Author: James Viscosi

Teaser Tuesday 2/11/2014: “Death’s Hand”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week I’m reading Death’s Hand, by S.M. Reine, in which Buffy and her watcher Giles try to stop Glorificus the hell-goddess from destroying the … oh, wait, sorry, that was Season 5 of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer“. No, in Death’s Hand, the kopis (AKA sword) Elise and her aspis (AKA shield) James are trying to stop a hell-goddess from destroying the world by letting her Armageddon Clock get to midnight. This naturally involves fighting hordes of zombies, demons, ghosts, and at least one necromancer. Apparently no one told them they could just pay 4 mana to remove counters from the Armageddon Clock during anyone’s upkeep.

armageddon_clock

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Still Not A Review of “Breaking Bad”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

A few weeks ago I mentioned that we had started watching “Breaking Bad” on Netflix, and that my wife had immediately become addicted to it. At this point we’re partway through Season 3, and is she any less addicted? Oh no.

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Title Drop Tuesday: The Lonesome Death of Chicken Verrill

~ James Viscosi ~ Leave a comment
chicken1
“Chicken Verrill’s luck …”
chicken2
“… always in, always bad.”

Teaser Tuesday 1/14/2014: “Khe”

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

This week I’m reading Khe, by Alexes Razevich, which is one of those unusual SF novels which (so far, at least, and I’m 79% of the way through it according to my Kindle) takes place entirely on an alien world, with no human beings present at all. The majority of the characters are doumanas, members of a race which seems to be quite birdlike, only without the wings, the feathers, the beaks, or the claws.  Umm, well, I guess they’re not actually birdlike at all, except that they can “see” the magnetic field of their planet, and they’re migratory, unlike African swallows.  The story concerns one of these doumanas, Khe, who, after undergoing an experimental treatment to sort of help her lay eggs (it’s complicated) develops the ability to accelerate the growth of plants, at the cost of taking years off her own life. Upon realizing that she’s likely to die a very early death due to being continually pushed to improve crop production at her commune (yes, they live in communes … again, it’s complicated), she decides to take her chances in the wilderness.

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Not A Review of “Breaking Bad”

~ James Viscosi ~ 21 Comments

So here we are, just a little late in the game, starting to watch “Breaking Bad” on Netflix. I’d had it in the “instant queue” (now the “my list”) for a while but never got around to starting it up, mainly because I was busy watching anime series whenever my wife would fall asleep in the middle of a movie. But there we were one Saturday, having polished off the movie “Cyrus” in a nearly-unprecedented single sitting, with Tucker demanding a lap and couch time and my wife not quite ready to fall asleep yet. Well, why not finally give “Breaking Bad” a look?

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Teaser Tuesday 12/31/2013: “Beginning of a Hero (Legends of Windemere)”

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

Still reading Beginning of a Hero, by Charles E. Yallowitz, this week.  Our hero, one Luke Callindor, is not having much luck yet dealing with the Lich, but has assembled an actual D&D party at this point, consisting of Luke, the “forest tracker”, which appears to correspond to a D&D Ranger; Nimby, the halfling thief; Fritz Warrenberg, the gnome illusionist from, apparently, Germany; and Aedyn the half-elven cleric. They are also being assisted by a “drite”, which seems to amount to a faerie dragon, right down to its use of a confusion-inducing breath weapon. (There is a very slight possibility that I still have most of the old Monster Manual memorized.)

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Teaser Tuesday 12/24/2013: “Beginning of a Hero (Legends of Windemere)”

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

This week, I’m reading a book called Beginning of a Hero, by Charles E. Yallowitz, in which a half-elf “forest tracker” and his, apparently, German Shepherd dog battle the forces of evil.

This dog is not to be confused with Dennis’s friend Spicoli, who battles the forces of not having Doritos and not getting enough sleep.

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Teaser Tuesday 12/10/2013: “Diary of the Displaced”

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

So this week I’m reading a free Kindle book called Diary of the Displaced (Omnibus Edition), by Glynn James, in which an unfortunate fellow visits a gas station bathroom and then wakes up in a nightmarish alternate dimension populated by zombies, dog-things, giant snails, and a deranged dual-knife-wielding maniac who I suspect may be Jack the Ripper. I’m pretty sure he’s not Moonglum of Elwher; he’s much too tall. Anyway, if you needed another reason to avoid gas station bathrooms, there you go.

DiaryOfTheDisplaced

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Not A Review Of “Flight”

~ James Viscosi ~ 3 Comments

So a few weeks ago we were between Netflix discs (“The Heat” had gone back, “Pacific Rim” had not yet arrived), and while looking through the list of streaming movies one evening, I noticed that “Flight” was there.  I’d been interested in seeing that for a while, and my wife is a fan of Denzel Washington, so I decided to start watching it, which led to a conversation that went something like the one described below:

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Teaser Tuesday 11/26/2013: “Subpoena Colada”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

Still reading Subpoena Colada this week, in which our hero, a frequently-drunken lawyer (is there any other kind in fiction?), is trying to salvage the wreckage of his career and that of his highest-profile client, the apparently washed-up rock star Brian Fey (or as I keep thinking of him, Bryan Ferry — who I am NOT calling washed-up, so don’t start hating), who is being taken to the cleaners by a lawsuit from his former band-mates and who is, apparently, about to become a suspect in the murder of his replacement. Sort of like if Peter Gabriel had been suspected of killing Phil Collins, I guess.

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