Every time I start a Jenn Lyons book I’m immediately overwhelmed and intrigued, and every time I finish a Jenn Lyons book I’m overwhelmed and desperate for more. It’s a very particular delight that comes with books so long and dense that the multiple glossaries and references at the end are not so much a …
When you deal with bad people, sometimes there are no good choices. And if you keep dealing with them, well, you might just find it’s no longer about bad choices, but the choice to be bad. To be monstrous. Monstrousness has always been the heart of this trilogy, and the question of what makes a …
We are joined once again by Brittany Gregory, our resident Sailor Moon expert, to tackle part two of our discussion of the first story arc. Can the Sailor Scouts finally band together and defeat the evil Queen Beryl? What about that guy who happens to look exactly like Tuxedo Mask that they keep running into. …
In a reading rut? Wondering what to do with yourself as the heat fluctuates wildly and the pandemic presses on (in America, at least)? Here are eight very different books for this eighth month of this endless year. I enjoyed all of them, and I hope you’ll enjoy at least one, too. 1. The Wizard’s …
Kushiel’s Dart was published almost twenty years ago. In the decades since its release it has become a classic, spawning two sequels and half a dozen other books set in the world of Terre d’Ange. Full of the sinister, the sensual, the political, and the personal, Kushiel’s Dart centers on the remarkable story of Phèdre …
This episode Jonah and Kieran attempt to fill a massive gap in their pop culture knowledge. For their first experience with delving deep into the Sailor Mooniverse, they knew an expert on the subject would be required. Thankfully, Brittany is back to school them on the story and lore of Sailor Moon as we discuss …
We’re back baybeeeee! Our long national nightmare is over… oh wait, it’s not. But hey, that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy some comics. In The Way of the Househusband, we follow the misadventures of Tatsu, a feared yakuza boss nicknamed “The Immortal Dragon”. At the height of his influence he retires so that he can …
The Merciful Crow was one of my favorite debuts—favorite books, period—of 2019, and I’m overjoyed to find that the conclusion of Fie’s saga, The Faithless Hawk, is as original, emotional, dramatic, and insightful as her introduction. Fie has, against all odds, gotten Prince Jasimir and his bodyguard Tavin to safety. They are protected by an …
“So Shanna got a new job at the movie theater, we thought we’d play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead, and I’m really starting to feel kind of guilty about it all.” As first lines go, Stephen Graham Jones’s opener for Night of the Mannequins is pretty close to …
Looking back at the books of 2019, the one that has stuck with me the most, latching on even as my brain slowly melted in quarantine, was Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth. February feels as if it were years ago, 2019 is ancient history, but reading Gideon the Ninth feels like yesterday. The follow-up, Harrow …