With the third entry of Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archives, Oathbringer, releasing today, the arc that comprises the first five books is more than halfway through. The third book takes nearly all the events that have happened previously and reaches the height of storytelling for the series so far. From the beginning, Oathbringer is ripe …
Stranger Things Season 2 came out on Netflix last Friday and tons of people have binge watched the heck out of it. Bijaya and I were among them and this is what we thought of it. Fair warning, ahead there be SPOILERS. Bijaya: What was your overall feeling about the new season? Alan: Overall I …
What do you get when you put together friends, Indianapolis, and a love for board games? You get a trip to GenCon 2017 – so I made my way to Indianapolis on the weekend of August 18th to meet Nika, Danny, Brad, Steph, and Not-a-Good-Boy-Ben and play board games. I had never been to GenCon …
Girls Made of Snow and Glass (Melissa Bashardoust) – The writing is elegant, as are Bashardoust’s interpretations of the elements we all know so well, mirrors and apples and snow. Mina, the “evil queen,” has power over glass, which I found especially clever, and Lynet, the “snow white” has power over snow. The magic is …
I am just barely recovering from the trauma I experienced after watching Toy Story when I was a kid. The thought that my expressive, ambulatory, and caring toys were distastefully tossed aside as I grew older still haunts my dreams. As an adult, my hoard of toys has reduced to a mere pile, and I …
The Red Threads of Fortune and The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang are a matched pair of stories, and I figured that whichever I read first would change the way I read whichever I read second. So I did what any good D&D player would do and rolled a die. Even red, odd …
Everfair by Nisi Shawl is an alternative history set in the Belgian Congo during King Leopold II’s reign. Instead of years of slavery, racism, and genocide a congregation of Fabian Socialist from Great Britain and African-Americans form their own nation called Everfair and resist Leopald’s subjugation and return to slavery. Though alternative history is not …
Stephen King has not always had the best of luck with movie adaptations. I can think back on maybe three or four movies that truly do their novel counterparts justice. (The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, Pet Sematary.) Well, I think it’s safe to say that we can add one more success to that list. I had …
Spellbook of the Lost and Found – Moïra Fowley-Doyle’s debut, The Accident Season, was a quiet roar of a book that used suspenseful magic to get at some extremely heavy issues, and her second book is no different, except that it’s even better. It follows three groups of teenagers who collide after a party where …
The Penny Arcade Expo is, by design, a grind. Noise and sound and free things and kids and adults and cosplay and super-bad-for-you food. After two days, you feel it in your legs. After three days, your back. After four days, your soul. But if you wait in just the right lines and chug just …
