Book Review: My Ultimate Super Hero Manual

Book Review: My Ultimate Super Hero Manual by Steve Behling Almost every comic book-loving kid has gone through a phase when they seriously wanted to be a superhero.  Wearing a flashy costume, having neat powers, hanging out with people like Spider-Man and Storm; what’s not to love?   At the very least, designing your own super… Continue reading Book Review: My Ultimate Super Hero Manual

Book Review: Old Celtic Romances

Book Review: Old Celtic Romances by P.W. Joyce The Gaelic-speaking people of ancient Ireland told tales of their mighty ancestors and great men, not unlike the people of every nation and tribe.  When writing came, they began to put these tales into manuscripts.  Out of the large body of remaining literature, in 1879 P.W. Joyce… Continue reading Book Review: Old Celtic Romances

Book Review: Sex with Kings

Book Review: Sex with Kings by Eleanor Herman One of the advantages of being a king is that the rules don’t apply to you the same way as they do to commoners.  For centuries in Europe, this also extended to tolerance of extramarital affairs, to the point that many kings had maitresse-en-titre, the “official mistress.”  This… Continue reading Book Review: Sex with Kings

Book Review: Black Bird of the Gallows

Book Review: Black Bird of the Gallows  by Meg Kassel Cadence, Pennsylvania used to be a mining town.  The economy never fully recovered from the mines closing down, but the town survived.  But there are some disturbing signs.  There’s an unseasonably high number of crows for February, and an even more unseasonable number of unusually… Continue reading Book Review: Black Bird of the Gallows

Book Review: In Winter’s Kitchen

Book Review: In Winter’s Kitchen by Beth Dooley When Beth Dooley first moved to Minneapolis from New Jersey in 1979, she was dismayed by the poor selection of fresh food in the commercial supermarket.  She’d heard that Minnesota was a farm state, yet the wilted vegetables and sallow fruit seemed to come from somewhere else… Continue reading Book Review: In Winter’s Kitchen

Book Review: An Unkindness of Ghosts

Book Review: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon Something has gone drastically wrong aboard the generation ship Matilda .  Centuries after it left the uninhabitable Earth, the ship seems no closer to its destination, if there is in fact a destination at all.  Society has become stratified, with the darker-skinned humans confined to the lower… Continue reading Book Review: An Unkindness of Ghosts

Book Review: Season of Marvels: Viking Tales

Book Review: Season of Marvels: Viking Tales by Deb Houdek Rule This is a collection of four speculative fiction short stories on the general theme of “Vikings” from the small label press Variations On a Theme. “Viking -Trojan War” is an after-action report about 8th Century Viking raiders suddenly materializing on the USC campus due to… Continue reading Book Review: Season of Marvels: Viking Tales

Book Review: The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2014

Book Review: The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2014 edited by Paula Guran Even the fastest, most dedicated readers can’t read everything that’s published each year.  Not even in relatively limited genres like fantasy or horror.  That’s where “Year’s Best” collections come in handy.  Someone or several someones has gone through the enormous pile… Continue reading Book Review: The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2014

Book Review: You Can’t Eat Peanuts in Church and Other Little-Known Laws

Book Review: You Can’t Eat Peanuts in Church and Other Little-Known Laws by Barbara Seuling Laws have a purpose.  It is not always a good purpose, but track them to their passage and you will usually see the reasoning behind them.  With the passage of time, that purpose is obscured, and many laws passed to… Continue reading Book Review: You Can’t Eat Peanuts in Church and Other Little-Known Laws

Book Review: The Edge of Tomorrow

Book Review: The Edge of Tomorrow by Howard Fast There have been several books titled The Edge of Tomorrow, none of which have anything to do with the recent Tom Cruise movie, which borrowed most of its plot from the Japanese light novel All You Need Is Kill.  (I think you can see why there was a… Continue reading Book Review: The Edge of Tomorrow