This is the 10th book of a 13 book series. Don’t start here. Spoilers. Yadda,yadda. Shit got real and the first half or so of this book was tough for me to get through. I’m glad I’m reading it so close to the end of the year, because I might have picked up something else. Here’s what’s tough for me – torture and cruelty. Fighting kinds of violence don’t bother me much, but torture and deliberate cruelty do. To be fair, there are only […]
M Is for Magic by Neil Gaiman
I somehow never read this short story collection by Neil Gaiman, possibly because it’s aimed at a younger audience. Of course, so were Coraline and The Graveyard Book (a precursor of which is featured in this collection), which were incredible, so it only made sense to pick up M is for Magic as well when I spied it on the shelf of a friend. It’s a good book to snuggle under a blanket with and read all in one sitting. “Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. […]
The Most Bizarre City
China Mieville is one of the most unique writers you will come across and this book is a prime example. Essentially a police procedural/murder mystery, what makes it very different is the fact that it takes place in the paired cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma. And by paired, I mean overlaid and by overlaid I mean that if you are in one city, you must not “see” the other city and vice versa. You must “unsee”. If you violate this, you are in “breach”, a […]
Forget the past when it’s too terrible to face
Knocking out another VF book club review with Deerskin. Instead of aliens and greek-like gods, we read a dark fairytale about a princess named Lissar whose mother was the most beautiful queen of all the kingdoms. Her beauty so captivating that all the land including the King hardly remember the princess exists. But alas the queen cannot live forever, so she captures her beauty in a striking painting before her death. It’s almost as if she curses her daughter to live behind her shadow even after death. [MILD […]