DB Books and Reviews

INTRODUCTION  The Queens come back for a second helping and they hold nothing back this time. There's more blood, more irreverent dialogue, and borderline pornographic levels of nudity. When I reviewed RAT QUEENS VOLUME 1: SASS AND SORCERY I praised the volume's constructive approach to feminism and how much each of the characters shined, but criticized it's lack of focus when it came to the central narrative. I certainly didn't think it had a bad story, it was just clear to me that there were bigger things coming and that most of the first volume was meant to simply develop the characters and define the world. For what it was trying to accomplish, I think it did a marvelous job and was very excited to jump into this series' second volume. HOW I RATED IT  4/5  I definitely liked RAT QUEENS VOLUME 2: THE FAR REACHING TENTACLES OF N'RYGOTH every bit as much as I enjoyed the first installment. It does address some, but not all, of my issues with the previou

INTRODUCTION  This is a review that I've been putting off for a while now mostly because of my mixed reactions to it's level of complexity and the amount of time the story takes to ramp up. But now that I've had ample time to think on it, I think I'm finally ready to share my thoughts. I read THE GOBLIN EMPEROR by Katherine Addison for the 2015 BookTube SFF Readalongs and had a hard time getting through it initially. I set it aside for a little while so I could read other things, not so much because this was bad, it was just rather heavy to get through and I had some other reading goals at the time. I did come back to this though and am very glad I did. My impression of the fantasy novel after reading the first half was that it was a somewhat overly complex world filled with a lot of dreary political intrigue and characters that were too cold to connect with in the ways that matter. I found myself struggling with the utter hopelessness of it all and didn't find

INTRODUCTION  As part of the BookTube SFF readalongs , I picked up the July/August issue of UNCANNY MAGAZINE. The group was really only reading "The Midnight Hour," which appears as the first short story in this e-magazine, but I figured I'd just read through it in it's entirety since it's a lesser known publication which actually appears to have gotten it's backing from Kickstarter. I've been in the mood for some good short fiction for a good while now so I was very much looking forward to seeing what this had to offer. I've departed from my typical review format for two reasons. One is that this is an anthology type work which spans some very different pieces by a host of different writers. Due to this, it would be pretty tough to share my thoughts in the typical Characters , World / Setting , Plot / Tone format since those categories would be different for each story and wouldn't make sense for the poems, interviews, and essays that come

\\\\ A Thunderous Applause //// ================= | An episode of death | ================= I bow my head and pinch my eyes shut, doing my best to keep everything quiet and dark, but nothing can drown out the roar of the crowd that sits above me. My breathing comes sharp and my muscles feel tight. I exhale deeply and make short hops up and down while I shake my arms out. Then I hear footsteps coming towards me. My hazelnut eyes pop open before I take a few steps over to the barred door. I see the guards come down the narrow corridor. They wear shimmering silver armor – which is the only thing in this dingy prison that shines. There’s a savage spark in their eyes as they slip the key into my door and unlock it with a clank. "Time to go, kid," one of them says hoarsely. They each take one of my arms and tug me along gruffly in the direction that they came from. The passageway opens into a chamber where they toss me onto one of the benches which line either

My initial motivation in creating this blog was to promote myself as a writer. I'd read in several places that book-related blogs are one of the best ways for an author to have social outreach to readers as well as other writers. When I contemplated starting one, I'd already written up a few reviews on Goodreads so I had some content to get me going and I'd used Blogger before so there was basically no learning curve in the actual construction of this blog. So I threw up what I had for reviews and made sure to add in a page about my book, Digitarum  as well as any other published works I would come out with in the future. I didn't know if I'd like blogging about books whether they were mine or someone else's, but now that the blog has been around for a while, I can definitely say that this is something I enjoy doing very much since it has allowed me to share my thoughts as both a reader and a writer.  Ever since I got an awesome day job, I've been a

INTRODUCTION  Last year I read SIXTH OF THE DUSK , a novella by Brandon Sanderson, as part of the 2015 BookTube SFF Awards . While I didn't think that any particular part of Sanderson's writing stood out, the culmination of how he wove all the pieces together is what struck me. It all came together to form one of the most memorable stories I've ever read. This year, another one of Sanderson's novellas made the shortlist for best short fiction and I bought it on Kindle without hesitation. PERFECT STATE looked like it would be even bigger and bolder than SIXTH OF THE DUSK so I got pretty hyped to read this. Thankfully, Sanderson struck gold a second time for me with this one! HOW I RATED IT  5/5  This took me on one of the most creative and cerebral narrative joyrides I've ever taken. It was fun, it was innovative, the imagery was lush, and there's a certain glamour to everything. It's a must read for basically anyone. CHARACTERS Kai is the main man

INTRODUCTION  When I read STORMDANCER (THE LOTUS WAR BOOK 1) I was blown away by Jay Kristoff's aching melodrama and vibrantly stylized prose. While I still need to read the rest of that trilogy, I was also very intrigued by a more recent book with his name attached to it. ILLUMINEA (THE ILLUMINAE FILES #1) is a collaboration between Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman. At a superficial level, it's a space opera starring two teenagers and a psychotic artificial intelligence. There are also shades of a Z virus, corporate corruption, and Battlestar Galactica style space combat thrown in for good measure. But what separates this seemingly typical piece of science fiction literature is HOW the story is told (more on that in just a bit). Basically, I'd been interested in this book since it came out, but finally had an excuse to pick it up when the BookTube SFF Awards group placed it on their 2016 shortlist. When it came time for them to do the readalong for this one, I gladly jo

INTRODUCTION Every now and then, I come across something so unexpectedly good that it just blows me away. I've had a couple of these occurrences as a result of my participation in 2015's Booktube SFF Awards Readalongs which are hosted by the Goodreads group of the same name. Last year, I enjoyed books like RAT QUEENS VOLUME 1: SASS AND SORCERY , and SIXTH OF THE DUSK . During this year's readalongs , I began with  DESCENDER VOLUME 1: TIN STARS , a graphic novel I'd never heard of before. It's published by Image though which is the same comics distributor that prints the RAT QUEENS series and it looked really cool when I checked it out, so I decided to give this one a chance. HOW I RATED IT 5/5 The art, the characters, the world, the story, everything just left me stunned and wanting the next volume in my hands immediately (sadly, it's not out just yet). In the meantime, I at least get to write about how fantastic this graphic novel is and all the reasons

One of my all-time favorite pieces of fiction is Lois Lowry's THE GIVER. But there's more to the story than just one book. The problem is that I've never actually read any of the three companion novels so recently I arranged to fix that by purchasing the gorgeous 20th anniversary box set of the entire series. Thanks to a combination of a coupon code and a timely sale on Barnes and Noble's website, I was able to pick this up for a pretty decent deal. Even the box is beautiful! I don't know when I will be diving I to these, but I'm definitely looking forward to diving back I to one o my favorite books and then reading those that follow it up.