Austin Grossman’s Crooked is the best book I’ve read this year. I expected good things from Lev Grossman’s twin brother, but not much otherwise as I am not — was not — a big fan of Nixon or, indeed, of American history in general. Let’s be real, I’m an unpatriotic Europhile who prefers reading about the Tudors to the Kennedys, who will always find the Norman Conquest more interesting than the American Civil War.
October 13th, 2015. Kate Lechler´s rating: 5 | Austin Grossman | Audio, Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 14 comments |
Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie
From the moment I started listening to Salman Rushdie’s new book, Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Nights, I was enchanted. I wasn’t sure what to expect, not ever having read a Rushdie book before, but his leisurely, indirect storytelling style reminded me of a fairy or folk tale, like the 1001 Nights that Rushdie cleverly takes his title from.
Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Nights tells the story of the jinnia Dunia,
October 12th, 2015. Kate Lechler´s rating: 4 | Salman Rushdie | Audio, Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Welcome to another Expanded Universe column where I feature essays from authors and editors of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as from established readers and reviewers. My guest today is Gabrielle Bellot. Gabrielle Bellot grew up in the Commonwealth of Dominica. She has contributed work to Guernica, Autostraddle, Prairie Schooner’s blog, The Missouri Review’s blog, the JFR, and other journals, and she was featured on The Butter’s ‘This Writer’s On Fire’ column. Her work is forthcoming in the Caribbean Review of Books.
October 9th, 2015. Kate Lechler | Expanded Universe, Giveaway! | 3 comments |
Welcome to another Expanded Universe column where I feature essays from authors and editors of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as from established readers and reviewers. My guest today is Gabrielle Bellot. Gabrielle Bellot grew up in the Commonwealth of Dominica. She has contributed work to Guernica, Autostraddle, Prairie Schooner’s blog, The Missouri Review’s blog, the JFR, and other journals, and she was featured on The Butter’s ‘This Writer’s On Fire’ column. Her work is forthcoming in the Caribbean Review of Books.
October 2nd, 2015. Kate Lechler | Expanded Universe | 4 comments |
Welcome to another Expanded Universe column where I feature essays from authors and editors of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as from established readers and reviewers. Our guest today is Fran Wilde, whose first novel, Updraft, debuted from Tor Books on September 1, 2015. Her short stories have appeared at Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Uncanny Magazine, and in Asimov’s and Nature. Fran also interviews authors about food in fiction at Cooking the Books, and blogs for GeekMom and SFSignal. You can find Fran at her website, Twitter,
September 25th, 2015. Kate Lechler | Fran Wilde | Expanded Universe, Giveaway! | 9 comments |
Kate Forsyth’s book, The Wild Girl, was published in Australia in 2013 but has recently been released in the United States in both hardback, Kindle, and audio versions. It tells the story of an unsung hero of the history of fairy-tales: Dortchen Wild, the sweetheart and eventual wife of Wilhelm Grimm and the origin of many of the Grimm’s tales.
Dortchen grows up with six sisters and an invalid mother under the authoritarian rule of her apothecary father,
September 14th, 2015. Kate Lechler´s rating: 4 | Kate Forsyth | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
One would think being raised to the position of Sorcerer Royal — undisputed leader of the Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers (i.e. magic-users) — would be something to revel in. But for Zacharias Wythe, being at the pinnacle of magic society isn’t all that fun. Mostly because that for many of the old white men who make up the Royal society, that “undisputed” part of the title doesn’t seem to apply if, like Zacharias, you’re black and a former slave. Then there are the assassination attempts,
September 10th, 2015. Bill Capossere and Kate Lechler | Zen Cho | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Welcome to another Expanded Universe column where I feature essays from authors and editors of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as from established readers and reviewers. Our guest today is Gerrard Cowan, a writer and editor from Derry, in the North West of Ireland. His debut fantasy novel, The Machinery, will be published by HarperVoyager UK in September 2015. It is the first in a trilogy. His first known work was a collection of poems on monsters, written for Halloween when he was eight; it is sadly lost to civilisation.
September 4th, 2015. Kate Lechler | Expanded Universe, Giveaway! | no comments |
Welcome to another Expanded Universe column where I feature essays from authors and editors of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as from established readers and reviewers. This is a continuation of my series on fairy-tale archetypes.
This past spring, I taught a class on fairy tales and fairy tale adaptations (you can see some of my student’s final projects here). I structured the class around archetypal characters or relationships, such as the Trickster or the Sibling Rivalry. One of the archetypes that I find the most fascinating, however,
August 28th, 2015. Kate Lechler | Expanded Universe | 9 comments |
Welcome to another Expanded Universe column where I feature essays from authors and editors of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as from established readers and reviewers. My guest today is Jessica Reidy. Reidy attended Florida State University for her MFA in Fiction and holds a B.A. from Hollins University. Her work is Pushcart-nominated and her poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction have appeared in Narrative Magazine as Short Story of the Week, The Los Angeles Review, The Missouri Review, and other journals. She’s Managing Editor for VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts,
August 21st, 2015. Kate Lechler | Expanded Universe, Giveaway! | 9 comments |
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! I love how the post highlights her unique…
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…