This book has 25-50 pages of interesting ideas — sadly it’s 239 pages long.
The focus on GMing tips for fantasy games doesn’t help because I’m not interested in tropey fantasy stories told “straight” — most of the book assumes that’s what the reader is interested in.
This book is a trainwreck and I enjoyed watching it crash — even though I would’ve been better off stepping away from it and averting my eyes. But I couldn’t help myself.
Another Terry Pratchett banger. Mort takes awhile to get going but once it does it’s amazing until the very end. It’s Terry Pratchett’s combination of philosophical, political, ethical, cosmological ideas infused into (mostly) lighthearted fantasy romps that makes more unique and interesting stories that are still enjoyable to read more than 30 years later.
I didn’t know this was a detective mystery novel (not my favorite). At least you can see this in the first few pages unlike in Emma Newman’s previous novel in her Planetfall series, which isn’t a mystery detective novel but wants to be one.
Compared to its predecessor, After Atlas is way more polished and mostly focuses on developing the interesting parts of the universe but surprisingly retains a super rushed ending that doesn’t exactly come out of nowhere but it feels like it.
In Screaming Planet, Jodorowsky collaborates with artists recommended to him by his publisher on short comics with 10 pages or less very loosely related to a flaming planetary object flying through space. The art styles of each short comic are varied as you can imagine, and some are surprisingly good.
Jodorowsky and Moebius being horny on main and getting into some Freudian hijinks.
I’ve seen Moebius black and white art appreciated by some, and I can see why after reading Angel Claws.
Two angsty teens having just finished high school don’t know what to do with themselves. They walk around town, being angsty, people watching and talking shit about everyone. Really ugly art. A little surreal.
Collection of academic articles in comics studies. Starts with a great comic strip introducing the collection itself followed by comic panels drawn by the authors of the articles themselves. Very cool!
Use of Weapons, it’s about Iain Banks’s utopian Culture, and how it deals with autocrats and a freelance mercenary named Zakalwe who doesn’t like how the Culture deals with autocrats, so he takes matters into his own hands.
This is a decent novel but not one of my favorites from Iain Banks. It doesn’t stick the landing IMO.
A grounded yet fantastical story about a young woman, Sasha, who is selected to attend the Institute of Special Technologies. Sasha attends this mysterious college and is thrust into a world of dark academia with widespread and fantastical implications.
Everyone in a small and nameless country becomes immortal, hijinks ensue. death, with a small “d”, shows up, does some stuff then falls in love with a bass player.
An edgy retelling of Peter Pan by Brom, the illustrator who’s work you’ve definitely seen before (Doom II, Diablo II).
Murder on the Orient Express is similar to Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (the other Agatha Christie novel I’ve read recently).
Both novels involve Hercule Poirot on vacation traveling (on a train or on a boat respectively), with the soon-to-be murder victim asking Poirot for help, him declining and then after the murder occurs, Poirot proceeds to solve the murder.
But Death on the Nile was SO MUCH MORE of a compelling read for me. Murder on the Orient Express is… Uhhhhh… Express, it’s fast and straightforward. It doesn’t waste any time. As soon as possible you’re jumping straight into the murder followed by a by-the-numbers solving of the mystery.
Terry Pratchett is an all-timer. The rare case of an author who is immensely popular for the right reasons.
This is a biography about him, and it’s the best one we’re going to get.
Hasn’t aged as well as the first two books in the series IMO.
It’s kind of a retread of the first book with a little bit of the 80s crack epidemic and reganomics commentary spliced into it. It’s not as evergreen as the other books.
An astronaut is abandoned on Mars after a dust storm separates him from his crew. Through journal entries, he tells the story of how he tries to survive.
I’m torn on this one. I enjoyed it but it was missing a bit of polish.
I enjoyed the cast of characters being mostly of Canadian Indigenous ancestry (well, except the villain). It’s not something I’ve seen before (which either speaks to my uncultured-ness or the lack of minority voices in the media I’m exposed to… or both).
A post-apocalyptic story following a messiah-like figure who wishes to both: survive the horrific world she lives in with ripped from the 90s headlines / Mad Max roving gangs of murderers and rapists while also founding her own religion.
Uhhhhh very interesting. It’s a shame that Octavia E. Butler wasn’t able to finish the series. Her work is always interesting if a little uneven.
It was an enjoyable romp but doesn’t necessarily hit the highs of the previous books in the series. As the third and final(ish) book in the series I was expecting something a little bit more. Or maybe I was expecting a little bit less, a more tightly edited and polished story. Either would have been nice.
A collection of science fiction short stories that’ll make you go “huh, interesting…” and might encourage you to think about how technology affects your life currently and how it might affect it in the not so distant future.
A cool guy devil and a flamboyantly effeminate angel living on Earth try to stop the end times from happening because they’ve come to enjoy all of Earth’s pleasures (mosly driving fast cars and reading, respectively). Also, there’s the anti-christ, a descendant of a prophet who’s predicted everything, some dude, etc. There’s a lot going on here.
Set in 2007, the novel is about a U.S. government coverup of contact with extraterrestrial life. You follow the story of Cora, daughter of an exiled whistleblower, who finds herself in the middle of the whole ‘alien’ situation.
As someone who’s been suffering with chronic pain issues for years now, I’m always on the lookout for anything I can do to help myself feel less pain. Underneath all the quackery contained in this book there seems to be a grain of truth (for me, at least). It helped helped me reduce my chronic pain symptoms considerably in just a short amount of time. If you (or someone you know) suffers from chronic pain, I would highly recommend this book.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with perceptual and intellectual disorders: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; whose limbs seem alien to them; who lack some skills yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (a.d. 121–180) succeeded his adoptive father as emperor of Rome in a.d. 161—and in his Meditations he provides insights, wisdom, and practical guidance on everything from living in the world to coping with adversity to interacting with others. It’s surprising how much of his advice has aged well but given his position of supreme power and the changing times (eg. slavery is bad), some of his meditations have not aged so well.
Stephen King tells you about his life and his advice on how you can become better at writing. This amounts to him basically saying “Just write a lot bro” but despite this, this was quite a fun read. And… He’s not wrong.