Women Shall Inherit the Earth
ANNIHILATION (The Southern Reach Trilogy) by Jeff Vandermeer
Women have long held an important place in the Sci-Fi genre. Since Mary Shelly created a living corpse, women have dominated despite what critics would have you believe. It is still a rare treasure to find a Sci-Fi novel that not only has a Female MC, but an all Female ensemble! And another shocker about ANNIHILATION by Jeff Vandermeer is that the Female characters are actually written well. Believable even, which is a surprise coming from a Male author.
Dinosaurs are Corporate Greed’s Lovechild
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
WARNING: Book contains graphic imagery of violent dinosaurs attacks.
Nothing fascinates a five year old quite like dinosaurs and no franchise in history has cornered the market on these bird/reptile beings quite like Jurassic Park . I’m sure there are very few people in the world today who haven’t seen Spielberg’s 1993 movie masterpiece Jurassic Park. When I was a kid that theme song was fire (honestly it still is). I’m normally not one who would watch a film before reading the book. However Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton did come out when I was attending kindergarten, so I’m going to cut myself some slack.
A Smart Re-imagined Fairytale
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
My previous encounter with a retelling of a fairytale left me feeling as though molten anger was seeping from every pore. I honestly thought it would be a while before I trusted myself to try another. Thankfully, I listen to The Overdue Podcast and they were able to convince me that Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik was not only a great retelling but just a great story overall. Because of this it was one of my first selections for my BoTM subscription.
When The Third Policeman Tells You About a Bicycle
The Third Policeman: A Novel by Flann O’Brien
There are books that exist to confuse and bemuse and I find it a treat whenever I encounter just such a book. The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien was not at all what I had expected and I mean that in a good way…I think.
The Sandman My Old Friend, Darkness Comes Again
The Sandman Vol 1: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Sam Keith & Mike Dringenberg
There is an endless love in my soul for Neil Gaiman. He is everything I would love to be as a writer. Even still, I have never once picked up a copy of The Sandman – until now. Though I’ll admit picking up a graphic novel is covered in the shadow of bad graphic novels of the past. What I love about Gaiman is his ability to make a dark story seem light. There is always an element of darkness, but never fear and I appreciate that this is a feeling unique to his stories. Vol 1 of The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes did not differ from this.
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
#WritingPromptsWednesday
“Each time I die, I wake up in the body of his next victim. Time is never on my side, and I am running out of lives.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/bgeqay/wp_each_time_i_died_i_woke_up_in_the_body_of_his/F/K/A USA by Reed King
***Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for a honest review***
There was a time that I was really into Dystopian Novels. They presented a “world after” that could be either horrifying, struggling, or uplifting in the face of change. (Most were horrifying). I can understand that and find the entertainment/learning value in novels that represent all that is bad about our world eventually destroying it. What makes F/K/A USA by Reed King different from these is that it adds a touch of humor and, for lack of a better way to describe it, a sense of the humanity the characters are striving to save.
The Jet Sex: Airline Stewardesses and the Making of an American Icon by Victoria Vantoch
It is a great opportunity to be gifted the chance to read a book dealing with a part of history that you may never have thought to read about before, but the instant you are made aware of it you get really excited about what you will learn.
That’s as close of a description to how I felt when The Jet Sex by Victoria Vantoch was the next book chosen in my Book Club. You can say you are aware of the gilded age of flying, that you can assume how the lifestyle was, but until you actually read an academic dissertation on the subject, you’ll never now how your eyes will be forever opened.
February BoTM & Gallifrey One Haul (Book Mail #4)
It is such a cliche to say that it’s been a rough two weeks, but for me it has been a rough two weeks.
Two weeks ago I attended the Doctor Who convention Gallifrey One in Los Angeles and if you are a Doctor Who fan and have never been to this amazing experience I would suggest re-evaluating your priorities and try to attend next year. It truly is the place to be for all American fans of the beloved BBC show.
Following that terrific weekend I was put out with a hard case of Con Crud (the cold that proceeds a non-stop nerd convention). To be honest I am still not completely over it, coughs linger. This is the main reason that the last two weeks have been rough, that and other personal reasons that I won’t go into here.
The point I am trying to make is that during this two week time period I have acquired a stack of books and I now have the energy to post and share them with you.
Netted – The Beginning (The Silent Red Room Saga Book #1) by K.T. Rose
**Thank you to Booksprout for an ARC in exchange for an honest review**
WARNING: This book deals with the delicate subject matter of human trafficking and the Darknet
There is a lot to unpack with this book despite it’s relatively short page length. For some reason even after reading the description I wasn’t fully prepared for what the story would deliver and even after I began reading it I still felt unprepared. If there is one thing that can send cold shivers down my spine it is the thought of the Darknet and the fact that it is actually a real thing. I have read plenty of things and listened to a number of crime podcasts that deal with this subject matter, but no matter how many times it is brought forward into my plane of understanding it still leaves me weak with nausea.
Granted, I would hope that K.T. Rose wrote Netted – The Beginning from a purely fictional point of view, but that’s the thing with this subject matter, you never really know for sure. I give kudos to her for taking on something such as this with that horrifying fact in mind and I am sure I won’t be the only reader who thinks so.
