Manga Review: Path of the Assassin, Volumes 11 & 14

Manga Review: Path of the Assassin, Volumes 11 & 14 by Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima It is the last years of the Warring States period of Japanese history. In these volumes, we follow the adventures of Hattori Hanzo, greatest of the Iga ninja (in this interpretation) and vassal of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who would become… Continue reading Manga Review: Path of the Assassin, Volumes 11 & 14

Book Review: Wives to Burn

Book Review: Wives to Burn by Lawrence G. Blochman William Shakespeare Gabriel may have bitten off more than he can chew when he accepted an assignment to go to India and track down Fred Oaks. Bill’s past as a reporter may make him an excellent investigator for the Five Continents Detective Agency, but India’s a… Continue reading Book Review: Wives to Burn

Book Review: The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch Volume 3

Book Review: The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch Volume 3 by Robert Bloch Robert Bloch (1917-1994) was a prolific author of horror, science fiction and mystery works. (You may have seen, read or at least heard of Psycho.) This volume, originally “Selected Stories” and by no means complete, features 39 stories published between 1960 and… Continue reading Book Review: The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch Volume 3

Movie Review: Twice-Told Tales

Time for your neck massage!

Movie Review: Twice-Told Tales (1963) dir. Sidney Salkow  The book version of Twice-Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne was full of ghosts and supernatural occurrences, so it’s not surprising that a star vehicle for noted horror actor Vincent Price would dip into that well. It’s not a very deep dip, though, with only one story from that anthology, one… Continue reading Movie Review: Twice-Told Tales

Magazine Review: Famous Fantastic Mysteries Fall 2016

This scene does not appear in any of the stories this issue.

Magazine Review: Famous Fantastic Mysteries Fall 2016 edited by Matthew Moring Every so often, someone tries to relaunch a once-popular magazine. Most of these efforts fold quickly. The subject of this review is one such, lasting a single issue. As you’ll recall from a previous review, Famous Fantastic Mysteries was primarily a reprint title, presenting… Continue reading Magazine Review: Famous Fantastic Mysteries Fall 2016

Book Review: The Storm Lord

Book Review: The Storm Lord by Tanith Lee Raldnor has long known he was different from the other children in his Southlands village. They are fair-skinned, he has dark skin. They can speak mind-to-mind to supplement their words, he appears to be mind-deaf and mute. They seem unruled by their loins, while Raldnor has entire… Continue reading Book Review: The Storm Lord

Book Review: The New Adventures of Ellery Queen

Book Review: The New Adventures of Ellery Queen by Ellery Queen Ellery Queen was the shared pen name of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, as well as the main character of the mystery stories they wrote. Starting with The Roman Hat Mystery in 1929, they wrote many novels and short stories about a brainy mystery writer solving crimes (and then writing about them in the third… Continue reading Book Review: The New Adventures of Ellery Queen

Book Review: Great Thrillers: 101 Suspenseful Tales

Book Review: Great Thrillers: 101 Suspenseful Tales compiled by Stefan Dziemianowicz The definition of “thriller” is a little loose in this fun anthology, though most of the stories do have at least some suspense.  It feels more like the compiler picked a bunch of the public domain stories he liked, but didn’t have a strong… Continue reading Book Review: Great Thrillers: 101 Suspenseful Tales

Book Review: Enchantress of Numbers

Book Review: Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer Chiaverini Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852) is better known to us today as Ada Lovelace.  Her primary claim to fame is her “notes” on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, which anticipated uses for this theoretical calculating device far beyond mere number-crunching, and provide the first known published… Continue reading Book Review: Enchantress of Numbers

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