I was intrigued by the first third of The Magicians, hated the second third, and the final third was weird and I’m not sure it was enough to redeem the book from the middle part. The first part is dark Harry Potter, the second is existential and dirty in a creepy-bad way, and the last is Narnia gone to hell. Overall, The Magicians reminded me of The Secret History (which I liked parts of but overall didn’t like for many of the same reasons I […]
Not everything can be “Attachments”
This is going to be one of those reviews where even giving it four stars feels like I may as well be panning it, because I didn’t instantly want to elope forever with Carry On unlike, it seems, freaking everyone else. And because everyone has already expounded at length as to why they love it, I can’t really add anything new to that end. So here we are — a four-star review full of gripes. Mea culpa. But really, this book was really good! And […]
Mugglicious Definition Make Them Wizards Crazy
In a semi-intentional act of cultural heresy*, I have largely avoided the Harry Potter craze. I have never read any of the books, visited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, taken online quizzes to see which house I would be in, or watched all of the movies. I am, by all accounts, a muggle. But, since I was able to pick up the book for free, I decided it was time to see what all the buzz was about. I am happy to report that […]
Even Her Bicycle Was Evil
The Mammoth Book of Sorcerer’s Tales edited by Mike Ashley (2004) – I read this anthology immediately after I read Isaac Asimov’s Wizards compiled in 1983, so I thought there would be more differences as times have changed. There were some new ideas and new technology; however, not much had changed. I was surprised to see how few women writers were included after twenty years. The percentage in 1983 – 14%. 2004? 15%. As Geena Davis says about women in films, at this rate women […]
Gandalf’s Cousins From Way Out of Town
Isaac Asimov’s Magical World of Fantasy – Wizards, edited by Isaac Asimov (1983) – Legend has it that Mr. Asimov never had an agent so he was forever publishing anthologies with his name on them that he’d never seen or had sold to two different publishers. For this anthology, I really didn’t care if he had a hand in collecting them or not because they’re so good. As usual with anthologies, I’ll discuss each story, but I may run out of superlatives fast. Mazirian the […]
“We broke the world to make it whole…”
In a possibly controversial opinion, the final novel of the Earthsea cycle just might be my favorite. To get here, we’ve had two great adventures, an exploration of a foreign ritualistic spirituality, and a pointed take on the value of women in a world of male-dominated power, both political and magical. In this last book, all of those elements come together, and the story looks back to the origins of magic, just as it looks forward and asks where the people of Earthsea truly stand in the […]
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