A Star Wars manga! Now I can happily retire and say to myself, I've seen it all. It would be funny, wouldn't it, if the thing to finally get me into manga was a Star Wars product? What a shame it isn't so; that said, I had a fun enough time with The Edge of... Continue Reading →
The Hunger of the Gods by John Gwynne (The Bloodsworn Saga #2) – Book Review
Published by: OrbitGenre: Epic FantasyPages: 656Format: ebookReceived free arc copy from NetGalley in return for an honest review https://youtu.be/3-UcuXBPRiI All sequels should accomplish what John Gwynne’s Hunger of the Gods has. That’s to say, Gwynne’s latest expands the world and characters in such a way as to make The Shadow of the Gods appear a... Continue Reading →
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein – Book Review
https://youtu.be/B7nV20cD6ec This book has got me in a bind. It’s easy to relegate it to one of two neat classifications: either a straight-faced satire that takes the piss out of the military-industrial complex; or else, a fully realised celebration of the serving man’s fraternity, of the sacrifice of the individual for the collective’s greater good,... Continue Reading →
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree – Book Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4FZcNA62LQ Published by: Self-Published, recently acquired by TORGenre: Slice of Life FantasyPages: 318Format: ebookPurchased Copy for my Kindle from Amazon The blogosphere has been abuzz with talk of Travis Baldree’s debut, Legends & Lattes, and for good reason. Slice of life stories are character-driven to their core—no wonder, then, that Baldree’s novel is such a... Continue Reading →
Only Three Weeks Until Wyrd & Wonder Begins!
Wyrd & Wonder, the month-long celebration of all things fantasy, is starting in just three weeks! This is the first time I'll ever take a direct part in the event--I hope to bring to it a discussion of fantastic fantasy games and novels, as well as some humorous pieces in the vein of my Mordor... Continue Reading →
Three Great Optional Rules To Spice Up Your D&D Campaign
As I prepare to jumpstart an ambitious new campaign with my RPG group of six years, I'm excited to explore several optional rules to enrich my players' experience--let's jump into them! 1. Dael Kingsmill's Major Injuries Magical healing can really lower the stakes for your adventuring party. Have a good enough healer, every cut, bruise,... Continue Reading →
Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah – Book Review
Published by: Bloomsbury Genre: Historical FictionPages: 288 pagesFormat: audiobookPurchased my copy from the Rich Humanoid’s Audio-Book-Store-Place. Author Abdulrazak Gurnah won the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents” - that ability to cut through... Continue Reading →
March of the Sequels: The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart (Book Review)
Admit it! You thought I'd miss the whole March book blog event--and I nearly did. But fret not, Reader, I've got you covered with a long overdue look at a sequel that flew past me last year. It's time to gush over Andrea Stewart's Bone Shard Emperor! A Sequel Worthy of the Name When I... Continue Reading →
Red Sister by Mark Lawrence – An Adventurous Discussion (Part #2 of 2)
Previous | Very obvious spoilers ahead! My fellow adventurer Kosara and I have finished the second part of Red Sister – and boy, do we have some thoughts! Read along as we try to make sense of the second half of this riveting fantasy novel. K: So, since last time we started with a brief... Continue Reading →
The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne – Book Review
Reading Norse sagas, in translation, isn’t nearly as engaging an affair as you might hope it would be. Old texts demand not only a deep fount of knowledge and focus rarely found in the twenty-first century, but also context that virtually no non-specialized reader can appreciate fully. They don’t necessarily have all that our minds... Continue Reading →