SPOILERS FOR GIDEON THE NINTH BELOW. Something about the absolute animosity between Gideon Nav and Harrowhark Nonagesimus lets you know…these two crazy kids love each other to death. That something isn’t the vague, zeitgeisty knowledge I had about the novel before ever picking it up (thanks, blogosphere!); nor was it an errant turn left down... Continue Reading →
Hullo, lovely people! It’s time to do something I really mean to make a habit of – have meant to, for an entire year! It’s not gone well. Anyway: Trope Check returns for Eyes of the Void, following a year-long hiatus after the first book in The Final Architecture was released. I’ll do a list... Continue Reading →
https://youtu.be/7KUHU75NvP8 Published by: TORGenre: Science fiction, space operaSeries: The Final Architecture (#2 of many, hopefully)Pages: 593 pagesFormat: paperback The sequel to 2021’s Shards of the Earth was among my most-awaited sci-fi titles of this year. When I read Shards I fell in love with its characters, a mishmash of memorable scoundrels who made for one... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCOPQofBjPQ What a complex topic James Blish tackles in his 1959 Hugo award-winning novel! Father Ruiz-Sanches is one of a committee of four researchers sent to explore the world of Lithia and offer advice on what this planet’s role should be regarding humanity’s expansion. When the Father discovers that the Lithian race of perfectly rational... Continue Reading →
Previous || Next When I read the first volume of Thompson and Casagrande's Black Widow run last week, I was taken with the masterful way in which the Black Widow is imbued with brand new purpose. This second volume builds on the solid foundation set up in Ties That Bind by seeing Nat and Yelena... Continue Reading →
|| Next I've written about the first volume of DIE (the comic book) here. After five years of D&D, experimenting with Kieron Gillen’s DIE RPG ruleset this past summer was a revelation. Dungeons and Dragons is largely reactive, in the sense that the Dungeon Master(DM) offers a playground, more or less directed, within which the... Continue Reading →
I don’t know where to begin with this one, really I don’t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxRaOQUz99A The first sci-fi novel I ever read by Robert A. Heinlein got me from the very first: If a man walks in dressed like a hick and acting as if he owned the place, he's a spaceman. It is a logical necessity. His profession makes him feel like boss of all creation; when he... Continue Reading →
The Grimoire Reliquary 