This was the perfect story for the season as we approach midwinter: even the beautiful cover and title of this book promise an enchanting tale, full of magic and infused with Slavic folklore. The story of a country lord, Pyotr Vladimirovich and his family, starts out with a recounting of the legend of the Frost…
Tag: Fantasy
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones – Book Review
Having seen the beautiful and fun movie adaptation from Studio Ghibli, I went into reading Howl’s Moving Castle with the expectation of finding a twee, charming, quaint, light-hearted children’s story with a lot of magic and a little adventure, something in the vein of Peter Pan or Mary Poppins. The story began with a young…
The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, Book 1) by Robert Jackson Bennett — Book Review
Start with a complex murder case, feature a Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson-esque pair of protagonists, and set it in a well-conceived fantasy world full of plant and fungus based semi-science, and I am an easy catch to hook. The Tainted Cup winning this year’s Hugo award for Best Novel didn’t hurt either, allowing its…
What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier, Book 1) by T. Kingfisher – Book Review
One of T. Kingfisher’s “scarier” Gothic horror stories (a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of User) is not too scary — even for my delicate nerves — but unfortunately I didn’t find it very engaging or compelling either. I had not expected to read another T. Kingfisher story so soon,…
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…
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar – Book Review
I was surprised to love this story much more than I expected. It’s one of the best stories I’ve read this year. However, I’m learning that I have a much harder time talking about why I love a book than criticizing what I dislike about it. In essence, this is a very classic faerie tale…
The Lesser Devil (a Sun Eater story) by Christopher Ruocchio – Book Review
I had a lot of problems with the very popular galaxy-spanning epic science fiction series, Sun Eater, after reading the first book (Empire of Silence) — yes, I was condemning the whole series after only reading the first book — bad reader! However, in my heart I didn’t want to give up on it, and…
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….
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke – Book Review
Piranesi is a story set in a fantastical House, one that is more like a world; that has multitudes of grand rooms full of distinctive and enigmatic statutes of both creatures and people. The upper floors contain the clouds and sky, the lower floors contain the tides and seas. This story is told from the…
Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture 