Review: The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The Magicians Lev Grossman Viking, 2009 (August 11) The Magicians is an extraordinarily difficult book to review; especially as a fan of speculative fiction. The difficulty arises I think, while this is perhaps obvious and pertinent to all fiction, because The Magicians is a book that operates on quite a few different levels. It is [...]

Review: The Blood Red Sphere by Lawrence Barker

The Blood Red Sphere Lawrence Barker Swimming Kangaroo Books, 2009 I’m not quite sure where or when I came across The Blood Red Sphere in Publisher’s Weekly of all places (I’ve noticed that PW loves to toss in some small press reviews amongst the typical dross, particularly in the genre sections).  Regardless, I’m glad I [...]

Back! (Updated)

Update: Apparently The Magicians has a significant amount of ancillary and promotional material available online so if you’re interested in the book you might want to check out the following websites: You can explore Fillory here: www.emberstomb.com · Read excerpts from author Christopher Plover’s Fillory series here: www.christopherplover.com. · Explore Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy’s [...]

Vacation Week!

For the next week I’ll be vacationing with friends in Maine so, obviously, there will be no new posts.  I plan on getting through several books from my backlog including Zafon’s The Angel’s Game and Lev Grossman’s The Magicians; that is of course assuming the distractions of booze, outdoor fun, and gaming of polyhedral variety [...]

Review: Genesis by Bernard Beckett

Genesis Bernard Beckett Harcourt, 2009 Genesis is a book that I’d actually prefer to have Mr. I’m-working-on-my-genetics-PhD-and-Don’t-post-anymore Rick read and review as, besides being a piece of rather entertaining fiction, takes the form of a Socratic dialogue on the nature of life, artificial or otherwise, that is more directly pertinent to his chosen profession.  Instead [...]

My Feeble Attempt at Gaming Made Me

UK based gaming blog Rock Paper Shotgun has been doing an absolutely fantastic and fascinating series of articles called: Gaming Made Me.  The basic premise being the exploration of those games of which most influenced who we are today as gamers and as individuals.  The examination illuminates the emotional and educational experiences that gaming has [...]

High Speed GTO

“Traditional” metal band White Wizzard released their 7 song EP yesterday and while enjoyable none of the other 6 songs manage to match the energy and charm as the opening title track “High Speed GTO.”  That doesn’t mean they’re bad, far from it in fact, and if old-school, high energy, leather and denim clad metal [...]

Review: The Lees of Laughter’s End by Steven Erikson

The Lees of Laughter’s End Steven Erikson Night Shade Books, 2009 The Lees of Laughter’s End is the third novella to star the necromantic duo of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, as well as there hapless (and luckless) manservant Emancipor Reese.  This novella takes place immediately after our “heroes” have escaped Lamentable Moll aboard the ship [...]

Fantastic Acacia Review @ Torque Control

The editors of Vector, Niall Harrison in particular, has posted an excellent review (in terms of quality of content though the review is positive) of David Anthony Durham’s fantasy novel Acacia over on their blog: Torque Control.  It does an a wonderful job of examining many of the aspects that set this novel apart from [...]

Review: Star Wars: Omen by Christie Golden (audio)

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen by Christie Goldman Read by Marc Thompson 2009, Random House Audio The first volume in the Fate of the Jedi series, Outcast, marked my first foray to the Star Wars Expanded Universe since the death of Chewbacca in R. A. Salvatores’ Vector Prime.  Outcast, and now Omen, are [...]