The Picture of Dorian Gray is perhaps the worst epic fantasy I have ever read. Where are the dragons? The violent decapitations with a magical sword? All the author seems to care about is witty rich people making smart remarks to each other.
I have a theory that television shows get a lot of practice in the cliff-hanger, in hooking the viewer to come back next week, but almost zero experience in creating satisfying endings. Structurally, commercially, the need for such a thing just doesn’t compute. A few genre shows in […]
I recently burned through all seven books in Christopher Rowley’s Bazil Broketail series. What I liked best? The broad strokes, literally (here is our hero with a sword, there goes the head of the bad guy, flying through the air) as well as metaphorically.
Time to check in with a few small-press books. This is where where a lot of people get their start, and it’s also where the books can live quite happily apart from the concerns of multinational conglomerates.
Your first book is a classic that essentially creates the modern era, or at least that’s what people are saying. What do you do for an encore? In the case of William Gibson, you can just follow the same interests in a different form.
It’s one of the best adventure novels I’ve read lately: the original Redwall by Brian Jacques. Talking animals, an evil threat, a perilous quest, a sympathetic hero, and some suitably gruesome moments… the book has it all. And with a mouse as a hero, the view of carnivores […]
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The Cultural Gutter 