The Hexologists is my second venture (after Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Tainted Cup) into an emerging subgenre where we follow detectives investigating crimes/murders in a Victorian/Edwardian-inspired fantasy world. What sets these types of stories obviously apart from classic Sherlock Holmes tales is the addition of magical elements which may be part of the crime, instrumental…
Category: (3.5 out of 5)
Sunset at Zero Point, written and illustrated by Simon Stålenhag – Book Review
This is the fourth book by Simon Stålenhag for me this year (which is not about reading a lot, as these are coffee-table books more full of gorgeous art than text, but an indication of my adoration of Stålenhag’s work). Each is set in an alternate Sweden, where imagined experiments with radical science have left…
A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher – Book Review
My third venture into the works of popular author T. Kingfisher could be considered cozy horror, or suburban gothic (if that isn’t a thing I just made up). It starts out in a pretty classic way: Sam, a 30-something archeoentomologist, comes to stay at her mother’s suburban North Carolina home for a while and, of…
Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, Book 2) by Martha Wells – Book Review
I enjoyed the first book in this popular series (along with the first season of the Apple TV+ show). So I was excited to follow Murderbot on more sardonic adventures. This time around they get unintentionally partnered with a ship’s AI system which Murderbot humorously nicknames “ART” (for “Asshole Research Transport”) and takes a quest…
The Stone Man (Book 1) by Luke Smitherd – Book Review
When a gigantic stone behemoth appears in the middle of Millennium Square in Coventry, UK, it’s a photo op. When the stone man starts to move and walk relentlessly on its own, leaving a path of destruction in its wake, you’ve got an exciting sci-fi mystery. We follow reporter Andy Pointer, himself a witness at…
Grave Peril (Dresden Files, Book 3) by Jim Butcher – Book Review
The third volume in the Dresden Files series continues to expand the story universe set up in the first two. The adventures of Harry Dresden, a professional wizard, hiring himself out to investigate and handle all kinds of magical and malevolent cases in contemporary Chicago have so far involved evil sorcerers, demons, faerie and werewolves….
The Practice, The Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar – Book Review
Not quite sure what to say about this novella. It’s definitely not the kind of story I typically enjoy. The story of an unnamed boy from an underclass, the Chained, who toil in the belly of a gargantuan mining ship in space is given the opportunity to be brought up out of The Hold, and…
Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu – Book review
Did you know that there was a short novel featuring a female vampire written before Dracula? Carmilla is the story of a young Victorian woman named Laura who lives with her father in the remote Austrian countryside. When one day they happen upon a mother and her daughter in distress while travelling, they offer to…
The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, Book 1) By Guy Gavriel Kay – Book Review
With our national pride in full bloom, I was eager to revisit a classic written by Canada’s premier fantasy author, Guy Gavriel Kay. I think I read The Summer Tree back in the 80s (for a class project on a Canadian writer), but sadly I have forgotten almost the entire story. Inspired in many ways…
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