"It is all right now. Why? Because I am here." – All-Might In a world like this one, but some undefined time in the future, civilization has been drastically changed by the emergence of strange powers, called "Quirks". At first very rare, by now over 80% of humanity has some form of Quirk – which can range from extendible fingers to invisibility, ability to project energy, and so on. In the younger generations, almost everyone has a Quirk. Due to the nature of these new powers, the profession of superhero became reality; for [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Baahubali 1 and 2
January 2, 2018 By Leave a Comment
Recently Kathleen has been watching a bunch of Bollywood (and related –wood) movies; this pair (technically, I think, a Tollywood production) we watched together. This is the story you'd get from a collision of 300, MacBeth, and The Ten Commandments, if you also got a musical director involved and gave them the suggestion that everything they did should be BIGGER. Although it might be more fair to say that 300, MacBeth, and The Ten Commandments derived in part from this, because the core legendary events, of conspiracies to take a throne, of [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Academ’s Fury
November 28, 2017 By 2 Comments
The second book in the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher begins with a prologue: the terrifying and alien Wax Forest has turned dead, with no trace of the spider-like Keepers and other creatures that had dwelt within the resin-coated nightmare-scape. The young Marat, Kitai, who Tavi had first competed against and then cooperated with in the Wax Forest to earn the respect and cooperation of the Marat chief Doroga, has also found something else disturbing: tracks leading out of the ruined Forest, and, along those tracks, Tavi's lost backpack. [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Furies of Calderon
November 21, 2017 By 1 Comment
The story goes that Jim Butcher – author of the Dresden Files series – was told that one couldn't write a good story based on "lame" ideas. Butcher responded that he could do so with any two lame ideas of the challenger's choosing. The challenger responded with "Lost Roman Legion", and "Pokemon". The result was the Codex Alera series, with the first volume being Furies of Calderon. Speaking purely from the geeky point of view of "how well did he do with those two lame ideas", I have to say… middling. As a combination of "Lost Roman [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Curse of Immortality
November 14, 2017 By Leave a Comment
I have previously reviewed Jeff Getzin's dark fantasy novel Prince of Bryanae on this site. While Prince rode as close to the dark edge as I'm generally willing to read, that novel is not the only venture into the world of Bryanae that Jeff has provided. I'm going to review all of the stories, but right now I want to review the latest of them. The story is told – as is thus far always the case – from the point of view of a woman who will cross paths with the frenetically cheerful swashbuckler D'Arbignal. Prince of Bryanae takes place in the [ Continue reading... ]
On Writing: The Problem of Series, OR Why Isn’t This As AWESOME As The Last One?
November 7, 2017 By 8 Comments
It's happened to all of us: we find the first book in a new series and it's awesome – it's filled to bursting with cool imagery and characters and concepts, and we race through the book and then come to the end, saying "what? But I want MORE!". And then we get the sequel, and that's … a good book. I mean, maybe it's a really good book. But somehow there seems to be something missing, it's just not quite the slam-bang awesome you remember from the first book. But hey, authors can have off days, right, and this was still pretty good. So you [ Continue reading... ]
Princess Holy Aura: Chapter 33
November 3, 2017 By 2 Comments
In this final snippet, Procelli found he had been suckered... ----- Chapter 33. Silvertail felt a cold, cold smile crossing his tiny face as he saw the Mirrortaint stagger back in disbelief. "But . . . how . . ." Seika's face was radiant with understanding. "It was you, not Cordelia's father! But he sensed the distress—" Silvertail locked gazes with Procelli, and he could see fear in the defiant Mirrortaint's eyes. "I merely allowed myself to remember the day I gave my daughter to this fate . . . and let my fear [ Continue reading... ]
Princess Holy Aura: Chapter 32
November 1, 2017 By Leave a Comment
Things seemed to have taken a turn for the worse, and they were bad enough already... Chapter 32. Even as that happened, Procelli loomed somehow larger, though his physical form changed not a bit. "Another wish granted," he said with a slasher smile, turning to Holy Aura. She could see Cordy, now in her father's embrace, but her face showed only the shock and anguish and confusion of the impossible; even a father's presence could only do so much. "You . . . obscene . . . thing," she choked out, unable to even form a proper [ Continue reading... ]
Princess Holy Aura: Chapter 31
October 30, 2017 By Leave a Comment
The tyrpiglynt was out and apparently so was their secret... ----- Chapter 31. "Holly? Seika?" Tierra said after a few frozen moments. "Fuck," Seika said succinctly in the powerful soprano of Radiance Blaze. "But, that's the way the meme rolls, right?" Holly found she'd covered her face with one of Holy Aura's hands. "Yes. Yes, of course it is." Is Tierra going to be one of the Maidens? Or one of those ordinary characters that happens to learn the secret? If it was the latter, whether Tierra survived the [ Continue reading... ]
Princess Holy Aura: Chapter 30
October 27, 2017 By Leave a Comment
The tyrpiglynt was now on the loose... ----- Chapter 30. Silvertail felt the fur rising on his back even before his more conscious senses recognized the surge in power from within the building that the girls had run into. Oh, no, Lemuria's Memory, no . . . It was the merest flicker of motion, a motion only eyes like his own could have seen, but he knew instantly that the worst scenario was now upon them. A Mirrortaint was now free, and in a crowd . . . a crowd whose emotions and lifeforce would not only feed it, but mask [ Continue reading... ]
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