Book Reviews
Review: “The Making of a Graphic Novel/The Resonator” by Prentis Rollins
This is one of those ideas that seems so obvious you wonder why it hasn’t been done before. Writer-artist Rollins, who’s worked extensively for DC Comics, splits his book in half.
Review: “Chance Fortune and the Outlaws” by Shane Berryhill
Chance Fortune and the Outlaws is a fun story that pays homage to classic comic books and throws in young people having to deal with more than just learning to use their powers. If you enjoy a good read along the lines of Mr. Potter and his friends, comic book superheroes or just want something different to entice younger readers I would recommend this book.
Review: “Team of Darkness” by Tony Ruggiero
In the twenty-first century, amidst six billion people and surveillance equipment able to tell a gnat’s sex from outer space, four monsters hid together in caves just outside the city of Kacianik, Kosovo, for nearly a century, until they attacked a captain of the US Army and left witnesses.
General Stone could barely contain himself. Vampires. Real life, blood sucking, coffin dwelling, God damned vampires. What if they could be captured? Studied? What if they could be kept under control and compelled to follow orders?
Review: “Coronets and Steel” by Sherwood Smith
The setup for Coronets and Steel reminds me irresistibly of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Glenraven. Tho’ to be honest. I think this is a better book with more realistic characters. And that is saying a lot when the plot involves identical cousins, magic, kidnappings, royalty, mysterious middle European countries and much daring do and plot twists.
Review: “A Companion to Wolves” by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
Now this was a surprise. Here is one of those rare books not produced as a precursor to a series.
This is not to say that the land Monette and Bear have created couldn’t support multiple visits. It is merely to say that they have constructed a tale that is complete and unconcerned with possibilities and marketing strategies beyond its own ken.
Review: “Platinum Pohl: The Collected Best Stories”
I’d never read Pohl before dipping into Platinum Pohl, but now I find myself eager to expand my Pohl-ian horizons. This is Grand Master science fiction at its finest. Each one of the stories in here is a gem, a well-crafted little machine.
Review: “Discount Armageddon” by Seanan McGuire
The world is a fairly orderly place, talking mice, gorgons, Chupacabra… these are things of fairy tales, mythology and supermarket tabloids. Not so in Seanan McGuire’s new novel Discount Armageddon, the first book in her new “InCryptid” series.
Review: “Seven Seasons of Buffy”
I try to avoid reading books out of order, and while it usually wouldn’t matter in this case, my having read Five Seasons of Angel before this one brings a couple of things to mind… the foremost being that while editor Glenn Yeffeth obtained fewer essays for the Angel collection, he also seems to have obtained more highly engaging essays for the it than for the Buffy collection. While that may sound like a minor slam of the Buffy collection, it’s not… it’s a big time golf-clap salute.
