https://youtu.be/OLS_7RnWwAs How might a love letter to the gothic genre look? It might, first, be in the novel form: nothing less would capture its grandiose themes, its dark and brooding atmosphere. Then, there must be a house. Not just any house will do. You know the type: a tangle of rust-covered metal gates and fence,... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #127 – Spread the Word by Delilah S. Dawson
Previous | Next This psychological horror packs the punch of peak Stephen King, and its subject matter is reminiscent of the master storyteller's own interests. A strange, religious obsession befalls the dads of Will's new friends, transforming them, turning them violent and cruel. Will's no hero, he's just arrived to town after his own share... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #126 – Nothing of Value by Aimee Ogden
In "Nothing of Value," Aimee Ogden renders a future in which teleportation throughout the Solar System has become commonplace. What are the ethical and moral implications of what is called "transit" and involves the translation of information across vast amounts of space, information rearranged in just the way it was sent out in the first... Continue Reading →
Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree is Cozy Fun with a Necromantic Edge! | Book Review
My Legends & Lattes review! The Dark Lord's Legends and Lattes review. https://youtu.be/qbuMDknoeao Travis Baldree's Legends and Lattes was the cosy fantasy the book-reading world needed in 2022; but does its prequel show that Baldree, former games developer and full-time narrator, can catch lightning in a bottle twice? The short answer: Yes. Yes, it does.... Continue Reading →
Água Viva by Clarice Lispector | A Short Vignette of My Experience
“I know what I am doing here: I am telling of the instants that drip and are thick with blood.” I read Clarice Lispector's work Água Viva at what might have been the most serendipitous time, during personal heartbreak that saw me submerged into a well of grief. It proved slippery to get out of,... Continue Reading →
What I Talk About When I Talk About Books In November – Part 2
Previously on What I Talk About When I Talk About Books In November... Hullo again! Time to cover a few more of the by-gone reads of yestermonth! Last time, I went on a Greek play binge! This time around, I reckon it's time to cover a few weirder reads from the Ancient and Medieval world,... Continue Reading →
Tyranny, Prophecy, and Freedom in Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound
You can find my previous essay on a Greek tragedy (Medea) here. I wrote this for a university class, and I figured I might as well share it with you lot. Aeschylus creates one of Greek tragedy’s most sympathetic figures in Prometheus Bound’s eponymous protagonist. The titan Prometheus’s choice to defy Zeus for the sake... Continue Reading →
The Short Story Reader #122 – Waffles Are Only Goodbye for Now by Ryan Cole
Previous | Next Ryan Cole tells a heartfelt and intimate short story about Bertha, a refrigeration unit that puts a whole new layer of meaning to the notion of "smart appliances". Suffering from a case of PTSD after losing her family--and especially a child--Bertha bonds with a young survivor of the apocalyptic war, developing a... Continue Reading →
The Traitor by Anthony Ryan – Book Review | A Fitting Conclusion to the Covenant of Steel
Filip reviews the final book in Anthony Ryan's Covenant of Steel - The Traitor!
The Short Story Reader # 119 – The Parts That Make Me by Louise Hughes
Previous | Next Here's an interesting piece of flash fiction, one that looks to the ties that bind the individual to who they are. Louise Hughes tells a familiar story in a new way from the perspective of an old freedom-fighter: We shouldn’t have existed as we did. Universal law decreed it, but in the... Continue Reading →