Bone houses are not, as you might guess, architecture constructed from bone. I would like to see a book written about that, but I’m glad Emily Lloyd-Jones didn’t write it, because she came up with an even more interesting and creepy idea. In her world, bone houses are the living dead, “houses” in which the …
e.e. cummings exhorted his readers to “dive for dreams or a slogan may topple you,” and I have tried to keep that warning in mind since I read it long ago. But today I have failed. A slogan has brought me down. “Lesbian necromancers in space” is that slogan. I have toppled. I have fallen …
I’m guessing that the pitch for Catfish Lullaby, by A. C. Wise, was: imagine True Detective season one from the perspective of women and queer people of color. That’s certainly an intriguing premise as well as a welcome one, and I already know Wise is an exceptionally good writer from her short stories. Her work …
The second installment of the Market of Monsters trilogy is finally here, and it was so worth the wait. This is another fast-paced, blood-drenched installment that lives up to the promise of the first book in all categories. The characters continue their development in new and interesting directions, the action remains consistent and fairly constant, …
September 3-10 is the Week of Doom, the days when all the presses and houses put on their very finest, select their champions, and then show up to watch a bookish battle royale. Let the gothic fantasies scrap! Let the newbies do battle with the established authors! Let all the murderbabe characters duke it out! …
What a ride it’s been! We went from Murder Hogwarts to Magic Spartacus to this, a dark, Tolkienian triumph I’m going to dub Return of the Goth. Surprised? Me too. But we shouldn’t be. Jay Kristoff may write with some pop turns of phrase (and filthy cussing), but his ambitions have always been Epic with …
There are always trends in publishing, but a recent one was particularly odd: the use of “nine” in titles. Was everyone excited about 2019 for some reason? Is there some kind of numerology pact among authors? Are the nine muses subtly signaling for attention? I don’t know. But hey, here’s a list to keep track …
Oh, Dustin. You have confidence, but your charisma-based checks don’t always succeed. Also, nobody believes you have a girlfriend from summer camp. But that’s ok, boo! You just keep singing. Riddle-Master Trilogy (Patricia A. McKillip) – If you wanted to build a character and a story out of the riddle-battle scene from The Hobbit (which …
Imagine that The Martian and Lovecraft had a baby that was raised by the Alien franchise and you probably have a good approximation of Walking to Aldebaran, a novella by the prolific Adrian Tchaikovsky. It features our snark-savvy hero Gary Rendell as he gets separated from the rest of his crew and tries to find …
Poor Will Byers. While everyone else was having teenage drama (whether or not they were teenagers), all he wanted to do was play D&D. I sympathize, Will! In his honor, here are books to help you develop your cleric, and maybe help fight a Mind Flayer or two. City of Stairs (Robert Jackson Bennett) – …