For the record, I am not Catholic, although I did go to a Catholic (Jesuit) university. When this text was first published it was all over the news about how the Pope was trying to influence the politics of environmentalism and how a religious leader should not talk politics or science. Naturally this was quickly countered by people pointing out that the Pope is technically a head of state (the Vatican being a sovereign nation) and also a scientist (an MA in chemistry). I saw […]
A Steampunk Necromancer Solves a Murder
Jonathan L Howard’s second novel featuring the necromancer Johannes Cabal is set in a steampunk world. One of the things I really like about this series is that each novel is set and told in a different style, like Ray Bradbury (novel 1-Johannes Cabal the Necromancer) and HP Lovecraft (novel 3-The Fear Institute). The novel opens with Cabal unsuccessfully trying to steal a rare book containing secrets of necromancy. He manages to escape by infuriating and dueling his interrogator, then steals the identity of a […]
What Happens When I Walk Into a Used Bookstore
I was in a used bookstore and I randomly picked up Murder on the Prowl. I was expecting something like Lillian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who series, which I loved. Boy was I wrong. The similarities are a rather cranky-snarky protagonist with a powerful independence streak who encounters a lot of murders and ends up solving them with some help from friends and pets. The differences are many, but this isn’t bad. First of all, the main character is the postmistress Harry Haristeen (female) and […]
The Victorian Art of Blowing Stuff Up with Braun and Books
I seem to have been on a real fantasy/steampunk kick lately. Phoenix Rising is by far the most steampunky thing I’ve read lately. The story centers on two agents of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, Eliza D. Braun and Wellington Books. Eliza is enamored of dynamite, guns, and action, while her new partner is a by-the-book Archivist. Their last names are not coincidental. The two are forced to work together, and quickly discover a mystery in the Archives’ unsolved case files that has connections to […]