I’ve done some short columns in the past couple of years. This is probably the shortest.
My only offering is this video of Vocces 8 singing a medley of secular Christmas songs.
Next week and probably the week after will be single-topic columns (but probably a little longer than this.)
Enjoy the lovely voices.
December 14th, 2022. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
Lady of the Yellow Death and Other Stories by Wyatt Blassingame
I can’t imagine any reader who, having turned over the final page of the 2010 Ramble House offering entitled The Tongueless Horror and Other Stories: The Weird Tales of Wyatt Blassingame, Volume One, was not compelled to proceed on to Volume Two. That first volume had given us seven tales concerning inbred and homicidal swamp-dwelling junkies, a tongue-slashing serial killer, a swamp-dwelling spider woman, the vengeful ghost of a British seaman, a white slavery racket,
December 13th, 2022. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Wyatt Blassingame | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth (Vol. 15): Cometh the Hour by Mike Mignola (story), John Arcudi (story), Laurence Campbell (art), Dave Stewart (colors), and Clem Robins (letters)
Volume fifteen, Cometh the Hour, is a fantastic wrap-up to the B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth series. The separate storylines come together as we watch the world burn and suffer from the giant monsters roaming the earth, birthing new creatures by the minute. It’s a wonderfully horrific vision of the ending of our planet with only a few brave souls standing in the way to total annihilation.
December 10th, 2022. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Mike Mignola | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Neon Darkness by Lauren Shippen
A Neon Darkness (2020), the second book in Lauren Shippen‘s THE BRIGHT SESSIONS trilogy, is only very tangentially related to the first book, The Infinite Noise. It centers on a group of atypicals (the in-world word for people with powers) a full decade before the first book occurs.
Robert Gorham is 18-going-on-19 when he arrives in L.A. for reasons unclear to the reader until much later. His power makes him able to effortlessly manipulate people into doing what he wants,
December 9th, 2022. Skye Walker´s rating: 1 | Lauren Shippen | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
From 2020, National Geographic has put together an article tracing the origins of the Christmas tree. While many cultures used evergreen boughs and ornaments in their midwinter celebrations, the official ruling is that 16th century Germany is the point of origin for the tree tradition as it is now known.
Good Housekeeping offers up a list of the most popular classic holiday foods. I was going to skip this one and then I saw that it had recipes! So here it is.
Atlas Obscura offers their 2022 gift guide.
December 7th, 2022. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky
City of Last Chances (2022), by Adrian Tchaikovsky, is one of those novels that I completely admired all the way through but had a hard time connecting to many of the characters, so that while the reading experience was enjoyable, it was more an intellectual pleasure than an immersive, emotional one.
The novel is set in the titular city of Ilmar, suffering under the heavy boot of an occupation force left over from the city’s conquest three years earlier by the Palleseen,
December 6th, 2022. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Hourglass Throne by K.D. Edwards
The Hourglass Throne, published in 2022, is the third book in K.D. Edwards’s THE TAROT SEQUENCE, following the adventures of Atlanteans transplanted to Nantucket Island. This review may contain spoilers for The Last Sun and The Hanged Man, the two previous books. I recommend reading both earlier books; at least read The Last Sun to better understand what is happening here.
December 5th, 2022. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | K.D. Edwards | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Marion: I finished The Winter People, a supernatural thriller by Jennifer McMahon. I enjoyed it with only a few quibbles up until the last 25%, when it got so outlandish I could no longer suspend disbelief. Now I’m dipping into an abridged version of The Tale of Genji, edited and translated by Royall Tyler. This is the 2001 version, Penguin edition. While I’m not loving it, it’s an interesting window into 10/11th century Japan, storytelling, and fan service.
Bill: These past two weeks (and the next one) I’ve mostly been reading student papers.
December 4th, 2022. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 1 comment |
The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen
THE BRIGHT SESSIONS is a trilogy of spinoff novels set in the world of the podcast of the same name, both media written by Lauren Shippen. I am generally a fiction podcast fan, so when the third book in the trilogy – Some Faraway Place – hit my radar, something about it sounded familiar. Turns out, on a long road trip a few years ago, I had listened to several episodes of the podcast. I remembered liking it so I wanted to give the books a try.
December 2nd, 2022. Skye Walker´s rating: 3 | Lauren Shippen | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
It’s the first Thursday of the month. Time to report!
What’s the best book you read in November 2022 and why did you love it? It doesn’t have to be a newly published book, or even SFF, or even fiction. We just want to share some great reading material.
Feel free to post a full review of the book here, or a link to the review on your blog, or just write a few sentences about why you thought it was awesome.
And don’t forget that we always have plenty more reading recommendations on our Fanlit Faves page and our 5-Star SFF page.
December 1st, 2022. FanLit | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 11 comments |
Oh...and the men used the name "The Great Northern Expedition" to throw people off as to their actual destination, even…
Oh, it IS, Marion! It is!
Sorry if I mislead you in this detail, Paul...the voyage by ship was only the first leg of the quintet's…
The geography is confusing me--how does one get to a village in Tibet by ship? And even the northernmost part…
Oh, this sounds interesting!