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Alien Overlords, Part III
Cosmic Sin (Saban Films, 2021), Empire of the Apes (Polonia Brothers Entertainment, 2013), and Dune Drifter (4Digital Media, 2020) This is Part III of a new, 20-film marathon. The rules: Must include...
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A Very Fine YA Novel: Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
Impossible Creatures (Knopf Books for Young Readers, September 10, 2024). Cover by Ashley Mackenzie Katherine Rundell is a British writer who has been publishing YA novels for some time now, though I...
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What I’ve Been Listening To: November 2024
So, I did not update you last month, on what I’ve been listening to most recently. Let me tell you, the FLOOD of emails and comments, wanting to know what’s been running through my Audible, was...
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Maybe I Am Romantic
I love them. Good afterevenmorn (whenever you happen to be reading this), Readers! I’m still on a Chinese costume drama kick. It has been my crutch when dealing with the terribleness of the world of...
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Taking in the Trash: Paul Cantor’s Pop Culture Trilogy
Having just finished a very lively and thought-provoking book, I did something I almost never do — I decided to write the author a fan letter. Naturally, I hopped on Google to get his contact...
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Gothic Noir: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Shadow of the Wind (Penguin Books, February 1, 2005). Cover by Tal Goretsky Shadow of the Wind is the English rendering of La sombra del viento, the 2001 novel by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and the first...
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A to Z Review: “The Sin-Eater’s Tale,” by Brennan Wysong
Brennan Wysong’s “The Sin-Eater’s Tale” opens with the introduction of the sin-eater in the post-Civil War south. The sin-eater’s task is to go around to the funerals of the boys whose bodies have...
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Conan Unchained!, The Keep on the Borderlands, and the 50th Anniversary of...
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons CB1: Conan Unchained! by David “Zeb” Cook (TSR, 1984) Before TSR created the Conan Role Playing Game with its own rules and conventions, they released two Conan...
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Folk Horror edited by Paul Kane & Marie O’Reagan
Folk Horror (Flame Tree Publishing, August 27, 2024) Folk Horror is one of those terms that’s never quite fashionable or unfashionable. To me there’s only either good or bad horror fiction, and that’s...
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Gary Gygax’s 17 Steps to Role-Playing Mastery (Steps 1 to 5)
My Dungeons and Dragons roots don’t go back to the very beginning, but I didn’t miss it by much. I remember going to our Friendly Local Gaming Store with my buddy. He would buy a shiny TSR module and I...
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Robert Adams was a Master of Narrative Drive
The first ten novels in the Horseclans series by Robert Adams (Signet/ New American Library editions, 1979-1983). Cover art by Ken Kelly Franklin Robert Adams (1933 – 1990) only used his middle and...
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G.W. Thomas on Fred Saberhagen’s Berserkers
Three collections in Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker Saga: Berserker, Brother Assassin, and The Ultimate Enemy (Ace Books, September 1978, December 1978, and September 1979). Covers: Boris Vallejo and...
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Goth Chick News: And That’s a Wrap on Spooky Season 2024
Since 2012 Black Gate Photog Chris Z and I have closed out spooky season with the Days of the Dead convention in November. For the past twelve years an O’Hare airport hotel has played host to the...
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A to Z: “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight,” by Xia Jia
Ken Liu. Liu also translated Xia Jia’s story “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight” for Clarkesworld, and then reprinted it in the anthology of Chinese science fiction Invisible Planets. Xia describes Ghost...
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Jumping the Shark, Part I
So, here we go. A new watch-a-thon, this one based on a handful of the 500+ shark movies that I haven’t seen (or gave up on). I’m not holding out much hope for these — shark movies are, on the whole,...
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A Game of Kings and Things:TSR’s Divine Right
In the summer of 1981, my friend Alex R. had moved into a big, new house not far from the Staten Island neighborhood where most of my other friends lived. As his parents were rarely home and summer was...
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Gary Gygax’ 17 Steps to Role-Playing Mastery (Steps 6 to 10)
So, if you are reading this post right now (and you’d have to be, to see these words), this is Part Two of a look at Gary Gygax’ 17 Steps to Role-Playing Mastery. It would make sense to go read Part...
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Five Things to Try When You Hit Writer’s Block
Image by Lukas Bieri from Pixabay Good afterevenmorn, Readers! Well, I was struggling with what to write about in this week’s blog post. I was going to rave about a new C-Drama I just finished...
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Play’s the Thing: Playground by Richard Powers
Playground (W. W. Norton & Company, September 24, 2024) The ocean covers approximately 70% of Earth’s surface. It’s the largest livable space on our planet, and there’s more life there than...
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Goth Chick News: The Dead of Winter by Sarah Clegg is the Perfect December Read
One of my earliest holiday memories is watching Reginald Owen in the 1938 black and white classic A Christmas Carol on the local Chicago channel, at 6pm on Christmas Eve. It was (and still is) one of...
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