I got on the library queue for this book because I knew that it contains “The Monarch of the Glen,” which is the novella follow-up to American Gods. I am committed to my American Gods love, and wanted to complete my library of knowledge of all things Shadow. But this book, oh, this wonderful book. It’s a collection of some of the most beautiful poetry and short stories, in perfect Gaiman-ian language, set in dark landscapes that are undeniably his. I could pick these works […]
14 year old me would’ve enjoyed this. Current me? Well….not so much.
Written in 1969, The Andromeda Strain put Michael Crichton on the literary map. Not his first novel, this is his first attempt at trying to incorporate science into the thriller genre, and it received a great deal of acclaim upon publication, and has stood the test of time as one of his better known books. And I found it largely uninteresting and dry. I’m not sure when my tastes changed, but there was a period in middle school when I devoured Michael Crichton, Dean Koontz, […]
The only rival to the cold detachment of science is the cold detachment of Arthur C. Clarke
Years ago, while still in college, my girlfriend and I went on a year-long Star Trek binge by renting all of The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, and Voyager from Netflix. One night, after watching a few episodes, I went outside to put the disc (this was before Netflix was predominantly a streaming service) in the mailbox, and noticed the night sky emblazoned by a full moon. I stood beneath the pristine glow of that autumnal moon and pondered our place in the universe. I […]
Point Counterpoint, or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Enjoy the Show
Like the two disconnected eyes of some monstrous oracle, these books look out of their respective time periods, casting forward to try and envision a future that could arise from contemporaneous events. One sings of nationalistic pride in service to the state, while the other firmly declares that war is a pointless and exploitative endeavor whose only benefit is the fostering of an unwieldy bureaucracy feeding on the health of its people. These books are diametrically opposed to one another, but each also serves as […]
Aliens?
I will admit I had serious reservations about this book going in. And even into the first three chapters, the only thing that kept going through my head was: But for the most part, this book blew my socks off in the best possible way, and I’m really glad I didn’t DNF it after those first few chapters. “Gods without Men” has a very “Station 11” feel to its structure, and if you liked “Station 11”, I would highly suggest this book. Centered around a […]
Beneath the gorgeous exterior, there’s a vacant husk of humanity.
So, I quite enjoyed the first book in Moss’ Fear Saga, Fear the Sky. I thought it was a fairly unique take on the alien invasion story, and was built around the foreboding notion that we would be able to watch the encroachment of our doom for a solid 10 years leading up to the armada’s arrival. The fact that it was structured like an espionage/spy thriller sold me on the series, despite qualms over relatively bland, uninteresting characters. Fear the Survivors continues in much […]