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…

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (Singing Hills Cycle, Book 2) by Nghi Vo — Book Review

Unfortunately, I don’t have too much to say about the second book in this Asian-inspired novella series. Though it features the same central character (a cleric named Chih who travels the empire of Ahn looking for stories to collect and tell), it was very different from the first book, The Empress of Salt and Fortune….

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…