I read some of Brin's Uplift books a while back when I was looking into new authors, and did not find them entirely to my taste. I can take them or leave them.
As for the essay, my big reaction is 'since when is the movie a somewhat faithful adaptation of Starship Troopers?' Of course, based on an artbook or something of the movie, I think the adaptation of 'Howl's Moving Castle' is probably a butchery.
I think I may have first read Howl's Moving Castle after Castle in the Air, which might explain things, as Air, IIRC, relies on things in Howl that were apparently scrapped in the adaptation. Not that the bit where Howl visits his family would have played well to the Japanese market.
Anyway, I've greatly enjoyed much of the works of Diana Wynne Jones, Joan Aiken, Rosemary Sutecliff, E.W. Hildick, Susan Cooper, and Helen Cresswell's Bagthorpe books.
As for the essay, my big reaction is 'since when is the movie a somewhat faithful adaptation of Starship Troopers?' Of course, based on an artbook or something of the movie, I think the adaptation of 'Howl's Moving Castle' is probably a butchery.
I think I may have first read Howl's Moving Castle after Castle in the Air, which might explain things, as Air, IIRC, relies on things in Howl that were apparently scrapped in the adaptation. Not that the bit where Howl visits his family would have played well to the Japanese market.
Anyway, I've greatly enjoyed much of the works of Diana Wynne Jones, Joan Aiken, Rosemary Sutecliff, E.W. Hildick, Susan Cooper, and Helen Cresswell's Bagthorpe books.