Aug 24
This past weekend I finished reading “Watchmen” by Alan Moore (story) and Dave Gibbons (artwork). It is the collection of twelve comic books, making up an entire graphic novel. The collection won a Hugo Award in a category named “Best Other Form”, which was created for it specifically and hasn’t been used since. (The Hugo Awards now have a Graphic Story category.)
The story is set in an alternate history. In the late 1930′s, superheroes started popping up on the scene, though none of them had any actual superpowers...
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Aug 18
Over this past weekend I finished reading “Half World” by Hiromi Goto, with some illustrations (including the cover artwork below) by Jillian Tamaki.
Turning Amazon.Com and School Library Journal, here’s a rundown:
A prophecy tells that only a child born of the lifeless Half World can reunite the three worlds of Flesh, Spirit, and the Half World that have been split asunder. Enter Melanie Tamaki, fleeing from some school bullies. She arrives home to find that her mother, bedridden when she left...
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Aug 16
Patrick Rothfuss, author of “The Name of the Wind”, and well respected fantasy novel, is interviewed in the latest edition of Locus Magazine. There were some excerpts on the magazine’s web site. This one really stood out to me.
“A couple of hundred years ago, literary fiction realized, ‘To write tragedy, we don’t need a king!’ Fantasy is just now starting to make that same realization, because we’re a newer genre. We don’t need a goblin army. We don’t need The End of the World. Not that those things are bad. I’ve seen them done well, but unless they’re handled with skill, they...
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Aug 14
This past weekend I read all three books in the “Soul Stealer” trilogy by Michael Easton and Christopher Shy. These are graphic novels.
I...
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Aug 13
I recently finished reading “The Ninth Circle”, the debut novel by Alex Bell.
From Amazon.Com, here is their product description:
A man comes to on the floor of a shabby apartment in the middle of Budapest. His head is glued to the floorboards with his own blood. There’s a fortune in cash on the kitchen table. And he has no idea where, or who, he is. He can do extraordinary things—speak any number of languages fluently, go three days without food or sleep, and fight with extraordinary prowess. But without...
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Aug 08
I was getting ready to search for a book on Amazon’s site and scrolled down just to see what was showing up. They usually have some suggestions, though they are to be taken with a grain of salt. Poor Mark Rayner, author of “Marvellous Hairy”. I looked at the latest edition of the book that was just released on Amazon and others were looking at it, too. When that happens, Amazon spits out these other items with idea that if you looked at the first item, you might like the others.
...
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Jul 27
A while back I read “The Girl That Kicked the Hornets’ Nest” by Stieg Larsson. This is the last book in what is being called “The Millenium Trilogy”.
I don’t want to mention much of anything with the plot because it could give things away for those that haven’t read the first two books. This book continues the story from the second book (“The Girl Who Played With Fire”)...
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Jul 08
Over the weekend I complete reading “Lord of Emperors” by Guy Gavriel Kay. It is the second half of his “Sarantine Mosaic” series, the first book being “Sailing to Sarantium”.
I didn’t find a good description for this book. It really takes up where the first story left off, and isn’t too plot driven. There is no one goal that is being achieved...
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Jun 17
It’s been a long time since I have read one of Kay’s books. Too long, as a matter of fact. I count him as one of my favorite authors. Continues to be. This is the first book of a two books series called “The Sarantine Mosaic”.
From Publishers Weekly via Amazon.Com, here is a rundown:
Heavy of character and light of plot, (this) series opens with the heady scents of sex, horseflesh and power. In the Holy City of Sarantium, the wily,...
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Jun 04
Entertainment Weekly recently released an issue that listed their choices for the top 100 characters in TV, movies, and books over the last 20 years. Me, being the book worm, was interested in the choices that were from books. I was disappointed to see that only four entries came from books only. (To clarify that, Harry Potter was second on the list, but that was for both the books and the movies.)
The four that made the list were as follows:
#26 – Josef Kavalier and Samuel Klayman from “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” by Michael Chabon
#43 – Cal/Calliope...
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