Book Review: The History of Opera for Beginners by Ron David Opera is one of the great art forms, blending theater and music into a powerful emotional experience. But it also has a stereotype of being incomprehensible melodrama that boring rich people drag their unwilling spouses to. And many of the books about opera are written… Continue reading Book Review: The History of Opera for Beginners
Tag: singers
Comic Book Review: 2000 AD #2020-24
Comic Book Review: 2000 AD #2020-24 Edited by Tharg As I’ve mentioned before, 2000 AD is a weekly comic paper with a speculative fiction bent that’s been published in Britain for over forty years. It keeps up the schedule by featuring several short stories in each issue, most of them serialized. A while back I c… Continue reading Comic Book Review: 2000 AD #2020-24
Book Review: A Feast for Crows
Book Review: A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin Note: This review will contain SPOILERS for the first three volumes in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. If you have not read those, you may want to consult my reviews of those books instead. While war still ravages the land of Westeros, for… Continue reading Book Review: A Feast for Crows
Book Review: Space Opera
Book Review: Space Opera by Jack Vance It’s not that Roger Wool doesn’t want to work, as such. It’s that he doesn’t want to be tied down to a single job day after day, the same desk in the same office. And he’s too well-bred for most work that involves wandering from place to place… Continue reading Book Review: Space Opera
Magazine Review: Science Fantasy #4 Spring 1971
Magazine Review: Science Fantasy #4 Spring 1971 edited by Sol Cohen Science Fantasy was a short-lived (this is the final issue) reprint magazine from Ziff-Davis Publishing, which should not be confused with the long-running British magazine of the same title. The stories in this issue come from the late 1940s/early 1950s, and reader tastes had changed… Continue reading Magazine Review: Science Fantasy #4 Spring 1971
Comic Book Review: Wonder Woman ’77 Volume 1
Comic Book Review: Wonder Woman ’77 Volume 1 written by Marc Andreyko Back in the 1970s, live-action television series with a woman in the lead were rare creatures indeed, and one of the best was Wonder Woman, starring Lynda Carter. It migrated from ABC (where it was set during World War Two) to CBS in 1977,… Continue reading Comic Book Review: Wonder Woman ’77 Volume 1
Book Review: The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories
Book Review: The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories edited by Otto Penzler I have a fondness for Sherlock Holmes, as I am sure the majority of my readers do. Unsurprisingly, there has been a ton of Holmes fanfiction over the years. Pastiches that try to capture the feel of Arthur Conan Doyle’s prose, parodies… Continue reading Book Review: The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories
Book Review: China Dolls
Book Review: China Dolls by Lisa See It is 1938, the tail end of the Great Depression, and San Francisco is trying to shake off its blues with a World’s Fair on Treasure Island. They’re going to need a lot of employees for that, and the prospect of a job draws Grace Lee all the… Continue reading Book Review: China Dolls
Manga Review: Black Blizzard
Manga Review: Black Blizzard by Yoshihiro Tatsumi The year is 1956. Shinpei Konta, a card shark with five convictions (two for murder) and Susumu Yamaji, a pianist just convicted for murder, are handcuffed together on a train headed for prison. The weather has turned to a blizzard, and a landslide across the tracks derails the… Continue reading Manga Review: Black Blizzard
Comic Strip Review: Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy Volume 14: 1951-1953
Comic Strip Review: Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy Volume 14: 1951-1953 by Chester Gould Another of the fine IDW reprints which are trying to cover the entire Chester Gould run of Dick Tracy, moving into the early 1950s. As mentioned in the Max Allan Collins introduction, the stories shifted focus a bit. Dick Tracy is a full… Continue reading Comic Strip Review: Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy Volume 14: 1951-1953