Decades before The Wire‘s second season premiere made viewers yell, “Who are these people? Why are we at the port? Where is McNulty?” Ursula K. Le Guin begins her sequel to A Wizard of Earthsea by introducing us to Tenar of Atuan. Who? Where? It’s a powerful sense of dislocation. We’re in the Kargad Lands, the realm of pale barbarians referenced, but not explored, in Wizard. As the reincarnated First Priestess of the Tombs of Atuan, Tenar is taken from her family at the age […]
In which a dog does most of the legwork
“There is very little peace for a man with a body buried in his backyard.” A year after killing a man and burying him in his backyard, Jason Getty is just starting to come to terms with his actions and to get a handle on the guilt. As he begins to think that the body in the backyard will just be his dark secret, a landscaping crew unexpectedly uncovers two other graves in the front yard to Jason’s surprise. As the police swoop in to […]
Geronimo Stilton’s 4th Adventure That’s Not Really His 4th Adventure
Geronimo Stilton is a mouse who is an author, but his cousin Trap is a junk salesman, and his sister Thea helps him work at the Rodent’s Gazette, a newspaper for mice. In this book, it is his fourth adventure in the Kingdom of Fantasy. The last dragon egg is stolen and they are only created every 1,000 years. The whole dragon race is in danger. Geronimo Stilton has to go deep into the darkest side of the Kingdom of Fantasy to get it back […]
Dear Authors of the World: ‘Dangerous’ doesn’t have to mean ‘Femme Fatale Sex Stripper.’ There are other options.
This was pretty good for an anthology, but I really prefer longer stories, as it really takes a talented author to make me care for characters in such a short period of time, or to have a plot immediately interesting enough to trump my interest in the characters. Short stories also tend more towards the self-important and annoying. Anyway, this was worth it just for the Martin and Sanderson stories alone, and there were several others I really enjoyed as well including ones from Robin […]
Three people tell a story. Who is telling the truth?
David has lost his memory. A news paper notice appears, asking people whether they know him and encouraging friends and acquaintances to write to him, to help him restore his memories. In this book, we get to read the letters of three of the people who write to him, as well as read about their current lives. As we read their stories and letters to David, more of his identity is revealed, but much more so, the identity of the letter writers. The letters focus […]
Our heroine continues to show extremely questionable taste in menfolk
This is book two in The Arcana Chronicles and as such not the best place to start. This review will contain spoilers for book one in the series, Poison Princess, which is also where you want to begin, if you’re interested in the series. Although if you read my review of that book, why would you actually want to read the books at all? Still, Kiala over on Vaginal Fantasy Hangout seems to love them, so what do I know? At the end of Poison Princess, Evangeline, or Evie, or the […]