“One never stops to think what underlies romance. Tragedy and terror, transmuted by time. Add a little art in the telling, and voila! a stirring romance, to make the blood run fast and maidens sigh.” (470) I wasn’t sure I wanted to read Outlander (1992) by Diana Gabaldon. I first heard of it through a Cannonball review. Although I believe Mrs. Julien called it a classic, there appeared to be some mixed feelings. The novel was reported as an amalgam of time travel, history, and […]
Dreams of Gods and Monsters
Sometimes writing reviews are much harder than reading. Sometimes you have to figure out how to write a review for a book that you just hated, or a book that you loved so much that it’s hard to see past your own enjoyment to write something remotely intelligible. Other times, you’re stumped because the book hit you in a strange place and it just wasn’t what you were expecting. All three books in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone Sage fall into the category of […]
3 YA New Releases from Entangled Teen
When people complain that young adult novels have nothing to offer the serious reader, it’s pretty clear to me that they’ve never actually read any YA. These new releases from Entangled Teen deal with issues ranging from human cloning and reproductive coercion to arranged marriages and people who ostracize anyone with “impure” bloodlines. Plus, dragons, because YA can get away with being a lot more fun than some other genres!
Writing Science Fiction #LikeAGirl
During the past few days, a couple of interesting stories crossed my screen and they are so perfectly related to my current review that they simply must be referenced. First came the #LikeAGirl campaign from Always, encouraging us to turn that pejorative expression into a compliment. Then came this story from NPR about women writers in science fiction: Women are Destroying Science Fiction and That’s OK — They Created It. As I have just finished Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic The Dispossessed, I must say […]