This has been the biggie: I’ve started re-reading the Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. Wow, talk about a trip! I had almost completely forgotten the series and its impact on me years ago. I think this was due to the excessive sequels that tarnished the creativity of the […]
Robin McKinley’s The Hero and the Crown, a young adult fantasy novel from the early 1980s, always stood out in my memory as a formative read from childhood. Unfortunately I couldn’t really say what the book was about! Over the years, everything about it had faded. The Blue […]
Now for some obvious advice: don’t start a ten book series by reading book 8! I was well aware of this when I was a kid and I happened to pick up the eighth book in Roger Zelazny’s Amber series. But I didn’t have money to buy lots […]
Nowadays I can pick up any pop cultural obsession that I want – hey, it’s the internet age and my nerdy disposable income goes a long ways. But when I was a kid, it was almost always hard to find cool stuff. I ended up reading a whole […]
Let’s say you’re reading a book about a boy who grows up to be a wizard. That’s a very familiar story… so do you want exactly what you’re expecting? Or are you prepared for something new and interesting? Ursula K. Le Guin’s famous Earthsea series started with a […]
What makes a compelling book tick? Sometimes I find it hard to tell, especially if the story works so well that I don’t even think about the craft involved. A good way to get to know a book, especially for an otherwise quick reader like myself: listen to […]
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The Cultural Gutter 