And Dream of Evil by Tedd Thomey
This book was a ton of fun. I have a 1954 copy of Tedd Thomey’s And Dream of Evil, a pulp fiction masher with a lurid cover and that old book smell. This is a true tough guy romp with pert breasted dames and lots of fistfights and shoot outs. Mysteries on top of mysteries unfold at a brisk pace. The main character John Rennick–a retired Marine from World War II who now works on oil rigs–wakes up after a beating on a hotel roof […]
Space Chasers V01 by Leland Melvin, Joe Caramagna, and Alison Acton
The graphic novel Space Chasers V01 by Leland Melvin, Joe Caramagna, and Alison Acton (illustrator) is probably one of the most unbelievable books I have recently read. Oh sure, ages strong 8 and 9 to aged 13 readers are going to LOVE it, because it is about kids and the cool thing they get to do: save the world by screwing up and going to space! Yeah I would have loved this too at that age. I mean, we are kids! I mean we’re awesome! […]
The Goblin Emperor (The Chronicles of Osreth #1) by Katherine Addison
It was the first time in his life Maia had been surrounded by people who were like him instead of only snow-white elves with their pale eyes, and he missed several names in the effort not to faint or hyperventilate or burst into tears. ― Katherine Addison, The Goblin Emperor The memories of a thousand separate cruelties mocked him, but no one save Maia himself had ever counted those as wrongs, and it was unjust to have them declared wrongs now, merely because he could. […]
Molka by Monika Kim
Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review. Trigger warning: The author gives a very good trigger warning at the start of Molka and it includes voyeurism, misogyny, violence, murder, body horror, stalking, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and references to suicide. Wow. This was ridiculously good and very upsetting throughout. You get frustrated with the fact this is based on true cases that have happened in South Korea, and Kim references “The Burning Sun” scandal that […]
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review. Honestly this was really well done, but the biggest issue I had was how slow parts were before things moved faster and we had all of the threads that were confusing at first tied up. I also think the ending with a character and someone we were introduced to via Elsie, otherwise known as Mad Mabel was just a bit much for me. But I did love the […]
The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross
I’m still making my way through the Laundry Files books, in hope that I’ll be reviewing the final one before the year is out. In my review of the Atrocity Archives I did mention that while the premise was good, the book was quite episodic and disjointed. To expand on that a little: re-reading it, it seems clear that the author was exploring two distinct ideas — mixing the public sector with eldritch horrors, and mixing espionage with eldritch horrors. Some of the later books […]
