Currently Reading – China Mieville’s Embassytown
This is the book that has my attention at moment, the upcoming (in May) release from the great China Mieville just arrived in the post (proving commonsense is practiced in some publicity departments). Due to my Imperial concerns and responsibilities, I don’t get to read as much as I like but I always have time [...]
The Passage by Justin Cronin – review
The first thing any reader will probably notice is that The Passage is an enormous book. If you endeavor to read it and you are one of those people who totes the book you’re working your way through with you every where you go, you can be prepared to tone up those arm and back [...]
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart – review
It has been my great privilege recently to read Super Sad True Love Story, the third novel by Gary Shteyngart, winner of the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction for his first novel The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. His second novel, Absurdistan, was named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York [...]
Transformers Exodus – Cybertronian Sausage
Saw something the other day that called Gestalt Mash “heady”, so in the interest of not being pigeon-holed as a venue just for potential kwisatz haderaches and savant-acolytes, I’m talking Transformers today for the rank and file shock troops. Not low brow enough? How about a Transformers novel? Yes, a little Cybertronian literature for the [...]
Boogeyman Nights – Stuffing the Legend
I’m not going to do a lot of traditional reviews here outside of the very focused regular features we have, and instead am shooting for a more conversational pointers or insubstantial dismissals. I talked about The Stuff of Legend a bit over at my collecting blog, Vogue Immunity (EDIT: now Protocult), though I didn’t really [...]
Dreams in a Time of War (a Childhood Memoir) by Ngugi wa Thiong’o – review
What was it like growing up in the rural Kenya of 1938, prior to WWII? Dreams in a Time of War (a Childhood Memoir) by world-renowned novelist, playwright, critic, and author of Wizard of the Crow, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, is an evocative and affecting memoir of childhood that relates those year of the author’s life. [...]
Insectopedia by Hugh Raffles – review
“Say hello to my lee-tle friends!” That’s what I imagined a six-foot tall machine-gun wielding cockroach with the head of Al Pacino said to me in a nightmare I had after reading Hugh Raffle’s latest nonfiction book, Insectopedia, as he gestured about the bedroom at hordes of bugs of all sorts, sizes, and descriptions. There [...]
How To Defeat your Own Clone: And Other Tips for Surviving the Biotech Revolution by Kyle Kurpinski and Terry D. Johnson – review
Sometimes, a spoonful of humor can make science more palatable. That is, if you’re not diabetic. The important question that How To Defeat your Own Clone: And Other Tips for Surviving the Biotech Revolution poses is (the title is a giveaway) how, exactly, can one defeat his/her own clone, should the need ever arise? It’s [...]
BodyWorld by Dash Shaw – review
Welcome to Boney Borough, a place where the unit of currency is credits or creds; the most popular (and illegal) sport is DieBall, a game in which the players rub an adhesive, gooey, and brain-damaging substance called Die Gunk on their hands and bodies to help them hold on to the ball; and where one [...]
Mangakissa – Kitchen Princess by Miyuki Kobayashi and Natsumi Ando
The Kodansha Award-winning Kitchen Princess is a standard high school romantic drama, replete with rivalries, mixed signals, lost loves, and a happy ending. Najika, the princess of the title, isn’t really royalty, but proves noble in the humble restaurant kitchen she uses to create food to please both patrons of the restaurant and her friends. [...]
Breathless by Dean Koontz – review
What if mathematics and Chaos Theory proved that evolution was a false theory? What if, instead, all of the animals that ever lived, including man, appeared basically as they are, full-blown, at some point in time? And what if this was proven true, today, by a new hominid-like species appearing around the globe, tens of [...]
The Conqueror’s Shadow by Ari Marmell – review
The Conqueror’s Shadow by Ari Marmell will be released by Spectra on February 23rd of 2010, and after reading it I am a bit conflicted. How can I be conflicted about a book that I stayed up way past my normal bedtime to read? How can I be conflicted about a book that I took to [...]
