Imagine if you will that, when you were younger, you had an older relative — a grandfather or great-aunt — who was something of an armchair historian regarding mythology. Every now and then, when you were visiting, you’d make your way to their study, sit in one of the overstuffed chairs by the fire, and ask a question. “Where exactly did Sindbad sail?,” you’d ask; or, “who was Prester John?” or “were there really ever dragons, rocs, or unicorns?” Your older relative would get a youthful gleam of excitement in their eye and start pulling down a collection of books from the shelves with which to answer your question. “Maybe,” they’d say, opening an ancient-looking tome, “and maybe not. I once met an elderly gentleman named Mr. Dong who claimed to have seen a unicorn while on safari in Africa…but I’ll save that story for later. First, let’s see what old Pliny the Elder had to say on the matter….”

There is consolation in conspiracy. Whenever something terrible happens, humans look for answers and they don’t stop looking even when they have found them: It wasn’t Oswald who killed Kennedy, it was the mob or the commies, or the CIA. It wasn’t a drunk driver who killed Princess Diana; it was British Intelligence and the Royal Family. The reason why our minds are drawn to conspiracies is because conspiracies make the world seem a less random and little more comprehensible. Our need to derive spiritual sustenance from a belief that we are part of some grand plan or pattern fuels religion as well as psychology. In fact, one could argue that the whole point of Freudian psychoanalysis is the construction of elaborate conspiracy theories that explain away people’s less desirable character traits:

The initial appearance of the pulp hero in the newspapers, radio shows and cinema of 1920s America was a reassuring affirmation of rugged American individualism in a world that, in the wake of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, seemed suddenly large and uncertain. America’s gradual acceptance of an increasingly multicultural world can be seen in the pulp revivals that followed. The campy, tongue-in-cheek revivals of pulp characters such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in the 1970s had become by the 1980s and 90s outright humor, as the Indiana Jones series and later Evil Dead films let audiences know that it was okay not to take their pulp heroes’ antics too seriously. Indeed, the self-awareness brought on by globalization made it impossible to do so.

Those who believe that the short story is dead and/or irrelevant, and those who don’t see the value in publishing stories in e-zines that pay very little, if at all, to a circulation that is in all likelihood no more than a thousand would be well served to pay attention to the rise of Stuart Neville, because there are lessons to be learned there. Stuart Neville’s story in Thuglit was read by agent Nat Sobel, who signed him and sold his manuscript. Do people read the ‘zines? Yes. Do we know who is reading them? No, it could be anyone. And the more subtle of the lessons is that you never know who is checking you out online

Scalped is a phenomenal series, that’s not news to anyone whether you read it or not. The book gets good press like the ocean gets waves. Constantly. But just recently, I bought the latest trade, Volume 7: Rez Blues, and the next 5 issues to get myself all caught up on a series that consistently amazes me in new ways. While reading through this mammoth stack of one of Vertigo’s best titles I realised what makes this series work, the flaws in the characters. These people are so completely broken and this is massively showcased in the storyline titled Unwanted. This discussion is spoiler filled, so consider yourselves warned.

Tim Powers’s novels are so unlike anything else that I think John Shirley said it best over at Emerald City “Tim Powers is his own genre”. Or maybe he is the most unpredictable predictable writer alive, either way he is the most consistently originally fantasy writer of the last 30 years.

Some would say that beautiful lives bloom only in the shadow cast by death. But while this may very well be true, how could we ever know for sure? Statements like this one and Plato’s ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’ are supposed to be useful and practical advice that help us to determine how we ought to live our lives but if we are going to change our lives and live them either with our heads buried in books or our faces pressed up against the nearest tombstone then surely these sorts of statements need to be tested? Motoro Mase’s manga serial Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit is set in an alternate Japan where the state regularly sacrifices one citizen out of every thousand as a reminder to the others that their lives could end at any time. The Japanese state does this because it believes that by reminding its citizens of their mortality, their citizens will choose to live more productive lives. Ikigami is an exploration of what it might be like to live in such a society.

When young mother Chrissy Shaw asks Stella for help with her no-good husband, Roy Dean, it looks like an easy case. Until Roy Dean disappears with Chrissy’s two-year-old son, Tucker. Stella quickly learns that Roy Dean was involved with some very scary men, as she tries to sort out who’s hiding information and who’s merely trying to kill her. It’s going to take a hell of a fight to get the little boy back home to his mama, but if anyone can do it, it’s Stella Hardesty.

I’ve long believed Warren Ellis is a crime-fiction writer at heart.  The first series of Wolfskin was a clear example of sword-and-sorcery comics, but had that distinct Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars feel, a dyed-in-the-wool crook playing both sides.  Comics like Aetheric Mechanics and Captain Swing are solid steampunk works, yet revolve around cops-and-robbers shenanigans.  One of the driving tenets of our work here at Boomtron is that any good story is going to have a vital aspect of crime fiction in there, even if it’s a small one, and the oeuvre of Warren Ellis is about as nearly perfect an example of that as I can find.

I. Introduction
II. The Holy Trinity – Chester Himes, Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines
III. Gone, Forgotten and Waiting for Discovery – Robert Deane Pharr & Clarence Cooper Jr.
IV. The Best of the Rest
V. Lost to History – Jerome Dyson Wright & Charlie Avery Harris
VI. The tip of the Iceberg (but not necessarily Slim) – Books for further consideration
VII. Conclusion

I. Introduction

Years ago I came across a veritable treasure trove of crime fiction. I was at a local library looking through the books that were for sale when I saw a forgotten box of books tucked away in the corner. Curiosity got the better of me and what I discovered inside the box were worn paperbacks with dated covers by authors that I had never heard of. Books with titles like Whoreson, Poor Black and in Real Trouble and The Jones Men. Books that featured characters with names like White Folks, Kenyatta and Giveadamn Brown. All of these books would tellingly bear the stamp of the Maryland DOC.

Comic book nerds are easy targets.  Fish in a barrel and on crutches, to boot.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but going to down to comics conventions and making fun of grown men dressed in tights or in Klingon make-up is not unlike heckling the Special Olympics.  Maybe it’s less guilt-inducing, but that’s about it.

Maledicte marks Lane Robins’ first effort as a novelist, and a glance at the cover – which depicts and androgynous face in profile, eyes covered with an ornate Venetian-style domino, the title written with gothic type and the tagline: “A novel of love, betrayal, and vengeance” – it quickly becomes clear that Robins is aiming at a brand of dark fantasy of manners and courtly intrigue that have been very successful in the hands of writers like Jacqueline Carey and Ellen Kushner.

Like any other year, 2005 was going to be a heavy book-buying year for me, and like every other year there are those dozen or so books I anticipated even more so than the rest of the worthy choices that I would be collecting to add to my book cases. The added anticipation of these “choice” works is born of pure personal speculation, books I have been waiting for, or authors who were above even being just proven commodities. It is out of these books I thought the cream of this year’s crop would derive from.

Jo Graham embarks on an ambitious project with her debut Black Ships as she Graham reinterprets the story of The Aeneid, re-locating Prince Aeneas and his quest for a new homeland to the late Bronze Age of the Mediterranean world.

Empire in Black and Gold is the debut of British author Adrian Tchaikovsky and the first installment in a trilogy titled Shadows of the Apt. In his debut Tchaikovsky gives us a heroic narrative where a small group of travellers offer resistance against overwhelming odds – a narrative pattern typical of epic fantasy. Empire in Black and Gold is, however, a fantasy that is far from generic. Rather it offers a story of politics, war and ruthless imperial aggression set in a highly imaginative world inhabited by nations that model themselves in the style of their insect totems:

The ability to boil something down to just one word has power. To use that word is impressive but to know the meaning of the word is the key to unlocking a world that exists behind the façade of reality that every man faces. To know the meanings of the true powers of the world is a gentlemen’s club of exclusivity and some degree of intimidation. Casanova knows how to use these acronym as the magic words they are, and it is building on a rich history of spy words always meaning so much more, but being able to say it all in just a handful of syllables.

The Time Weaver is the fifth and final book of Shana Abé’s drakon series, which is a historical fantasy-romance about, yes, glittering dragon people.  It follows Honor Carlisle, the only drakon Gifted with the ability to weave time, and her quest–aided or hampered by her adoptive mother who Dreams the future–to change the path of her destiny.  Not the part where she ends up with Alexsandru, the dark drakon prince of her dreams in every time she’s ever weaved herself into, but the part where everything and everyone she loves end up destroyed while she can only watch it happen.

The fact that Warren Ellis has a run on any X-Men title should be enough to merit pause and reflection. That he was then able to craft a science fiction dirge about mortality and creation after the pop sensibilities of Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s run is a feat unto itself. Reading through the first two arcs of Ellis’ run I was struck by the notion this comic was completely about death. On many levels. The death of a dream, the death of creation, and ultimately, the death that always comes for us and the choice we must make in its face.

Irish author John Connolly is perhaps best known for his crime stories that hover on the edges between traditional detective stories and supernatural horror, but with The Book of Lost Things, Connolly travels deeper into fantasy-land, reinventing age-old fairy tales in a beautiful and poignant story of childhood and loss.

I was going to write an essay describing the state of the speculative fiction genre, or describing my uneasiness with certain genre-oriented tenets, but I decided not to. I thought, then, that I might write an essay describing the state of fiction in general, because the idea of speculative fiction, for me, is something much wider than what is published in fantasy and science fiction magazines; these stories can be found in many literary periodicals as well. I then decided that it would be best for me to write only small fragments of belief, because what I think changes so quickly, so often, that I would hate to be kept to my word. I hate not being able to change my mind about things, and putting things in print makes that more difficult. But I do have some ideas that don’t change very much; or if they do change, it’s not in very big ways, but more like refinements. Also, there’s a lot of good stuff going on in and out of the genre these days. So instead of an essay, I’ve jotted down some notes. I’m not sure if they really make much sense, but they’re notes towards something more extensive, something still partially submerged, like Hemingway’s famous tip of the iceberg.

What do authors do when they’re not writing?

I race my dogs in a sport that is fun, loud, exciting, and crazy. It’s called flyball.

You may have seen this sport on Animal Planet or on ESPN. If not and you’re interesting in seeing what it’s all about, you can find racing videos on YouTube.

What is flyball? Whenever I explain it, people’s eyes glaze over. Here’s the description from NAFA–the official site of the North American Flyball Association.

One could argue that the enduring popularity of genre motifs is a direct result of the death of God.

Prior to the Enlightenment, the people of the ancient and medieval worlds knew their place.  They knew that there were gods and demons, monsters and spirits. They knew that the good things in life could be lured to them by undertaking certain actions and they knew that the bad things could be kept in the shadows by undertaking other actions. They knew that their lives were meaningful and they knew that they were part of the elaborate tapestry of myth, prophecy and magic that held the world together. However, as science cast its light into the darkness old certainties were overturned and magic was forced from the world along with that sense of purpose that the ancients took for granted.  Suddenly, humanity knew that there was nothing to fear because nothing really mattered. Instead of ritual and magic, humanity contented itself with paperwork, breakfast cereals and trips to the bathroom. We had successfully dis-enchanted the world.

Door Number Three is a book that not only requires but demands to be read a second time. In fact, the desire to immediately start reading it again hits you as soon as you finish it. Embedded in the text are references to and even jokes about the story at hand. Multiple readings, while necessary, are never tedious. It is a puzzle box of a novel that proves to be challenging to open, a delight to read and rewarding once opened.

The award winning Patricia A. McKillip is one of the prominent authors within fantasy fiction, but whereas notable masters of the genre like J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin work on an epic scale, McKillip’s fantasies are more intimate and dreamlike. The Book of Atrix Wolfe can in many respects be likened to the detailed and colourful tapestries of the late medieval period, where vividly archaic figures of humans, animals and mythological creatures are intertwined with a myriad of organic ornamentation. Supported by a wonderfully lyrical and sensuous prose, the McKillip weaves an evocative and enchanting narrative composed by motifs and themes from myth and fairy tale (fx the Wild Hunt, the Horned Hunter, the Faerie Queen) that she elegantly re-orders and re-interprets into something entirely unique.

ASH – A Secret History can in many respects be regarded as Mary Gentle’s magnum opus, both in terms of volume (a whopping 1100 pages) and in terms of its ambition and scope. It is also a work of literature that is very difficult, if not impossible, to categorize. It is simultaneously historical fiction, alternate history, fantasy and science fiction. The novel was awarded the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2000. It should also be noted that while ASH is published in one volume by Gollancz in the UK, it is published in four volumes (A Secret History, Carthage Ascendant, The Wild Machines, Lost Burgundy) by Avon Eos in the US.

This book review is proving to be a real challenge. Mark Charan Newton has penned a book so rich that trying to do justice to its many themes, characters and story arcs is taxing my writing ability in a whole new way. In fact, it’s akin to trying to review five separate but connected novels simultaneously.

By now I suspect you’ve guessed my conclusion:  it is a masterpiece of the genre. Let me try and tell you why I experienced it that way.

This book is well-named.  Its title and subtitle are intriguing–they got me to look at its premise.  Which is also intriguing:  Two years after his murder, Matthew Swift wakes up again.  His house is no longer his house, and his closest friends are all dead.  He has no refuge except his wits and his quest for vengeance….

Escapement is the sequel to Jay Lake’s critically acclaimed novel Mainspring, wherein he maps out an alternate Earth anno 1900. Lake has quite cleverly constructed a world that for the most part resembles ours yet differs in one very important aspect – Lake envisions the universe as an enormous clockwork whose brass mechanisms are, mostly, visible to the naked eye. Thus Earth is powered by a mainspring, hidden in its core, it circles around the Lamp of the Sun on a brass rail and it is divided by an enormous equatorial wall, topped by a brass gear train that physically connects the planet itself to its orbital trajectory around the sun.

Elizabeth Bear is a very talented, imaginative and highly prolific writer, who, since publishing her first novel from 2004 (Hammered), already has 13 whole novels under her belt (though one of them, A Companion to Wolves, is co-authored with Sarah Monette). She has primarily written within the genre of science fiction (fx Dust and All the Windwracked Stars) but has recently begun making forays into the territory of fantasy and alternate history with novels such as New Amsterdam and the subject of the present review. Blood and Iron is also an instalment in a larger series of novels called the Promethean Age, of which four books (Blood and Iron, Whiskey and Water, Ink and Steel, Heaven and Hell) already have been published. These novels explore a slightly alternate Earth, marked by a secret, 500 year old conflict between Faerie and the Prometheus Club – a secret society of human magi that seeks to protect humanity from the wild and dangerous creatures of Faerie.

Evermore is the first book in Alyson Noël’s new YA series, The Immortals.  Fittingly, considering the title, a lot of E words popped into my mind when I was thinking of how to describe it:  Enchanting.  Exciting.  Enthralling.  Enticing.  All of them words, as well, of seduction and magic, which are two of the book’s main themes.

The third is loss.

Shana Abé’s drakón (read:  dragon) series is for people who read both fantasy and romance.  While the series does have an overarching plot of the drakón vs. their human hunters, the main focus of each book is the individual relationship developing between the hero and the heroine.  The books are thus correctly shelved in the romance section of most bookstores. The drakón are shapeshifters who can move between human, smoke, and dragon.  They are an insular clan living in wide-open secrecy in rural England.  The books are set during the mid- to late-1700s and conform to many standards of historical romance–basically, they are paranormal historical romances.  A couple key points to understanding the drakón as a people and as characters:  the females are for the most part unable to Turn out of their human form.  Gemstones and precious metals sing to the drakón and, in a high enough volume, can sometimes control them, drive them mad, or simply cause them to lose themselves in the song.  The tribe is ruled by an Alpha, who is somewhat answerable to the council who enforce the tribe’s restrictive laws; none of the tribe is allowed to leave their shire without permission, with death as the standard punishment for “running.”

Imager is the first book in a new fantasy world for Modesitt.  It introduces us to Rhenn, a young journeyman portraiteurist who begins to suspect that he might have a small talent for imaging when he begins to correct his own brushstrokes using only the power of his mind and his inner vision.  His talent is seemingly so small, so useless, that he does not present himself to Imagisle, home of all the city’s Imagers, to be tested.  His only ambition is to make it through the rest of his journeyman training and become a master painter.

Laura Lippman, author of the popular Tess Monaghan series, takes a break to explore a stand alone novel. In To the Power of Three she takes an old mystery novel concept, the locked room mystery and updates it, using it to explore upper middle class suburbia in northern Baltimore County.

To the Power of Three opens with a letter being written on the eve of a school shooting by the shooter. Before the start of first period the next day a murder will take place behind a locked bathroom door. Three seniors who were life long friends: one will be dead, one will be critically wounded and the other injured. The only living witness and most of the evidence points to one outcome but a few minor pieces of evidence and the professional eye of a veteran murder police point to other possibilities. What really happened in that room? What caused such a breakdown in this supposedly unpenetrable friendship? Is someone lying, if so why?

Letter from Jane Austen to Seth Grahame-Smith

Dear Sir,

I have recently become acquainted with your work as a novelist, while I believe your acquaintance with mine is of a much longer standing.  Nevertheless, I do not scruple to use the term acquaintance to describe your relation to my work, despite the fact that it was the base for your own, for, in your attempt to re-envision my novel, you showed how soundly you had misunderstood it.

I hope my words do not bring you distress, but I believe them just, and will endeavor to explain to you my dissatisfaction with your manuscript.

The Nine Kingdoms series is another offering from a writer who normally writes romance. Despite the fact that these books are placed in the romance section at bookstores (along with the rest of Kurland’s work, which belongs there), they are fantasy. Not fantasy-romance like Shana Abé, but romantic fantasy–the difference to my mind being that in fantasy-romance, the plot and the events of the book are based on the love story (like traditional romance novels), while in romantic fantasy there is a larger story in which the romance is neither the main/only plotline nor the focus of the storytelling.

Darkborn is a fantasy novel that I’m not quite sure how to further classify or qualify.  It’s not quite romantic fantasy, because even though it has strong themes of love, it is not a love story.  It’s not sword and sorcery, because there are no swords and almost no sorcery.  It’s not epic fantasy in the way most people mean the term, because even though the consequences of failure would affect their entire race, the mission is not a sprawling adventure that covers half the known world.  Dark fantasy is perhaps the closest (even aside from the lovely pun it makes on the title and the world itself), but even that term implies a moral ambiguity and intrinsic hopelessness that aren’t quite apt for this book.  So, it is simply a fantasy novel, an interesting story intersecting love, loyalty, politics, and mystery in a world that is not our own.

Warbreaker is Brandon Sanderson’s second standalone fantasy novel. It is unrelated to any of his other books. The process of writing this book was somewhat unusual, earlier versions of the story were released under a creative commons license on the author’s website  so the reader could more or less follow the creative process. I must admit I have not read any of the earlier drafts, by the time this book came to my attention the author was almost done writing it, but I like this idea a lot. I guess the sales the author is now waiting to see how this experiment impacts the sales. From the quality of the book I’d say it should do very well. I think it is Sanderson’s best book yet.

Daughter of the Forest is the debut of the New Zealand author Juliet Marillier and the first book in the widely acclaimed Sevenwaters Trilogy. It offers a deep-felt re-telling of “Six Swans”, an old folk tale that exists in many variations throughout Germany and Scandinavia. With this novel, which was awarded the 2001 American Library Association Alex Award, Marillier follows into the footsteps of such literary giants as the famous Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, who set his version of the tale of the swan brothers to paper in 1838. Marillier relocates the Germanic tale to Ireland during the Dark Ages, a move that allows her to enrich the story with the rich Celtic lore of the Fair Folk, the Tuatha Dée Danann.

For 2005, THE GIRL IN THE GLASS won the Edgar award for Best Paperback Original from the Mystery Writers of America. You might think a crime-writing award a strange one for Jeffrey Ford to receive if you’ve principally considered him an author of the fantastic, but this tale, overlayed with fantastic illusion, is about the darkest acts of human arrogance.

My latest review is for Counting Heads by David Marusek. This is a catchy read. The story pulls up sort of like a shiny new car to whisk you off to an exotic location. It is March 30, 2092. That is announced immediately like a road sign. The technology is exotic and plentiful from the get go, so that serves as an invitation to put the imagination on cruise control, kick the seat back and enjoy the scenery that Marusek supplies along the way.

With textual help from some well-known names, but primarily from the inspiration of classic Anglo-Saxon storysongs, Charles Vess has created a unique form of graphic novel. Recently reprinted in softcover, THE BOOK OF BALLADS is a gorgeous pictorial songbook, meriting exuberant praise and permanent shelf space for its artwork even above the rich story content. I warn you now that this review is lengthy, but there are thirteen different ballads, and this title deserves the attention.

Shades of Milk and Honey is not an action-packed novel, nor is its plot based around numerous startling events. It is foremost a story about relationships–more specifically, relationships as viewed by the main character, Jane Ellsworth. It is a look at a certain moment of her life and how she interacts with the people around her. Comparisons made to the style of Jane Austen are not awry. Through the first few chapters, I was reminded of the relationships and expectations in Sense and Sensibility–more specifically, the sisters, their differences, and the concern for their futures.

Readercon 18 was held July 5th through the 8th, 2007, in Burlington, MA, USA. Readercon is known as a very focused convention: there are none of the art shows, music, gaming, costumes, etc. that one often sees at conventions of the fantastic. Instead the attention is lavished on the convention program — the panels, talks, readings and interviews. As the name suggests, Readercon is very much a convention by and for those who share a love of books that require discussion.

Kushiel’s Dart is Jacqueline Carey’s highly successful debut and the first instalment of a trilogy that chronicles the exploits of Phèdre nó Delaunay – exquisite courtesan, talented spy and god-touched masochist. The book received the 2002 Locus Award for Best First Novel, and it established Carey as one of the new and innovative talents within the fantasy genre.

The Dosadi Experiment is set in the same universe as Whipping Star, which has recently been reissued by Tor. After reading that book I just had to reread The Dosadi Experiment as well. First published in 1977, seven years after the first ConSentiency novel, I consider it to be Herbert’s best non-Dune work, although I have to admit there are still a number of his novels I haven’t read yet. It is also a very densely plotted and inaccessible novel. That plus the fact that every other work Herbert wrote tends to be buried under the enormous success of Dune makes it a somewhat underappreciated book in my opinion. For the basic idea of the ConSentiency I am going to refer to the Whipping Star review, otherwise this review will be excessively long.

If you haven’t yet read Titus Groan, then for all your life, the infant heir to castle Gormenghast has waited for you. Certainly for most of your life anyway, since Book One in Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy was first published in 1946. In its day, Titus Groan wasn’t relegated to the fantasy shelves as it might be now, but was a sensation and critically celebrated- as it well deserves- next to other great novels. For whatever reason, it has since faded into twilight, and is today even less mentioned than read. Still, the good news is that Peake’s world has exquisite staying power. Indeed, it is timeless. For a willing reader, it retains the transformative power that defines a classic.

It’s a process that places abnormal demands on you and on the people around you. If this is the way you choose to express yourself creatively, there is a price to be paid for it. But there’s also a great reward at the end.

Seymour Shubin’s WITNESS TO MYSELF is not the typical fare usually found beneath the lurid cover of a Hard Case Crime paperback. For one thing, the protagonist is a decent fellow, unlike the usual noir lead who, at his most charitable, pitches a fifth of whiskey at his victim’s head as a peace offering of anesthetic for broken fingers.

In the five years since the third volume in his Song of Ice and Fire saga, George R. R. Martin has become the most popular and the most respected author in epic fantasy. As a thirty-five year veteran writer with a bevy of Hugo and Nebula awards, he deserves every bit of it. But the fanfare and expectations have attracted stringent scrutiny to the fourth volume in the series, A Feast for Crows. This novel does continue the saga in Martin’s uniquely brilliant style, but it suffers from an expanded scope and a truncated cast of characters.

Lawrence Watt-Evans begins his latest sword and sorcery series with THE WIZARD LORD, Volume One of The Annals of the Chosen. In the land of Barokan, magic is everpresent. The ler are the spirits within every living and nonliving thing; they’re in the air itself. To cooperate peacefully, people have had to learn to satisfy their local ler’s requirements which vary widely and are administered by the priestly class. Wizards, on the other hand, can conjure wild ler, and a fascinating arrangement has developed between them and human society over the centuries.

Caitlin Sweet’s debut novel – A Telling of Stars– was nominated for the Locus Best First Novel of 2003 and the Crawford Award for the Best First Novel 2003, given a special mention by the Sunburst judges in 2004 and was heavily praised by certain friends and authors whose opinions I trust. So, as soon as a copy came my way, through the mysterious channels and numerous hands that constitute overseas shipping (the book has only been published in Canada thus far, making it slightly more difficult to obtain in other parts of the world), it leapt to the top of my reading pile. And it didn’t take long to devour. Partly because it is that most rare of things: a short(ish) stand-alone fantasy novel, weighing in at a svelte 373 pages and partly because it is written in a lyrical, sensual prose that delivered me quickly from chapter to chapter.

The Scar was the first novel China Mieville wrote while being known as a major figure in the world of speculative fiction and with the expectations that come along with such praise. Perdido Street Station, aside from being in my opinion one of the finest works of speculative fiction I have ever read, achieving a brilliance born of vivid imagination and more than occasional examples of linguistic superiority — it was also wake up call to the genre. It was harder to not draw comparisons, or more aptly to deny as Perdido Street Station was picked up by Del Rey sharing shelf space with other works that seemed to have misconstrued traditional with stagnant.

Wow, the joy and surprise of super-sized digital.

Typically, especially at my age, I tend to tune out action in comics unless I’m reading manga and it’s partly because I feel like writers today, especially in superhero comics, view them as elements they have to include in the actual character story they want to get to. The number of actual action scenes that I’d consider memorable over the last several years in western comics would not cause me to use all of the digits my two hands afford me to recount. Thor hammer heaves during Infinity are few and far between.

Much like waiting for the trade I decided to combine my reviews of the first four issues of VALIANT’s Divinity, the Matt Kindt written introduction of a new character into the VALIANT universe, and as an aside, one of the best comics of last year. Why should you care? Well, I’m pretty smart so you should read my reviews. Actually, I’m actually not smart at all but I do actually try to give my thoughts and convey my experience from reading the comic and not just summarize them, and I enjoy people who do the same so you might too. Or you might hate it, and that’s totally cool too. I should remind people that I did these as the single issues came out, so if I look dumb with some, well to be honest most, of my guesses it’s because I didn’t just read a trade and review all of the issues as if it was one sitting, but instead combined 4 separate reviews I did.

I’m not too into looking at excerpts  mostly because I get enough galleys/ARC’s to fulfill any desire — that I don’t even really have anyway — of checking out things that I want early to really even keep up with excerpt releases, much less read them.

Full disclosure, I don’t go to boutiques to buy anything anymore (okay, okay, I bought Book of Death: Legends of the Geomancer), not even for free, so Free Comic Book Day is kind of lost on me but I do understand that publishers may be under the impression that it is worthwhile so I do loosely monitor what’s coming out for FCBD so I don’t miss anything that would cause me to not have… you know… everything related to what I like.