Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky Translation by Olena Bormashenko Chicago Review Press, 2012 (Originally published 1972 in the USSR) [ Challenge # 34: A book by more than one author. ] Roadside Picnic is an SF classic. Originally published in the USSR at the height of the Cold War — and Communist censorship …
Locke & Key, Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez IDW Publishing, 2008 [ Challenge # 21: A graphic novel or comic book. ] Finished my Three-color mythology pick, Locke & Key. This was Vol. 1 of the series, but I don’t think I’ll be going on. I was eager to …
At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft Originally published 1936 in Astounding Stories [ Challenge # 1: Reread a book you have already read. ] Finished my first challenge this year, H. P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness. I first read it back in college some decades ago, and enjoyed it, but …
The Witcher, based on the writings of Polish fantasy author Andrzej Sapkowski, debuted on Netflix in 2019 and has remained one of its top draws ever since. It’s not hard to see why. The series is full of action, adventure, and romance, tempered with a wry, dry, typically Polish sense of humor. The Netflix show …
In this post I am taking a detour from Charn to talk about fanfic of Charn. Narnian fanfic has been on the internet for at least two and a half decades, though not in the massive amounts inspired by the Disney live-action movies. The pre-Disney fanfics were based on the books, and far more …
Secret Agent Britain’s Wartime Secret Service by David Stafford BBC Worldwide, 2000 [Challenge # 12 : A book featuring spies or espionage.] Super-spy shenanigans, the kind we’re familiar with from James Bond movies and Cold War espionage novels, began in WWII — in the offices of Britain’s Special Operations Executive, a secret agency separate from …
Exhalation by Ted Chiang Alfred A. Knopf, 2019 Ted Chiang is a SFF writer who’s been around for a while but has yet to produce a novel. This collection came out in the early days of 2020 and features his work up to 2019. I checked it out of the Seattle Public Library a …
Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller Ecco, 2018 Look at this cover. Isn’t this one of coolest book covers you’ve ever seen? The black background, the red, white, and blue neon tubes, the circular orca logo surmounted by an Inuit hunter, done in a style harkening to NW Coast Indian art… now this promises excitement! …
Kriss: The Gift of Wrath by Ted Naifeh Art by Warren Wucinich Oni Press, 2019 This graphic novel is the perfect gift for a middle school child of 11 – 12 who is getting into experiencing adolescent angst, heavy metal, Goth culture, and fantasy fiction. The story is a time-worn one: a young orphan and …
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver Harper Collins, 1998 [Challenge # 18 : A book taking place in Africa.] I switched my African read from The Fate of Africa because I came upon this book in one of the local Little Free Libraries and started reading it while in line to drop off some junk …