First, some shameless self-congratulations: Cannonball! I was originally thinking I could only do a half, which I signed up for, but here I am with a full 52! Yay me :) OK, moving on. Steampunk Tea Party is probably the best Christmas present I’ve gotten in a long while. Long Live Book Exchange! It’s part cookbook, part photo book, and part short story collection. Each of the six chapters has a theme with recipes, excerpts from character voices, pictures of characters in elaborate costumes, pictures […]
Forward but in Reverse
So The Lazarus Gate is the predecessor of The Iscariot Sanction. These 2 books as it turns out are nearly stand-alones. If I’d read them in the correct order, I’m not sure I would have liked book 2. The Lazarus Gate takes place in the better of the two alternates; for the details of the bad one, you’ll need to read Iscariot Sanction. When the bad universe that’s falling apart with demons etc is described in The Lazarus Gate, there isn’t much detail, so it’s […]
Superfun Times, Vegan Style
I like cookbooks, and I particularly like those by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. So naturally, I picked up her latest, The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook. I am not vegan, but I lean in that direction, and I like cookbooks that A) don’t preach, and B) don’t use a lot of obscure ingredients or equipment. So far, I have read through the whole book, and worked my way through the Thanksgiving and Christmas recipes. The recipes themselves are up to Isa Chandra’s usual standard of yummy, […]
Strangeness with Magic, Dragons, and a Quarkbeast
I read Jasper Fford’s Tuesday Next series, and I liked it for a while. I got bored after about book 4. So when I saw a YA fantasy novel by the same author, I wanted to try it out. The Last Dragonslayer was mostly what I expected, and also a little not. What defines Fford’s writing for me is a sense of slightly off-kilter in an otherwise normal story, and that is totally here. The normal is as follows: 15 year old indentured servant Jennifer […]