193 reviews found
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In my previous review I talked in broad terms about why I enjoy Supernormal Step, because I just wanted to outline why it’s worth spending your precious time on a new webcomic/graphic novel.
In Volume 2 (Chapters 4–6 of the webcomic), M Lee Lunsford broadens our understanding of Fiona and the main cast, but not before Fiona temporarily leaves them behind in search of solitude. (Hint: That does not work out well for her.)
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Serial webcomics are hard. Pacing and scheduling are a must, and even we readers can have trouble keeping plotlines straight. I completely understand why some people don't follow a comic regularly but instead binge every few weeks after a chapter has finished.
Supernormal Step is one of my favourite webcomics and one of the few serial webcomics I read regularly. It's about Fiona Dae, a woman pulled into a strange parallel universe where magic exists…
Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files universe has a very rich mythology, something I greatly admire about the series. From werewolves to vampires to faerie, Butcher doesn’t just take one or two types of supernatural creatures and run with it—he takes all-comers. He continues this trend with these three novelettes that involve Bigfoot. Working For Bigfoot is a short but nice little collection that takes the edge off waiting for the next novel in the series.
I…
Shall we start by agreeing that Christopher Moore is a literary comedic genius? I’ve had some good times with him. Both Fool and Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d’Art are amazing, laugh-out-loud funny. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal is hilarious and irreverent and the perfect gift to give your atheist or agnostic friends (or your theist friends, if they have the right sense of humour!). Everyone once in a while, though I…
It’s safe to say that the Laundry Files is my favourite of Charles Stross’ series. It’s starting to rank up there with the Dresden Files as far as urban fantasy goes. The two series have a lot in common: each book is a self-contained, madcap thriller with supernatural elements; while overall, the series mythology continues to grow and head towards some kind of apocalyptic climax.
In The Fuller Memorandum, Bob and Mo become tangled…
I love that truth—in this case, history—is often stranger than fiction. Take Razorhurst. The year 1932, and in a run down section of Sydney, Australia, gangs of men rove the streets, scarring each other with razor blades.
Cool alternate history, right? Wrong. That’s true facts. Justine Larbalestier might have created some composite characters based on real people from that era, but the setting is real. These razor gangs of Surry Hills were real. That’s…
I discovered this on my library’s new paperbacks shelf last week and literally squealed aloud. I have a warped perspective of this series’ publication structure because I’ve read the first three books in short succession to get caught up, so I had forgotten The Diamond Conspiracy was coming out so “soon” after I read Dawn’s Early Light.
A lot was riding on this book. With the disavowal of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences at…
I have never read anything else by Peter S. Beagle.
Just want to make that clear, since I know that in some corners of the fantasyscape, he is a Big Deal. He’s Known. Renowned, even. So this little collection of short stories of his was probably met with squeals of glee from fans the world over when it was published (back in 2009, because I am 6 years behind on my to-read list these days).…
There’s a paradoxical tension that lies at the heart of a lot of fantasy. The presence of magic seemingly makes some things that are impossible for us easy, or even commonplace. People can heal (or even come back from the dead). People can shapeshift into animals, or use telepathy, or see long distances without the aid of a telescope. Yet this often occurs in a setting that is pre-industrial (at best), a world that knows…
It took me forever to read Servant of the Underworld, and I don’t know why. It’s great. Aliette de Bodard has created a mystery set in the Mexica (Aztec) Empire in 1480. As a long-lived emperor under whom the Mexica have prospered lies on his deathbed, Acatl, a priest of the dead, finds himself investigating a murder or abduction where his estranged brother is the prime suspect. And rather than making this a straight-up…
So Locke Lamora won the day at the end of his first book, but at a terrible price. He and Jean are the last surviving Gentlemen Bastards (unless you count the estranged Sabetha, whose existence Scott Lynch dangles beneath our noses with all the glee of a writer of a trilogy). With nothing left for them in Camorr, they wind up in Tal Verarr, pulling a heist against…
I was a bad boy and only recently purchased Republic of Thieves. Instead of starting it immediately, I decided to delay the pleasure. It feels strange to think that the last time I read The Lies of Locke Lamora was five years ago. As I suspected, I had forgotten almost all of the actual plot details. I’m glad I decided to re-read this, and to read Red Seas Under…
Did you finish The Atrocity Archives and think, “Gee, I liked this magical computational spoof on James Bond quite a lot, but I wish it had been Bondier and spoofier?” Well, if you did, then The Jennifer Morgue is the Laundry Files novel for you.
I didn’t—so keep that in mind when I say things like, “All I wanted to do with my life was read this book.”
I am not a Bond fan. I’ve…
Poison Fruit, like Autumn Bones, does not let much time elapse between books. The events of Halloween are still fresh in people’s minds as New Year approaches. Now Daisy has to get to the bottom of what the hell-spawn lawyer Daniel Dufreyne is doing buying up land around Little Niflheim. And she also needs to sort out her complicated feelings about her attractions to Stefan and Cody.
I’ll start off with the romance…
Both perverse pleasures and particular perils accompany the act of reading, for the first time, two consecutive books in a series back to back. The pleasures are obvious: having devoured that first morsel, you eagerly consume all else within reach. Sometimes years pass between my readings of books in a series, and by then I’ve forgotten all the characters, and the nods to previous books are much less satisfying. The perils are not necessarily universal.…
Dark Currents, the anticipated debut to Jacqueline Carey’s new urban fantasy series Agent of Hel, got my attention back when it first came out. I saw it on io9, added it to my to-read list.
And promptly forgot about it.
Because that’s what happens when you have a list so long that even if you stop adding books to it today, it will take you about four years to get through it.
Fortunately,…
Right, so you don’t have a soul, which means any supernatural creature you touch turns back into a mortal. Handy, but also it makes you a kind of threat to the supernatural community. Queen Victoria makes you muhjah, which is a fancy term for “I have a bureaucratic position as well as target painted on my back.” And you marry a werewolf member of the peerage. Who is Scottish. Then, suddenly, a phenomenon that replicates…
I wasn’t going to go out of my way to read The Magician’s Land. I’m so ambivalent about this series. But there it was on my library’s New Books shelf … it seemed almost rude not to borrow it. At the very least I was hoping to find closure. Honestly, I got more than that. This is a series that has steadily improved over the three books, with The Magician’s Land probably offering the…
Blood and Iron, not to be confused with the urban fantasy novel of the same name by Elizabeth Bear, is the first entry in a trilogy by Jon Sprunk about fantasy nations at war. Our hero is Horace, a shipwright and carpenter stranded on the shores of a hostile empire, at their mercy, who suddenly finds out he can do magic. What ensues in the slow self-destruction of the capital city of this kingdom…
Mmm, it’s good to dip back into the Laundry Files universe for a little while. Charles Stross is in fine form with Equoid, a delightfully creepy take on unicorn mythology guest starring a young H.P. Lovecraft. Bob Howard is itching to get out of the office, and in a classic case of careful-what-you-wish-for, he gets sent to a country farm with a unicorn infestation. Zombies and tactical teams and chaos and destruction ensues.
The…
Showing 81 to 100 of 193 results