How many times do you read a book? For myself, I read the vast majority of books only once — it’s a simple case of too many options, too little time. When I was a kid, I often re-read books over and over again. My options were limited, […]
A feeling’s been gnawing deep inside me for a while. A feeling that maybe Frank Miller’s hypermasculine antiheros and faceless, breast-thrusting women are exactly what they seem, not just sketchy parody. After reading 300, Miller’s 1998 account of the Spartans at Thermopylae, I don’t have any doubt: Miller […]
Sometimes you find something just in time for it to die and the best you can offer is a good death. Once my roommate found a pigeon with a broken neck and brought it home. It spent a night in our bathtub before we took it to wildlife […]
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 […]
Fantasy fiction is overrun by dragons. The fiery beasts have become a way to spice up an otherwise standard book — just add dragons. When I first heard about Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series — the Napoleonic Wars, a la Hornblower, except with dragons — I sighed to myself: […]
Is it possible to have a book with a pace that is too fast? A book with too much action? Sure, since it’s relatively easy to jettison all of the hard-to-write stuff like character and description, and just dump in a lot of violence (ironically, I think a […]
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The Cultural Gutter 