Twenty-fourth book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. I loved this book! Of course, a lot of people might want to disagree; calling this book biased, controversial, flagrant, irrelevant, pompous, simplistic or even plain stupid. Yet, they will have to agree that this is a charming tale about a reticent man. A man who accidentally became the leader of the world’s largest democracy and somehow proved himself worthy of that accident. And we would never be able to know about his secret life within […]
Saga Saga
Target: Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga. Art by Fiona Staples. Collecting issues 7-18 Profile: Comics, Science Fiction, Space Opera It’s been too long, but I’m finally getting around to reviewingSaga Volume 2 and, as a limited time bonus offer, you get Volume 3 thrown in for free. Back when I first picked up this epic comic series, I noted that the one flaw holding it back was the lack of focus and development. To quote myself, “While many of the details needed for true long-term success are still […]
Women Can Be Scary Part I: Agatha Christie
At some point in my young reading life, I think when I was in junior high, I read quite a few Agatha Christie mysteries. I still fondly remember the plots of Murder on the Orient Express and The Mirror Crack’d, but I’m pretty sure I never read And Then There Were None, considered Christie’s masterpiece. Unlike most of Christie’s novels, this mystery does not feature a detective like Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple sleuthing a path to the final revelation of the murderer’s identity. Instead, […]
What’s in a name?
Pen names are funny things aren’t they? It’s pretty impossible for the real author behind them to stay hidden for long. Either the books become so successful that the lack of personal appearances becomes telling, or someone in the know leaks the story just because they can. Sometimes, authors have pen names so they can publish books outside their own genre with impunity (Barbara Vine and Richard Bachman spring to mind here) and it’s no secret who the real author behind it is. It is […]