Category Archives: Fantasy

Injection, Vols. 1 & 2

March 14, 2017 by Drew

The Short Version: What exactly did they do, those five brilliant minds given reign to imagine the future and how they could make it arrive more swiftly? What, exactly, is causing things like ghosts and transhuman zombies and leafy spirits of Olde England to appear in our world? And can any of it be stopped? The Review: I’m a wide-ranging fan of Warren Ellis’s particular take on the specifically-very-English blend of technology, history, and magic (however you define it). Even […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction, Graphic Novel, Sci-Fi • Tags: AI, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Comic Books, Declan Shalvey, Fantasy, Image Comics, Injection, Jordie Bellaire, Magic, review, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Speculative Fiction, Technology, Warren Ellis

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Roundup: February 2017

March 1, 2017 by Drew

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch Rating: 3 out of 5 The Short Version: Locke Lamora is a young thief at the head of a band of merry misfits known as the Gentlemen Bastards. Alternating between tales of his rise to the head of the Bastards and an ongoing story in Camorr that starts as a simple job but quickly expands to be far more deadly, it’s time to meet Locke Lamora… The Review: I had the highest of hopes for this […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction, Graphic Novel, Horror, Literature, Mystery, Spy • Tags: All Hail God Mammon, All the Old Knives, CIA, Comic Books, Douglas Preston, Elizabeth Strout, Fantasy, Fiction, Gentlemen Bastards, Horror, Jonathan Hickman, Lincoln Child, Literature, My Name is Lucy Barton, myths, Neil Gaiman, norse mythology, Olen Steinhauer, Pendergast, Preston & Child, Review Roundup, Roundup, Scott Lynch, Spy, Storytelling, The Black Monday Murders, The Lies of Locke Lamora, The Obsidian Chamber, The Tournament of Books 2017, Thriller, Tomm Coker

Roundup: January 2017

January 31, 2017 by Drew

Neuromancer by William Gibson Rating: 3 out of 5 The Short Version: A former hacker, crippled by a job gone wrong, is given a second chance at what he does best by a mysterious benefactor. Soon, he’s teamed up with an programmed version of his former mentor and a badass samurai girl to launch a major hack – but what is the real target of this operation? The Review: Neuromancer is one of those books that even non-speculative-fiction-reading folks have heard […]

Categories: Essays, Fantasy, Fiction, History, Literature, Mystery, Non-Fiction, Sci-Fi, Short Stories

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Roundup, December 2016

December 23, 2016 by Drew

Samedi the Deafness by Jesse Ball 4.5 out of 5 The Short Version: When James Sim comes upon a stabbed man, his life is upended. Who (or what) is Samedi? Why are people following him? What is the horrible plan that will happen on the seventh day? Can his own mind be trusted? The Review: Ball’s earliest novel is in some ways his most categorizable. It reads like a thriller in the mold of John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps or Hitchcock’s mistaken-man […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction, Literature, Mystery, Sci-Fi • Tags: Cibola Burn, Classics, Consider Phlebas, Culture, Fiction, Futurism, Iain M. Banks, James S. A. Corey, Jesse Ball, L. Frank Baum, Literature, Mystery, Normal, Samedi the Deafness, Santa Claus, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Science Future, The Culture, The Expanse, Warren Ellis

Railsea

December 16, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: Sham ap Sooyap is apprenticed to a doctor on a moletrain – one of the rail-going vessels that hunts the giant moldywarps that burrow beneath the surface of the railsea. But after Sham discovers a photo of a single track with nothing else around it, a race for something far larger than a single giant beast begins: a race to the end of the world. The Review: As this one started, I wondered if I was going […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction • Tags: Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, China Miéville, Fantasy, Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, Railsea, review, Reviews, Trains

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Six of Crows / Crooked Kingdom

December 12, 2016 by Drew

SIX OF CROWS Rating: 5 out of 5 The Short Version: After a weaponized form of magic enhancement is discovered, a young rogue puts together a team to pull off a daring heist – from the most impenetrable fortress on the planet. This, assuming they don’t kill each other first… The Review: Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha trilogy passed me by, to some extent. I knew it was out there and was intrigued by the concept, but it’d gotten some rough marks from friends […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction • Tags: Adventure, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Crooked Kingdom, Fantasy, Fiction, Grisha, Leigh Bardugo, Literature, review, Reviews, Six of Crows, Thriller, Young Adult

Thunderbird (Miriam Black #4)

December 5, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: Miriam Black wants out. She wants out of her curse and to have a live that might, in some circles, be considered “normal” – or at least something more normal than the one she’s living. But when the woman who might be able to help her turns out to be working with domestic terrorists, shit takes a dark turn even for Miriam – and Fate, it seems, has plans for her whether she likes it or not. The […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction • Tags: Advance Review, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Chuck Wendig, Fantasy, Fiction, Miriam Black, review, Saga Press, Thriller, Thunderbird

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Roundup, November 2016

November 30, 2016 by Drew

The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers Rating: 4 out of 5 The Short Version: Optimus Yarnspinner, the legendary author, recounts to us his earliest adventure – a visit to Bookholm, a city of books and book-related people. But what begins simply as a quest to find an author ends up putting Optimus on the run through the catacombs of the city, fearing for his very life! WIll he survive? Will he ever write anything? Of course – the fun is […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction, Literature • Tags: Belgium, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Chris Holm, Dirty Snow, Fantasy, Fiction, George Simenon, Historical Fiction, Illustrated, Literature, Michael Hendricks, Nihilism, Reading, review, Short Stories, The City of Dreaming Books, Thriller, Walter Moers, World War II, Zamonia

Head Lopper and The Island, or A Plague of Beasts

November 22, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: The famed hero Head Lopper (“Norgal is fine”) arrives on the island of XXXX, with the head of Agatha the Blue Witch in tow. After vanquishing a terrible sea serpent in the harbor, he is tasked to slay the sorcerer who has cast such a pall on this land – but the sorcerer has his own plan for Norgal… The Review: I found this one by accident, as often the best discoveries occur. I’ve been reading more […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction, Graphic Novel • Tags: A Plague of Beasts, Adventure, Agatha the Blue Witch, Andrew Maclean, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Comic Books, Comics, Fantasy, Fiction, Graphic Novels, Head Lopper, Head Lopper & the Island, Mike Spicer, Monsters, Norgal, Reviews, Vikings

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Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

Category Archives: Fantasy

Injection, Vols. 1 & 2

Roundup: February 2017

Roundup: January 2017

Roundup, December 2016

Railsea

Six of Crows / Crooked Kingdom

Thunderbird (Miriam Black #4)

Roundup, November 2016

Head Lopper and The Island, or A Plague of Beasts