The Legality of Being Seduced by a Vampire

Many people focus on the physical or moral risks of encountering a vampire: death, damnation, and so forth. And certainly do need to be considered. However, especially with the growth of vampires as romantic protagonists, there is another question that discerning students of darkness need to consider: is sex with a vampire necrophilia?

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The Affected by James McNally

McNally adds nuances of character and world to the classic tale of a mysterious force slowly turning neighbours into potential enemies. Containing both brutal violence and subtle dread it offers something for fans of both visceral and cerebral horror.

The North Star by Killian Carter

Mixing military action and crime thriller with aliens and future tech, Carter creates an engaging space opera that contains something for a broad range of science-fiction fans.

Calling Cthulhu

I was reminded today that my post on another network setting out a ritual to summon Cthulhu continues to draw positive attention. Which caused me to remark to myself that I had not provided this most useful technique to readers of my blog. A lapse I herein rectify.

Cage Runner by Vera Brook

Building from a plausible technological base, Brook combines the passion of young adult dystopia with the moral greys of cyberpunk to create a fast-paced science-fiction thriller that will appeal to a range of readers.

This book is the second in the Sand Runner series. Spoilers might strike from any direction.

The April Showers F/F Sci-fi and Fantasy Book Fair

The April Showers F/F Sci-fi and Fantasy Book Fair curated by LC Mawson starts today, featuring fifteen speculative fiction books where a protagonist is in a female/female relationship.

Whispers in the Code by Stephanie Flint & Isaac Flint

Inverting the trope of an exceptional teenager defying an evil government, the authors craft a tale of a young man struggling to find his place in a tyrannical but potentially necessary regime.

This book is set after the events of Distant Horizon. Risk of spoilers ahead.

Pulping the Classics

I had a conversation over the weekend about whether certain genres need to be about particular things or whether they can be an aesthetic. And, as is common with discussion of genre boundaries, the discussion soon sent out a tendril into the field of literature vs. genre fiction. While the difference—if any—between literary and genre fiction is of interest to me, I was more intrigued by the question of whether the reverse of magical realism existed: a genre version of literature. So, I experimented with a pulp version of the opening of an American classic. I present it below, not to prove or disprove a hypothesis but in the hope it will amuse.

Zero Rogue by Matthew S. Cox

Cox fuses the deeply flawed revenger of crime noir with nuanced portrayals of a cyberpunk future and nascent post-humanism to demonstrate that for some schmucks the only thing the future brings is more ways to end up in an alley with an aching head.

This is the fifth volume of Cox’s Awakened series. Risk of electronic and psionic corruption of previous volumes beyond this point.

Pause For Nuanced Effect

Through the vagaries of the Internet, this article proposing new punctuation marks floated across my section of the aether. While the article is satire, the underlying issue of miscommunication is very real. In the spirit of which, I’d like to propose three useful signifiers of my own.