”]

The boy who powers the emotional heart of Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie is young Victor Frankenstein (voiced by Charlie Tahan). Victor is a film nerd of the classic persuasion. The film opens with a creature feature shot by Victor with his beloved dog Sparky as the main attraction. Victor is more or less friendless, though not ostracized. It’s just that his classmates are a little on the creepy side and he’d rather hang out with boy’s best friend than chat up the weird girl (the always welcome Catherine O’Hara, who also voices Victor’s Mom and the Sue Sylvester-esque Gym Teacher) whose cat has scat-related premonitions. A tragic accident gets Sparky killed and the boy succumbs to utter despair.

[“We can make a death ray!”]

Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist is a chilling tale of adolescence and loneliness, of anxiety and celebrity, of misplaced idolatry, cultish devotion, and unmitigated obsession. The story opens as Lennart, an abusive ass-butt of a husband and moderately successful but largely forgotten folk musician, stumbles upon a man ditching a half-dead baby in the woods. He revives the girl and spirits her back to his home, and he and his cowed and depressed wife Laila decide to keep the disconcerting creature instead of turning her over to the authorities. They raise the creepy kid in their cellar, plying her with baby food, classical music, and terrifying lies that would make even the Grimm brothers shake in their boots. A series of unfortunate events deposits Little One with Lennart and Laila’s adult son, Jerry, a failure in every sense of the word. Jerry introduces his adopted sister, now dubbed Theres, to the world outside the cellar, a world full of Big People who want to eat her up.

A few hours away lives another troubled and odd little girl, this one named Teresa. She frets over existentialism and philosophy in a way Theres does not. Theres sees exactly what’s there and never what people want her to see; Teresa never sees what’s in front of her face and drives herself crazy town banana pants trying to make herself fit into pre-defined molds. When Theres turns up on the Swedish singing competition reality show Idol, Teresa falls into a deep infatuation that binds her inextricably to Theres. And that’s when things get really weird.

[Lennart raised and lowered the bundle. “I found a child. A baby. In the forest.”]

Glen Duncan is a hard man to pin down. His work never quite fits any one given genre or literary style. Ostensibly, Talulla Rising is fantasy shellacked with horror, but it really has more in common with Chuck Palahniuk, Bret Easton Ellis, and Michel Houellebecq than An American Werewolf in Paris or Charlaine Harris.

Let me try explaining it this way. I normally write while listening to thematically appropriate music. Of my last three Tor.com reviews, A Bug’s Life was set to the Pete’s Dragon soundtrack, late-90s Radiohead inspired The Hammer and the Blade, and The Coldest War was funded entirely by Die Roten Punkte (because German, get it? GET IT?). For Talulla Rising, it was wall to wall The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails.

[“She discovered that not only could she kill and eat people once a month, but she could kill and eat people once a month and love it.”]

This is certainly one of the more difficult reviews I’ve had to write. My first draft was just “DUDE. AWESOME.” repeated a thousand times, but apparently that doesn’t cut it as a functional review. I’ve read this book a few times now and besides the one you’re about to read, the only other summary I could come up with was full of expletives and GIFs. So let me explain to you why The Coldest War is utterly “DUDE. AWESOME.”

[“The Eidolon spoke. Its voice was the thunder of creation and the silence of a lifeless universe.”]

Some of you might know Paul S. Kemp from his Star Wars expanded universe fiction. Some of you might even know him from his Chronicles of Erevis Cale. I didn’t know him at all until an ARC of his latest novel showed up at my door. And now I feel like I just made a new friend.

The Hammer and the Blade is the first of a series starring the dashingly clever heroes Egil and Nix, and Kemp certainly has started off with a bang. This is good old-fashioned high-frolicking fantasy adventure. He’s created a curious and interesting world that I can’t wait to explore, and populated it with a vast cast of characters who practically burst off the page and start chatting you up. With his wise-cracking, swashbuckling protagonists, Kemp hits all the genre high notes and just a touch of the low ones.

[“Lives are made of moments, Nix. You know that.”]

There are two kinds of Pixar films. The first is the type we identify the most with Pixar, so much so that we often look back on their lesser works with rose-colored glasses. These films — Up, Monsters, Inc., and WALL-E as the highlights — represent what Pixar does best: picking a good story and pairing it with a visual style and tone that match perfectly. How many other studios could make you root for a dinky little trashbot or cry over a silent title credit sequence?

The second kind, however, is the one that drowns in its own hubris. Cars (and its dreaded squeakquel that I’m convinced John Lasseter was forced to make at gunpoint), Toy Story 2, and A Bug’s Life are the most egregious examples. It’s like the developers got so lost in the technical aspect of producing a visually stimulating world that they forgot the characters inhabiting it needed to be interesting enough to populate an immersive story.

[“You might not feel like you can do much now, but that’s just because, well, you’re not a tree yet. You just have to give yourself some time. You’re still a seed.”]

Brian Francis Slattery’s latest novel Lost Everything, out today, is a deeply dark and disconcertingly dire peek into a future where the end of the apocalypse never comes. Waves of horror and tragedy ebb and flow with the whims of a vengeful planet while the people left scrambling on her surface wage a pointless and inexplicably persistent war. To say that the book is bleak is to miss the point entirely, but rest assured this is not a tale of happy endings.

[“Did you leave us behind, then, or take us with you? Or were we on the other side when you got there, lost and waiting?”]