"In Heaven's stead, we smite clothing!" A grim avenger appears at Honnouji Academy. Their father was murdered, the only clue the weapon embedded in Isshin Matoi's chest – half of an immense pair of red-metal scissors or shears, and whispers of a connection to the leader of the Absurdly Powerful Student Council of Honnouji, Satsuki Kiryūin. Armed with nothing but an unbendable will, the half-scissor as a sword, and startling combat skill, this lone mysterious figure swears they will confront the super-powered Council and tear the [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Secret Identity
August 27, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Clark Kent is a teenage boy living in Picketsville, Kansas, a boy who has dreams of being a writer, and a well-developed ability to endure the constant teasing – both well-meaning and malicious – that comes with being named after the secret identity of the most famous superhero of all time. For he lives in our world, or one very like it, where there are no superhuman beings, only stories of them. But one night, while camping alone, he awakens to find himself actually floating in midair. He can fly. He has super-strength, and [ 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... ]
On My Shelves: Close Encounters of the Third Kind
July 28, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Close Encounters of the First Kind: A UFO is seen at close range. Close Encounters of the Second Kind: Physical evidence of visitation Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Unknown entities from the UFO are sighted I have often said that in my view, Stephen Spielberg produced two masterpieces. One of them, reviewed earlier, is Jaws. The other is Close Encounters of the Third Kind. CE3K, as it is known, is a classic SF story: it takes one strange, out-there premise and then builds a story on it. For CE3K, the premise is: what [ 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: Ghostbusters
July 16, 2015 By Leave a Comment
The year was 1984, Orwell's year, the year that the Apple Mac first burst onto the scene, also the year I finished graduating from Hudson Valley Community College and moved on to SUNYA to study psychology. It was also the year of the Terminator, of the Karate Kid, and the original Nightmare on Elm Street. And it was the year that Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Akroyd, and Sigourney Weaver told us who we're gonna call. Ghostbusters begins with a brilliantly atmospheric stage setting, with the New York City Library [ 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: JAWS
July 7, 2015 By 2 Comments
A long time ago – forty years ago, to be exact – summer was considered the "dead time" for movies. It was assumed that most people wouldn't go to movie theaters in the summer, preferring to pursue other activities. But in 1975, that changed, and the "summer blockbuster" was born, with the release of one of Stephen Spielberg's true masterpieces: Amazon instant Video link for Jaws. Jaws was also the very first movie I ever saw by myself in the theater. No one else in my family was interested in it, so I went to see it on my own… and [ Continue reading... ]
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