Cannonball! Reading the Harry Potter series this time felt different than past times. I’m several years older than I was last time I read them, and this time I was reading them not just for fun, but to review for CBR (it makes a difference, I’ve found. . .). It’s also a time in American history when reading about the fight against the Death Eaters and their focus on purebloods is a little more uncomfortable than it has been in the past (I am not […]
How flattering, I said, meaning the opposite
Hey you. You. I’m talking to you. A human living in the world in 2017 who takes things like The Handmaid’s Tale incredibly personally. A human living in the world in 2017 who is horrified by what has been happening for centuries in a very real, cold-blooded, and methodical way to the Native American community. A human living in the world in 2017 who cannot believe that people don’t believe in science and climate change. A human living in the world in 2017 who still finds […]
Class-war evil supernatural black fungus
I raced through Rivers of London: Black Mould when I brought it home from the library (pro tip: if a book is brand new and it’s not on the shelves but it’s definitely in the catalog, ask your librarian to check the back room! maybe it hasn’t even been shelved yet!), but honestly it didn’t make much more of an impact on me other than to keep moving the Rivers of London universe forward for me. Not that that isn’t of value, because of course […]
Plutonium may give you grief for thousands of years, but arsenic is forever.
It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people. I cannot emphasize enough how much of a treat Good Omens is. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett will also tell you how much of a treat it is. They will tell you in their introduction and their afterward how much they wrote it for the love of it […]
A good sort of series ender.
I wish I would have written this review right after I finished the book. (I should get that printed on a t-shirt.) I finished it a couple of months ago now, and as always seems to happen to me when I do this, I put off writing the review in the (vain) hopes that time will make me smarter (or something?) and words will magically appear in the review space. This never happens. Instead, I am left trying to remember what happened in the book and […]
As If Acne and Puberty Weren’t Enough – Confessions of a Teenage Dragon
The Guardian of Gildain, Book 1: The Snow Dragon by M. L. Miller (2016) – Too often, adult writers who deal with YA (Young Adult) for teenagers forget what being a teenager was really like. During that time, everything is life or death drama from the length of your pants to the botched homework assignment. Match that with raging hormones and an undeveloped frontal lobe, it’s no wonder we adults filter the trauma of being a teenager. Ms. Miller somehow has kept that teen angst […]