DB Books and Reviews

The second entry into the  The Voidwalker Novellas  series now has an official release date. It's scheduled to come out on December 20, 2016.  Because of the episodic nature of this series and our current cultural tendency to "binge" consume entertainment, my efforts towards marketing and review elicitation will be pretty low key until the series is a a bit more developed. That said, I would be more than happy to give out free copies of the first two books in this series to anyone interested in reading and possibly rating/reviewing them. Anyone who'd like to take me up on this offer is welcome to reach out to me on Goodreads . 

November 20th is here which means the first entry into The Voidwalker Novellas is finally out. It's been no small effort to plan out and begin to write this series of episodic novellas so it's with great relief that I have finally put the first entry out to market. That said there's still a lot of work to do since this is an eight-part series so expect more updates to come on future installments. Additionally, as a way to celebrate, Digitarum , the novel I released in 2015, will be free for the next three days (from November 20th through November 22nd)!

UPDATE:  It seems this series has been put on pause for a while (the next issue scheduled for 2017). If/when it continues, I will post an update to this roundup, but for now things will be in a bit of a holding pattern. INTRODUCTION  A while back, I wrote up a Review Roundup post for comic issues I received from this year's Free Comic Book Day event. One of these was an actual issue which kicked off a brand new series by FIREFLY 's Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk. For those that don't know, both men were stars in the cancelled-too-soon show,  FIREFLY , directed by Joss Whedon. It seems that the pair have a comedy web series which features them as washed up actors who used to star in a show very similar to FIREFLY. I don't know much about the show, but their show-within-a-show, titled SPECTRUM , now has a comic series based off of it. Now that I've read the first two issues, I know I'd like to follow the series to it's conclusion so I've decided to crea

Reviews have been rather slow as of late. This year has seen lots of ups and downs and side to sides for me in all aspects of life which has made reading rather tough. In addition to trying to stay on top of the blog through reviewing graphic novels and shorter stories, I have also been working on some new original fiction of my own. While that too has been very slow going, I'm happy to unveil the covers for the first two entries of an eight-part series of novellas: The first of these, The Manor of My Dreams  is scheduled to come out on November 20th of this year with the first following about a month later. I'll have more info on this series as it gets closer to release.

Not as much spooky fun as you might want... INTRODUCTION  Rocksteady's BATMAN ARKHAM ASYLUM video game took the world by storm in 2009. It was creepy without being oppressive, and violent without being (too) disgusting. It put players into the role of the dark knight like they'd never experienced before and is ranked as not only one of the best Batman games/franchises of all time, but also one of the best superhero games period. Where Rocksteady studios got it's inspiration for the dark, hazy atmosphere was from a graphic novel of the same name which came out in 1989. The work was as criticized as it was praised for being an a-typical batman story. Fans raved that it was cerebral and told a story they never though possible in the Batman universe while those not fond of the unique take complained that it just didn't feel like a true Batman comic. Being a big fan of the game as well as it's two primary sequels myself, I was wildly intrigued by the material that insp

  A new regime takes over... INTRODUCTION  INJUSTICE GODS AMONG US YEAR ONE brought forward two of the most compelling volumes of comics I've ever had the pleasure of reading. VOLUME 1 opened with a series of shocking events which would prove to be the catalyst for a DC universe in which things go horribly wrong. Stricken by grief, guilt, and a desire to never let history repeat itself, Superman was slowly pushed over the edge. He murdered the Joker and banded his fellow Justice League members together on a path that there is no turning back from. Heroes who once served diligently to protect the freedom and safety of all now worked to overthrow governments they deemed unjust and replaced them with ... well ... themselves. These once mighty protectors now head down the road of transforming into the world's almighty dictators. It was an absolute treat to see how some of the heroes actually think this shift is a good idea while others are hesitant about it all. Then there'

Every now and then, a weird or wacky idea pops into my head. A lot of these are fun to think about for a little while, but never go anywhere. Others, I actually find a way to bring to life. Such is the case with a short little work of multi-media fiction that I call " The Midnight Lake ." If you want to check it out, you can head over to the brand new page that I've made to showcase this project. 

Death has come to Odols... INTRODUCTION  Shutt follows up his supernatural mystery novel,  BROODING CITY  with a sequel set a few months after the events of this series' debut. I thought the original was a fun, interesting story that did a nice job of introducing the world of the Sleepers, people with supernatural gifts whose moral compass seems to be ambiguous. The story followed Arthur Brennan, a police detective and former member of the shady organization of Sleepers run by a mysterious man named Benjamin, as well as the young Jeremy, whose powers were only just beginning to manifest. The story took a long time to tget going which was one of my main criticisms. It wasn't until the last quarter or so of the book that all the pieces came together and I could feel myself getting into things. I also felt like the parts featuring Jeremy came off as being much stronger than those featuring Arthur and the people in his corner of the world. I just didn't really like t

Heroes robbed from the cradle... INTRODUCTION  Few books are as widely revered as Orson Scott Card's ENDER'S GAME.  It's widely referenced and I always had an idea of what the basic plot points were but never actually experienced the cultural phenomenon for myself. I went in with some pretty lofty expectations, hoping this piece of classic science fiction would live up to it's sterling reputation. MY RATING  5/5   ENDER'S GAME is not only a brilliant scifi ensemble, but also a deep and occasionally harrowing examination of what it means to be both a part of and apart from humanity. CHARACTERS One of the toughest aspects of this story is that nearly all of the key characters are young children. Ender, Petra, Bean, Alai, Valentine, and Peter are some of the more notable members of the cast, but there are a host of others who play an important part in Ender's journey towards saving humanity. All of them are children who never really get to hav

I've had a lot of fun since starting the blog. While I don't read as much as some, I've been pretty pleased with the number of books, stories, and graphic novels that I've read through since I began. As of today, I've written forty-nine reviews on this blog, accounting for over fifty different pieces of fiction (this includes my review roundup posts). As I approach the arrival of my fiftieth review, I wanted to look back on those that I have done so far and link to them here. An Unexpected Bonding The Stonegate Sword Klubbe the Turkle and the Golden Star Coracle Bypass Gemini (Big Sigma Book 1) Your First 1000 Copies Napism.info The Devil's Playthings Injustice Gods Among Us Vol. 1 Hollow Towns Fade to Black Everyone Dies at the End The Devil's Child Injustice Gods Among Us Vol. 2 Stormdancer (The Lotus War Book 1) Mini Review: Sinking Whispers of the World that Was The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games Book 1) Catching Fire (The Hunger Game

*.* Twins to the Throne *.* ================= | An episode of birth | ================= The emperor trails his slave girl through the dim corridors of his palace. She makes haste, shuffling her sandaled feet as quick as she can while remaining ladylike. This is a situation that would surely justify running, but his majesty has not given her permission to do so. The emperor takes long, deliberate strides behind her. He too feels this is an occasion for more than just hasty walking, but he will not suffer to be seen doing so in front of his barbarian captive. A maroon cape falls over his right shoulder and sways with each step. His breastplate glitters in the muted light and a wreath sits securely over his curly hair. This is the way an emperor ought to look, with a dignified swing of his shoulders and a chin held high.  At last, they come upon the bedchamber where the girl opens door and steps aside. The emperor shoots her a coy grin as he passes. Better for her to th

INTRODUCTION  I mentioned in a post a while back that I wanted to try to read a bit of Neil Gaiman's work. Since I knew him as being quite accomplished both in the world of literature and of comics, I figured I should try one of each. For a novel, I read and reviewed STARDUST which I really liked. In the comic category, I know he's mostly famous for the SANDMAN series, but there are quite a lot of volumes in it and I wanted something a little shorter. So I landed on MARVEL 1602 , a sort of alternate reality where an astounding number of Marvel's most beloved heroes and villains all find themselves existing in a time period centuries before the one they are traditionally seen in. I was drawn to this work partly because of the unique art-style, but also because I love the idea of taking characters that normally exist in a contemporary time period and transplanting them into one from the past. I hoped to see brilliant re-imaginings of these characters, some fun action-pa