“Just one cage finding another. Maybe wider. Maybe bigger. Still cage. All of it. With horizons for bars.”
The Familiar, Volume 4 takes place between August and September 2014. All of the different characters in The Familiar are really starting to come together. Luther and Ozgur see each other at the gun range. Jingjing and Xanther just barely miss each other at the airport. Luther sells drugs to Jingjing. Continue reading
Byron starts Canto 5 by telling us of the dangers of writing love poetry: “Even Petrarch’s self, if judged with due severity,/Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.” (Canto V, 1) I’d never thought of it like that, but I think he’s right. Love poems (or today’s equivalent–love songs) help facilitate hooking up. To prevent this from happening, Byron assures us that he himself will always attach a good moral message to his poems. Yeah, I’m sure that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Continue reading
Disclaimer: I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.
Don’t you just love that cover? It doesn’t just look cool, but also serves as an introduction to this collection since most of the stories feature disembodied hands, hands reaching out of murky water, hands reaching out of the depths of space, or something like that. Let’s face it. Hands not attached to anything are creepy. By the way, there’s also some nifty artwork accompanying each story within. Continue reading
When we last left Don Juan, he and his lover Haidee were having a party to celebrate the death of her slave-trader father Lambro. However, it turns out Lambro isn’t as dead as they had thought. Before we get back to the action, though, Byron starts off by telling us why he jokes around so much: Continue reading
Weird Tales of Horror by David J. West is an entertaining collection of short fiction. Some of the stories you’ll find here include Ernest Hemingway meeting a werewolf, how New York City dealt with King Kong’s body after he died, and soldiers encountering ghouls during Operation Desert Shield. Also, Lovecraft’s Nylarthahotep is worked into the Biblical story of King Solomon. Continue reading
When we last left Don Juan, he had been shipwrecked upon a Grecian island, but was brought back to health by a young woman named Haidee. The two fall in love, however, Haidee keeps Juan’s existence a secret from her father Lambro who is a slave trader. Let’s find out what happens next! Continue reading
A solid collection full of excellent stories. Behold! Oddities, Curiosities & Undefinable Wonders edited by Doug Murano includes both original stories and reprints (although if you haven’t read them yet, they’re new to you). Some of the stories are straight up horror, others are horror-comedy, and still others are straight up comedy. There are also a couple poems, a couple fairy tales, and even a couple stories that I’d classify as literary. Continue reading
As with all anthologies, this one is a mixed bag. Some stories are better than others (which ones are better than which of course depends on your own personal preference). This collection features both pre- and post-apocalyptic stories. They all take place in Utah, although the setting is usually incidental. The end of the world takes different forms from Biblical punishment, zombie virus, non-zombie virus, magic, and one even features cats. A theme I noticed is that most of the stories are pessimistic about human nature. I always wonder why people in stories like this always prey on each other rather than band together against the zombies or crab people or whatever is threatening them. Continue reading
This book starts like a video game. Slate, who came from a small mining village, is fighting in a tournament against increasingly more difficult foes. Then he has to decide whether to join the fighters’, mages’, or thieves’ guild. He also gains abilities and magic items along the way. Slate doesn’t seem to have much agency, at least early in the book. He tends to just go along with what others tell him to do and gets by on luck. Continue reading
In the far future, Earth has been conquered by an alien race known as the Shaa and most buildings are in an alien style. Some of Earth’s ancient landmarks are still intact despite centuries of neglect and earthquakes, but Earth has largely become an amusement park version of itself. Earth history isn’t even interesting to most humans since they grew up on other planets. We’re shown a future in which humans have largely forgotten humanity. Continue reading
Mania Delight 