I can’t say I was blown away by this book. Mandel attempted to make this book all things to all people. It is a dystopic mystery with a stab at social commentary and lots of personal drama all rolled into one, and I think it ultimately fails on a number of levels, but even so, there’s apparently enough interesting material, good intentions, and decent writing to have made it a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award. Respected American actor Arthur Leander is in the midst […]
Blood, Blood, Everywhere, Nor Any Drop To…
Ody-C #4 is gross. Red and purple and brown carnage spills across its pages. It may be strange to call such gore beautiful, but there are many strangely beautiful things about this comic. As graphic as it is, particularly in the first few pages, it doesn’t feel like it’s played for shock value. I mean, the gore portrayed is about as disgusting as I imagine the lair of a carnivorous cyclops would be. Not that it’s something I imagine often. In this installment we return […]
“Ninjas are silly. They are the flower fairies of gong fu and karate.”
Writing 52+ reviews is hard. Writing 52+ reviews is harder when I’m supposed to be writing my dissertation, and not reviews. Oops! Well, anyway, here we are. The Gone-Away World is a very strange book. It’s also a very good book, but it’s a good book that took me awhile to get into and appreciate. Harkaway’s prose is witty and often nonsensical, filled with non-sequiturs and descriptions that seem to mean absolutely nothing, and yet somehow conjure a well-staged — if surrealistic — scene, and […]
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Berkley Showcase – New Writings in Science Fiction and Fantasy (1980) – What do you do with an anthology where you liked some of the stories and didn’t care for the others? I guess I’ll just go down the table of contents and give you my opinion of each one. This anthology had no specific theme and contains both fantasy and science fiction stories. Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted with Defeat by Glen Cook – This may be the entire key to the unevenness of […]
Not Even a Bugzooka Could Stop These Guys
Earthrise by William C. Dietz (2002) – After a couple chapters into the book, I said, “I’ve read this before,” but because it’s a William C. Dietz space opera and the characters are so gripping, I had to read it again. I read a couple more pages before realizing I’d read the first book, Deathday, but not this one. The brave heroes from that book went on to kick some snooty alien butt. Obviously, the first book wasn’t so incredible that I raced right out […]
It’s the end of the world as we know it…
Ender’s Game arrived in my inbox from JB with this note: “Read this now…better than whatever you are currently reading.” Since I was reading Every Day, I can’t agree with that statement, but I can say that once I finished Every Day, I blew through Ender’s Game in just a couple of days and loved it. Ender’s Game is the first book in what eventually became a quintet about Andrew “Ender” Wiggins, the youngest of three brilliant children, who is chosen for Battle School, an […]
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