Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making (Fairyland, Book 1) by Catherynne M. Valente — Book Review

If you got winded just from reading that very long, wordy title, you may be surprised to learn that it’s this quirky, Victorian chapter-summary style of title, that first drew me to this book. I liked the pretentious phrasing and long word (mainly “circumnavigated”) for a middle-grade book. It gives it that “I want to…

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski — Book Review

This is a hard review to write (but that is probably expected for a notoriously challenging read like this one). I have mixed feelings about this bizarre story that is ostensibly about an acclaimed photographer and his family, who discover a room in their home that is mysteriously larger on the inside. There is a…

The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron — Book Review

I don’t know if this is going to count as a review once I reveal how little I retained from reading this collection of stories. For spooky season, I have read a couple of story collections from horror writers who fall into the eldritch/Lovecraftian area of the spectrum. These are stories that convince us there…

Extremity by Daniel Warren Johnson — Graphic Novel Review

Even though he’s a fairly popular creator (i.e. writer/artist) in comics, this is my first time reading a Daniel Warren Johnson book. I don’t know which of his works is most popular so far, but I can see how Extremity might become the one. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world (think Mad Max but with…

Lost in the Dark and Other Excursions by John Langan — Book Review

Last year I read and loved John Langan’s second novel (he only wrote two), the modern Lovecraftian horror called The Fisherman. So for spooky season this year, I decided to expand my experience of Langan’s writing with one of his short story collections. I don’t think there was any particular theme to the collection, but…

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making (Fairyland, Book 1) by Catherynne M. Valente — Book Review

Batman: Dark Patterns by Dan Watters (Art by Hayden Sherman, Colour by Triona Farrell) — Graphic Novel Review

I don’t read very many graphic novels, and I definitely don’t read many Batman stories, but I think I’d like to try a little more of both. Dark Patterns caught my attention when it was described as Batman in his earlier days, in more of his detective mode. I had mostly gotten to know Batman…

Silver in the Wood & Drowned Country (The Greenhollow Duology) by Emily Tesh — Book Duology Review

This is probably the first time I’ve reviewed a duology, but having read both books back-to-back, I mostly think of them as a single story with a shift in point-of-view midway through. One thing about this duology is that my experience swung widely between elements I loved and things I didn’t like. The story ranged…

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark — Book Review

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Ring Shout, but I didn’t expect a part Buffy, part Sinners, part Lovecraftian story about a group of young Black women in 1920s Georgia facing off against the racist oppression of the KKK — and by the way, the Ku Klux are actual demons! And though that quick…

The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay — Book Review

I wanted to love The Lions of Al-Rassan. I have always wanted to learn more about medieval cultures, especially Islamic and Jewish cultures of those periods. I was fascinated by how those cultures were the most learned and intellectual of the day, and yet we have been taught so much more about the mainstream —…