Reviews

Robert Jackson Bennett has been one of my favorite authors for a while now. His fantasy worlds are realized in stunning detail, with rich characters and intricately woven plots. His latest book, The Tainted Cup, a fantasy murder mystery that kicks off his new Shadow of the Leviathan series, is no exception.

Today, I’d like to tell you about Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. I finished this one a few weeks ago, and I’ve found that the more I’ve marinated on it, my feelings about it have changed.

I wrote recently about receiving my backer copy of Monster Care Squad, which is a Ghibli-inspired RPG about the people caring for the magical monsters that once protected their communities from a terrible illness.

Vigilance by Robert Jackson Bennett In his latest novel, Vigilance, Robert Jackson Bennett shows us the plausible terror of an America which has utterly given up preventing gun violence and instead embraced it.

The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross ⭐️️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️⭐️ / ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️⭐️ It’s hard not to love Charles Stross’ Laundry Files series as a concept. A clandestine government agency of computational demonologists defend the world from horrors beyond space and time, all while trying to keep up with their expense reports.

Star.Ships by Gordon White ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️ / ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️⭐️ Gordon White’s exercise in using data analysis to speculatively reconstruct ancient belief systems is a mind-bending journey through our most ancient history. In this book, he tracks our species’ first departure from what we now call Africa, and the beginnings of both the Laurasian mythological “novel”, as well as the Gondwana “grandmother myths” that came with us.

The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️ / ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️⭐️ This is a book where my opinion of it has changed the longer I’ve been away from it. It’s a strange book, and honestly its structure was nearly its undoing for me.

River of Teeth In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source.

I struggle with the notion of app-evangelizing. In the past, I was as guilty of it as anyone. I would proudly proclaim such-and-such as the ultimate app for something or other. Part of that is an aspect of nerdy fandom, and another large part of it was learned behavior from other online writers. However, I think we can all agree that such statements are disingenous and certainly not an accurate representation of any given market.

Welcome to the Ninth World As I’ve been running my D&D campaign, I’ve become interested in the alternative role-playing systems that came about after my initial foray into gaming. It all started because I was looking for inspiration for fun rule tweaks I could incorporate into my games that would foster more role-play and streamline combat.

I recently wrote about my return to Dungeons and Dragons, and promised another post where I would share what tools our group is using to facilitate our long-distance games. It’s really critical to make sure that game groups are well organized, or many campaigns will fizzle out due to the amount of work involved.

If you had asked me a year ago what kinds of podcasts I was listening to, you would have seen a clear theme: technology. I would have listed off a lot of TWiT shows, a couple CNET shows and miscellaneous other shows featuring the same hosts.

"Shut up, crime!" I just finished watching the film Super, written and directed by James Gunn. I’m having a hard time characterizing how I feel about it. Normally, if I were going to write something about a film, I would spend some time trying to develop the best way to get across my opinion of the movie.

There’s a well known theory that keeping a journal, or at least writing daily, improves your day-to-day life. My anecdotal experience has shown that to be the case for me as well.

Well, after many years of posting my nonsense on the internets, I have finally made the transition from shared hosting to a VPS. This last week, I migrated this site over to a Linode VPS, and I must say that the whole experience has been pretty painless.

My wife gave me Chew: Taster’s Choice as a gift, and having never heard of either the comic or the creative team before, I had no idea what to expect. I was intrigued by the description on the back though, and eagerly sat down to read it the next morning.

I recently read The Strain by the creative team of Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan on a recommendation from a friend. I didn’t know anything about Chuck Hogan but I was of course familiar with the films of Del Toro, which I had enjoyed.

A review double-feature! Excitement abounds! I just recently finished reading the second book in Dan Wells’ clever and compelling John Cleaver series, and since I’ve had an unfinished review of the first book sitting in my draft folder for the last few months, it seems like a fine idea to merge the two together into one post.

There’s something about Halloween that always draws me back to H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. I’m not alone in this, of course. My good friend Quentin Lewis has taken to releasing recordings of himself reading stories from Lovecraft each Halloween as a podcast, which I highly recommend you check out.

What’s that you say? Another epic fantasy by Brandon Sanderson? Sold. I swear, the rate at which Brandon Sanderson produces his massive books is a bit intimidating. The added fact that they are so consistently good marks it as an indicator of an almost terrifying amount of talent and skill.