A deity of Destruction, terrible dreams, and a couple of concerts—it’s episode four of Season Crystal! Rei, our favorite resident psychic, has been having apocalypse-y dreams and thinks they shouldn’t collect the talismans, but Haruka’s voice keeps saying to do so. No one is sure what’s going on, especially not Usagi and Mamoru. Mamoru has …

We begin with a confrontation in which the Sailor Guardians ask reasonable questions, make reasonable deductions, and are met by some violent violin skills. It’s Sailor Moon Crystal! In keeping with the tradition of Michiru and Haruka being aloof and mysterious, all questions—who are you, what are you doing here, are you going to hurt …

Lin wakes up in a pile of freshly murdered bodies, with a madman screeching overhead and an army on the way and magic all around and gems—which are different from Jewels—and magic threatening everyone sanity and oh my! There’s nothing wrong with dumping someone in the middle of a narrative, but it takes a judicious …

Continuing along the path that her first book, The Fire Sermon, laid out, Map of Bones is another measured elegy for a world in ruins. Atomic detonations blanketed the world in cold and ignorance, and the survivors learned to fear anything to do with the blasts. Technology. The past. Each other. A quirk of the …

Lucas Knight doesn’t have any shining armor. He’s the spoiled child of a wealthy white developer in Puerto Rico, and the most good he’s done is all in his head. He wishes things were different—that his father wasn’t a sneering aristocrat, that his Puerto Rican neighbors would actually accept him, that his mother hadn’t left—but …

1. Candy (Mian Mian) – This is one of my all-time favorite books. A weird memoir-esque take on growing up in the rebel youth culture of the 90s in China, Mian Mian catalogs drugs, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll with both poetic grace and furious honesty. It’s an almost wistful look at the miseries of …

Our word disaster comes from the Greek meaning “bad star.” And if one bad star portends calamity, imagine a whole sky of them. Mayavati doesn’t have to. She is born with the most malignant horoscope the court has ever seen, and everyone from her father, the Raja, to the lowest girl in the harem knows …

Last week, a Daimon was defeated, Sailors Uranus and Neptune issued ominous warnings but otherwise did zilch, and Hotaru healed Chibi-Usa by the laying on of hand. Today, we get the reaction. Which is shock and awe, obviously, because eight year old consumptives (it’s not clear what Hotaru’s malady is so I’m going to refer …

Apologies for the lateness of this recap. The current episode will also be recapped shortly! Crystal started off last week so well, so it’s only natural that they’d begin this week with my least favorite holdover from the first series/second season, Usagi’s weird misplaced jealousy of Chibi-Usa’s time with Mamoru. Can’t let my hopes get …

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel is the definition of compulsively readable. I snuck peeks at work, I held it in one hand while holding my toothbrush in the other, and if it had not been on my kindle, I would have propped it up within eyeball-reach of the shower. It’s engrossing. It’s fantastic. It’s a …