eGrigori
Book Review: Creature of the Night
Well. This is a quick read, at least. This is like reviewing two books. Book one had some good commentary on the absurd obsession with 'reality' TV, especially the reductive contest type. Book two forgot all that, and instead went for stupid levels of absurdity,...
Book Review: Down To Oath
There is an art to writing fiction. The characters need to be likable, accessible, hopefully relatable. The plot needs to flow, and avoid the pitfalls and traps of running your character into dead ends, jumping around, and so on. Sometimes, all that happens, and you...
Ready Player One
Yes, this is a bit late in the game, and no the movie had nothing to do with this. But I will talk about the trailers after the book. Spoilers below the fold. Ready Player One is...well, it is a lot of things. It's good. Let's lead with that. It's good. The basic...
Disposal
This is the third book in the Pop Traveler series by Tara Tyler. Since I had missed the first two, I will cover them a bit first. In book one, Pop Travel, we meet J L Cooper, widower PI and general dropout from life. He is hired to find out what happened to a man's...
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Spoilers under the fold. So, Friday I saw Star Wars 9, Episode 8: The Last Jedi. It was...really uneven. Some parts were among the best things I have seen from the franchise (one sequence was among the best I have seen on screen period). But then there were the other...
Dishonor Thy Father
Wow. This was a lot of fun to read, and then...well, wow can go both ways. This is a well crafted murder mystery, with a lot of background, and a lot of twists. And well-done ones, not the 'oh, look, a twist' kind we see so often. This book covers some touchy topics...
Heir Ascendant
Matthew Cox giveth, and he taketh away. This was an odd sensation, as I read Silver Light and Heir Ascendant back to back, and have the opposite reaction to each. Sorry, but this was just too much to take. Especially once I read the afterward. So, Heir Ascendant is...
Silver Light
This was really appreciated. A solid, new, take on classic mythologies without the all-too-frequent baggage of overly forced subplots. Silver Light by Matthew Cox is just about perfect. And the one imperfection is forgivable, and probably just in the eye of the...
Season of the Wind
This is the second book in the Clockwork Gods chronicles. I read it back to back with the first (Hour of Mischief), and have to say, these are a decent pair of stories. In an nutshell, the setting is a steampunk / godpunk world where there are 12 Clockwork Gods - not...
The Switch
This was just a fascinating read. It is rare to find a book where the characters, their interactions, responses, and motivations are all so simply and rightly done. There really wasn't a point where this didn't seem to work, and no point where I was just over it. This...