"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" In 1930, Street and Smith's Detective Story Hour began featuring a sinister-sounding narrator who identified himself only as "The Shadow". Somewhat to the publisher's surprise, The Shadow was so distinctive that listeners started asking for "The Shadow" magazine rather than "Detective Story". Not being foolish, they immediately began publication of such a magazine, featuring a fleshed-out version of the character who had previously been little more than a voice with an [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Phantom Tollbooth
August 6, 2015 By Leave a Comment
"There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself – not just sometimes, but always." Milo is a boy who – in a later era – might be heading towards the clothing racks to find something darker than black to wear. He sees nothing of interest in his world; even the few things that he might care about he can't work up the energy to engage with. He stares at the pavement when he walks, seeing nothing around him. He waits desperately to get out of school, but finds himself so bored outside of it that he longs to be back [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Jennifer Morgue
August 4, 2015 By 1 Comment
Bob Howard is back. A hacker-turned-agent for the supernatural covert agency of the United Kingdom, The Laundry, Bob has recovered from his earlier encounters with a parallel-world Nazi plot to summon an energy-consuming "ice giant" into the world and an internal power struggle that revealed part of the government's plans for CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN (when the Stars are Right and Things emerge from beyond the realm of sanity). But things are never quiet when you're one of the people on the front lines between the rest of humanity and someone who [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Relics of War
July 30, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Young Garander's sister Ishta insists on going off into the woods by herself, even though there could be very dangerous things living there – monsters, remnants of the great war between the Northerners with their sorceries and Ethshar, a war that destroyed the Northern empire and, in the end, shattered Ethshar into multiple pieces. This time, Ishta has found something strange and wonderful, a talisman that shows unknown, glowing shapes when touched. Such ancient devices could be harmless… or lethal. Garander makes her show it to [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: H. P. Lovecraft
July 23, 2015 By 2 Comments
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. -- H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu Howard Phillips Lovecraft was never well-known during his lifetime, and indeed died nearly completely destitute, having gone from a comfortable middle-to-upper-class upbringing to poverty. But following his death, the stories he had written for the various [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Running With the Demon
July 14, 2015 By Leave a Comment
The spine of the copy of Running With the Demon that I have just says "Fiction"; associations with the author's name invoke a general "fantasy" expectation. Running With the Demon could be considered "urban fantasy", but to me, it's clearly in another genre: modern supernatural horror. This is Terry Brooks playing directly in Stephen King's bailiwick. I found myself thinking a LOT of King's work while reading Running With the Demon, and King suffers badly in the comparison. In this book, Brooks gets to show off a somewhat different [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Tom Derringer and the Aluminum Airship
July 9, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Lawrence Watt-Evans is one of my favorite authors, and he nails this one perfectly. The initial, spoiler-free review: _Tom Derringer and the Aluminum Airship_ is a nigh-perfect recapturing of the spirit of pulp and, really, pre-pulp adventure fiction. Not really steampunk, but close to it, this is more an Edisonade or a Vernian homage in a sense. The language and setting evoke those of the older works, while avoiding the overly-intrusive narration which sometimes will mar older works for new readers. Tom himself is an [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Atrocity Archives
June 30, 2015 By 1 Comment
The idea that thoughts, concepts, mathematics, logic themselves can affect reality is hardly unique. I've previously reviewed The Incompleat Enchanter by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague deCamp, in which Harold Shea and Reed Chalmers work out the Mathematics of Magic which allow the users to cross to other worlds, Doctor Who has frequently used the concept (Castrovalva, the Shakespeare Code, etc.) and numerous other authors have taken their turns with it. The Atrocity Archives is Charlie Stross' take on the concept, done in a more modern and [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Glinda of Oz
June 25, 2015 By Leave a Comment
The final volume of the fourteen Oz books written by L. Frank Baum sees Ozma and Dorothy on a visit to Glinda, when Dorothy, idly paging through the Great Book of Records, discovers a cryptic notation that the Flatheads and Skeezers – previously unknown inhabitants of Oz – have begun a war. Ozma is determined not to permit war within her borders, and decides to set out directly for these people in the far north of the Gillikin country and convince them to make peace. Glinda tries to convince her, several times, not to get involved, [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Magic of Oz
June 23, 2015 By Leave a Comment
With The Magic of Oz we approach the end of the original series, as this is the thirteenth and penultimate book in the novels by Baum himself. Young Kiki Aru, a boy of the Hyup people who live atop Mount Munch, is a bored and indolent sort of boy, the kind who seems always unwilling to be part of the community around him. One day, however, he discovers the only magical secret his father, Bini Aru, had preserved from the days that Bini Aru was a great Sorcerer: the magical word "Pyrzqxgl", complete with instructions on how to pronounce this [ Continue reading... ]
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