First things first: I’m going to be that person. I first read A Game of Thrones in 1998, and I was primed for the experience. I cut my teeth on Tolkien before devouring all the epic fantasy I could get my teenage hands on. David Eddings, Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, Tad Williams, Terry Goodkind…..I thought that these series represented what the fantasy genre was. I’d never even heard of Gene Wolfe. I’d never imagined that something like A Game of Thrones could exist. Which seems […]
I want to go back and read this again for the first time.
So, I think I found a new favorite writer. The kind of writer that necessitates my active engagement whenever a new book is published. I mean, look, this book didn’t fundamentally rewire my brain. I’m not re-invigorated, or inspired to change my life. This isn’t like when I read Moby Dick last year. But this book was good. And John Dies at the End was just the right blend of chaotically eccentric and delightfully whimsical. And Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits was charming, and fun, […]
Demonic boogaloo and the electric slide
This book is a hot mess. And I mean that in the best possible sense. *minor spoilers* There’s a dog that wanted half its body shaved so that it could steal food easier. She figured she wouldn’t be recognized that way. Ronald McDonald eats his own intestines. Jennifer Lopez, Morgan Freeman, and (maybe) Fred Durst are in this book – but not really. The main character, Dave, is bitten by a drug named “Soy Sauce” that John, Dave’s friend, got from a mysterious Jamaican. The […]
Keep calm and — bloody hell, it’s The Happening!
I absolutely adored this book. But not in the way I typically do. Wyndam does not paint a rich tapestry of a post-apocalyptic England, nor is he particularly adept at creating complex and layered characters. But he masterfully accomplishes what so many current writers flail at mindlessly: a believable world that feasibly explores the varying degrees in which people abandon their ideas of what society can be in the aftermath of cataclysm. But this was written in 1951. The veterans of WWII had yet to […]