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…
Category: Fantasy
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…
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…
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 —…
The Wall of Storms (Dandelion Dynasty, Book 2) by Ken Liu — Book Review
I started Wall of Storms right after the first book, Grace of Kings, since I didn’t want to lose momentum on this Dandelion Dynasty series. Grace of Kings introduced us to Dara, an empire of island nations, through a story of rebellion leading to civil war, culminating in a new empire under protagonist Kuni Garu….
The Last Wish (The Witcher, Book 1) by Andrzej Sapkowski
My journey with The Witcher, Andrzej Sapkowski’s super-popular fantasy series, got off to a bumpy start when I read The Blood of Elves. I understood it to be the first book of the series and assumed that the short story collections (including The Last Wish) were extra, optional prequel stories. Boy, was I wrong! Without…
A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan, Book 2) by Robert Jackson Bennett — Book Review
It is great to be back in this world that I discovered last year when reading the first book of this series, The Tainted Cup. There I met the eccentric crime solving genius, Ana Dolabra, and her assistant, Din Kol. No ordinary world, this steampunk empire has been changed to revolve around the presence of…
