Blending the classic fantasy tropes of prophecy and travelling to another realm with a more complex view of saviours, Elizabeth creates a young adult novel that offers a grittier perspective on a chosen one facing evil without reducing everything to moral relativism. Having spent most of her moving from Renaissance Fair to Renaissance Fair, Sarah … Continue reading Lock by Jordan Elizabeth
Dreaming of the Red King
One of the many contested perspectives on Lovecraft's Yog-Sothothery is the idea that Azathoth currently sleeps and the world will end when he wakes. Lovecraft's own works do not state this, so where might it come from? Perhaps our own tendency to live in a dream of purpose rather than a reality of explicit facts. … Continue reading Dreaming of the Red King
Ancient Vampire Death Cults and Other Annoyances by Matthew S. Cox
Cox blends contrasting possibilities on the creation of vampires with action and suspense to create a tale of vampiric maturation that has both depth and pace. This novel is the twelfth volume of Cox’s Vampire Innocent series. Your mind would retreat to the comfort of a dark age at the spoilers beyond this point... so … Continue reading Ancient Vampire Death Cults and Other Annoyances by Matthew S. Cox
Giant Ball of Fun?
Could one keep a shoggoth as a pet? The authorities in their blindness make no reference even to their existence, so there is certainly no legal barrier. But is there a practical one? The answer depends on which sort of shoggoth one speaks of. Whilst the most well-known shoggoths are those described in Lovecraft’s At … Continue reading Giant Ball of Fun?
The Unnamed Country by Jeffrey Thomas
Collecting stories that span science-fiction, fantasy, and realism but are connected by a shared fictional Asian country, Thomas offers both a series of character-driven individual narratives and an engaging gestalt vision of the liminal zone between beliefs and reality. This collection contains nine short stories set in a fictional Asian country shaped both by religion … Continue reading The Unnamed Country by Jeffrey Thomas
The Meanness of Raiko
Between many years of playing Legend of the Five Rings and Nicki expanding her collection of Zen texts, I've picked up a reasonable number of Japanese folk tales; thus, a little while ago, I made a comment to a friend about the ‘Meanness of Raiko’ and then had to explain the story. As many of … Continue reading The Meanness of Raiko
Vampiress Unleashed by Thomas Green
Blending vast magical effects with sudden reversals, Green creates a tale with gritty look of urban fantasy but epic scale. Casey Laen’Ash has lived her life in her mother’s estate, never leaving without her mother at her side and speaking to no-one else. Believing her mother’s claims that—as a high vampire—the world will hate her, … Continue reading Vampiress Unleashed by Thomas Green
No Masks Here
Yesterday I came across an untitled poem by Upashna that refused to quite let go. Dusk pours her dregs of light on the weary bones draped in a corrugated yellow skin threading the silk suture A melange of reverberations in the air- a distinct chirp of hatchlings calling it’s dame at prey, the yellow tailed … Continue reading No Masks Here
The Friar’s Lantern by Greg Hickey
Hickey mixes theories of mind, characterful situations, and reader choice to produce a book that is both an interesting story and a blurred mirror on the reader’s free will. You are offered a place on a scientific study into whether human choices can be predicted a week in advance. You are a potential juror in … Continue reading The Friar’s Lantern by Greg Hickey
Recently wife's avocation with Japanese language and culture has expanded into making traditional Japanese meals. And, as both a loving husband and someone who enjoys good food, I have been supporting this in two ways. First, by using my experience of cooking to suggest tweaks to the recipe. Second, and more importantly, by adding some … Continue reading
