» Books

Can you create a slave? A review of Octavia Butler’s Kindred

Kat — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 13:35:09 +0000

[caption id="attachment_515" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Slave houses at the Laura Plantation in Louisiana"][/caption] I’ve been travelling across the South recently and wanted to read a book that would suit both my weird tastes and reflect some of the history of America. Being a Read more

Earthsea: an exercise in humility

Kat — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:28:06 +0000

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

Kat — Thu, 06 May 2010 23:28:51 +0000

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

Kat — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:36:59 +0000

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. We all met up in an enchanting Read more

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

Kat — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:25:02 +0000

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 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:09:10 +0000

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

Kat — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:34:56 +0000

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?

Kat — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:22:24 +0000

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

Kat — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:16:47 +0000

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

Justin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:47:29 +0000

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