This graphic novel does a good job of dealing with a fundamental question I always have in nearly every fantasy novel, movie, cartoon, video game, or anything else. It deals with it, but doesn’t fix it, but still it’s something. It’s a common issue with the genre for me and something I am not sure I will ever figure out so long as I persist in reading (etc) fantasy. That fundamental issue is: how does the world function? What I often understand about fantasy worlds […]
Well I guess I read the Reckoners series
So this has almost all the marks of a Brandon Sanderson series. The action is very well-written, the characters are overly goofy, the dialogue is overly goofy, but he doesn’t use the word “maladroitly” so who knows, maybe it was ghostwritten. I enjoyed it over all. Don’t my ribbings of Sanderson to heart. I like his books, but they’re so silly in their own ways. Steelheart The premise of the series is that a cataclysmic event happened on Earth about a decade or so from […]
Hi. I’m Badkittyuno, and I’ve fallen behind again…
Hi. Sorry. I really thought I was like 10 reviews behind and it turned out to actually be 19. So then I started up this list of reviews…and didn’t post it…and now I’m 26 behind. I would blame my kids/divorce/life, but really — I’d much rather read than write! Also, I’ve been working from home a lot and doing laundry instead of writing reviews (which is what I do when I get bored at the office), so that’s not helping. Anyway, here’s 26 brief reviews […]
Don’t Promote Your Troubles Beyond Your Rank
Continuing the adventures of Penric, the demon hosting priest of Lois McMaster Bujold’s World of the Five Gods, we have two more novellas: Penric’s Mission and Mira’s Last Dance. These are two very closely related stories, so much so that if felt more like reading on novel then reading two novellas. I enjoy these little stories quite a bit, so realizing that I had two unread stories to read was a treat. In Penric’s Mission, Penric is sent to spy on some duke from some […]
Glass Slippers or Grass Slippers?
This was an interesting take on the world of Grimm’s fairytales with emphasis on the idea of grim. A young woman wakes up in a castle with no knowledge of her past or even her own name. The only thing that seems familiar is a silver thimble in the pocket of her dress. She is given the name “seamstress” and made to work with a group of other women, most of them old and frail, stitching intricate beading and lace onto beautiful dresses. From the […]
He’s Not A Hero, But He’s the Best Man for the Job
I would totally read Terry Pratchett’s ink blotter or scribbled napkin, so my opinion on anything Pratchett is probably a little biased. However, “Going Postal” is my all-time favorite Discworld novel, and its one of his best. This is my third read of this book, and since I’m using it for a guest lecture on building an ‘invented’ world, I really paid attention to how Pratchett made the story. It’s just short of brilliant, and I wish I could have seen this man storyboard because […]