What happens when an amazing story is torn apart by the author in the name of style over substance? Lavie Tidhar self-sabotages his latest novel, The Violent Century, just like that. Essentially, Tidhar is exploring an alternate reality where an unnamed catastrophic event caused hundreds of people around the world to transform into superhumans. Fogg and Oblivion, two British agents mostly used for information gathering rather than combat, control fog and dissipate matter, respectively. They are reporting their exploits in every major interntational war from […]
That Looks Nothing Like Nosferatu, Mr. Hill (A Robert CBR6 Review)
In NOS4A2, Joe Hill takes his remarkable eye for detail and applies it to a wide and expansive universe full of rich, memorable characters. The general throughline is Victoria McQueen and the discovery of inscapes. As a child, Victoria (or Brat, as her father calls her) finds out that if she rides her bike fast enough, she can make a demolished bridge appear that leads her to whatever she looking for. A fight with her parents leads her straight into trouble: a serial child abductor […]
Of Swifts and Gin (A Robert CBR6 Review)
Christopher Beale is a teacher without a school, pulled back to England after years of teaching English in a strict Muslim town in Borneo. His father has landed in a nursing home after a stroke, but Christopher still needs work. He takes on a private teaching job at the home of Lawrence and Juliet Lundy. Lawrence no longer goes to school and his mother Juliet wants a teacher to live with the family as a mentor, educator, and friend. Stephen Gregory has crafted a fine […]