Oh, my! I wish I were skilled enough to review this in Seussian meter. It really does get everything so right. I bought this as a bit of fun, as I’m a long-time Lovecraft fan, and enjoyed Dr Seuss’ books as a child, and then again reading them to my (now 19-year-old) daughter when she was little. I’ve also played more than my fair share of Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game in my time. Ivankovic manages to richly capture the look and feel of […]
Don’t Let the Cover Fool You
Phantaxis, James Edward O’Brien, editor (2016) These short stories of fantasy and science fiction reach across a broad and enjoyable spectrum. From a police detective in Victorian England looking for a supernatural murderer for to a bodiless head trying to survive in the far future, there’s something in here for everyone. Frostfire – In Victorian England, a gifted police detective enlists the aid of a young washerwoman witch to stop a chain of supernatural murders. Lengthy but strangely contemporary. Countdown to Extinction – Three scientists […]
Witches and Hackers and Robots. Oh My!
Dark Magic – Witches, Hackers, & Robots – A Short Story Anthology edited by Emma Nelson and Hannah Smith, 2016 This anthology truly gives you your money’s worth. At over 26 stories, it provides exactly what it promises – stories about Witches, Hackers, and Robots. The strange juxtaposition of these categories is intriguing and delightful to read. I won’t review every story but I will say a few words about most of them. When I originally wrote the individual summaries and reviews, I found myself […]
What a weird, dark little book.
So maybe you’ve heard this old story about how to boil a frog. You dump a frog in boiling water, he’s going to jump right out. You put cool water in the pot with lil froggie and slowly heat it up while he’s inside? Maybe he won’t sit there and boil to death. He’ll jump out eventually if things get too hot. But he’s gonna stay in there a good long while if you play your cards right. It’s a useful little anecdote; can be […]
Then we shall plumb the very heart of this mountain and eat it.
In “Library of Souls,” the final book in the “Peculiar Children” series, I was finally, to my great joy, surprised. The characters continued to be predictable to me, but the plot took some really exciting twists and turns down some very imaginative paths that I couldn’t have seen coming, but were well-laid-down-for in the first two books. This was a satisfying and thrilling end to a series that I really enjoyed reading, even if it did also lay me low with a whole bunch of […]
Do you ever find yourself climbing into an open grave during a bombing raid and just wish you’d stayed in bed?
“Hollow City” is the second book in the “Peculiar Children” series, picking up immediately where the first book left off without much catch-up exposition. As I continued reading the series, my feelings got darker and more desperate, in line with the experience of the characters. There is very little hope or joy in Jacob Portman’s journey. He is a young man who answers the call, and then just plugs away at all the minutiae of being a hero. It’s not that it’s a chore to […]
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