Posts Tagged ‘Books’

Earthsea: an exercise in humility

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on here. In this time I’ve read lots of great books and have been working on my own novel! Enough to keep me busy, that’s for sure. Lately I decided to read Ursula K Le Guin’s Earthsea series, consisting of A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Read more

Weird Fiction News Flash

There’s been a few bits and pieces on the weird fiction radar lately and since I’ve been doing a lot on video games I thought I better get back to my books. So here goes: Cthullu’s News Desk at nine. Jeff Vandermeer and his wife Anne have released The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals. Read more

World fantasy awards, draft swapping and Margo Lanagan

On the weekend I attended a draft swap meeting run by a dear friend of mine, Jan Cornall. Jan’s a great facilitator, she’s led a number of wonderful authors from first concept to publication, one of them being the award-winning fantasy author Margo Lanagan. [caption id="attachment_384" Read more

Dead, dead, dead: Charlaine Harris and the Southern Vampire Mysteries

There’s been a lot of talk recently about Charlaine Harris’ novels, ever since Alan Ball (creator of Six Feet Under) turned her books into a TV series. TrueBlood has been described as ‘trailer trash vampires’, so I decided to take a look at what the fuss was all about. And I can tell you, Read more

Interview with Eirik Gumeny, author of Exponential Apocalypse

Kat Clay got talking to Eirik Gumeny, author of Exponential Apocalypse and editor of the Jersey Devil Press. In his own words, the book is “the tender, heart-stirring tale of crappy jobs, a slacker cult, an alcoholic Aztec god, reconstituted world leaders, werewolves, robots, and the Read more

Shlocky Holmes and the Case of the Dunderheads

I’ve been going through a Victoriana bingefest lately – Wilkie Collins, Bram Stoker, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen… So I thought I’d hark back to the world’s number one detective, the marvellously arrogant Sherlock Holmes. The famous detective was created by Sir Arthur Conan Read more

So… you know that book called Twilight?

I have a problem. Every time I go to buy a fun, distracting book, I come home with a handful of depressing, literarti treatises on the misery of life. It’s not my fault. It’s just my natural persuasion; on my bookshelf As I Lay Dying sits next to Rape: A Love Story. When it comes to holiday Read more

A tale of two many cities: The City and The City

The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the Read more

Postmodern excavations: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I didn’t read this book. I listened to it. All 29+ hours of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle! It took me nearly four and a half months to get through it all, partly due to an ipod malfunction and partly due to the book’s occasional inability to hold onto the reader/listener. Read more

  • Better World Books The coolest book buying site, because it donates its profits to charity.