Like a lot of people upon hearing of the sudden and unexpected death of Anthony Bourdain, I decided to read some of his work. I’d read Kitchen Confidential several years ago, so I didn’t feel the need to re-read that (plus, there were quite a few holds on the local library copies already). What was rather surprisingly available was his last cookbook Appetites; this worked well for me since I’d never read one of his cookbooks before. Appetites is written by the same opinionated fearless […]
Don’t ignore the preface of this entertaining monster mash-up
The Fangs of Freelance continues with the entertaining story of Fred the Vampire Accountant and his friends who include alchemists, zombies, mages, therians, a dragon, a sentient house, and some unknowns. This stuff began and continues to be a fun riff on monster-type fantasy fiction. It also plays with the supernatural crime-fighting organization, which gets more attention in this book as we actually get to see Fred go through his interview and skills test to become a contract-based accountant for the Agency where Krystal (demon-contracted […]
An Anatomy of Drew Hayes, but also review of Going Rogue
There are 3 kinds of Drew Hayes books: a) the novels that as complete books are 600+ pages long, have short chapters, and are fairly episodic (ie Super Powereds), b) the novels that are structured more like novels with chapter longer than 1-2 pages and not epic in length (Spells, Swords, & Stealth), and c) the novels that are average in length (under 300 pages) and set up like a series of short stories (Fred the Vampire Accountant). While some of the distinctions come from […]
A Little Too Classic but Still Fun
I finished Super Powereds Year Four a while ago, but I’m only just now getting to reviewing it. I think part of that was life, but more I think it was that I needed to get over the somewhat cliché ending in which everyone good has paired off and leads the lives they probably always wanted (mostly). I’m glad the surviving good guys and gals got happy endings, but everyone living their exact dreams with the person they were obviously meant to be with since […]