So every once in a while when I reach into my giant stack of correspondence to find a Random Rejection, I pull a Random Acceptance instead. This is one of those times.
Continue reading “Random Acceptance: “Blue Murder” Magazine”
Teaser Tuesday 1/12/2016: “The Black Mountain”
So here I am still reading The Black Mountain, by Rex Stout, months after starting it — not because it’s a long book or because it’s a slog but because it’s made of paper, and if I attempt to read a paper book anywhere near Saya the Mighty she will try her best to steal it and shred it, and we can’t have that, now can we?
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 1/12/2016: “The Black Mountain””
Not A Review Of “Jessica Jones”
What’s this? Two “not a review” posts in a row? Inconceivable! But true. You see, some may remember that a couple of years ago my wife got hooked on crystal meth “Breaking Bad“, AKA “The Best Show Ever“. It took a while for us to get through all the episodes, after which I was charged with finding my wife another show to watch. Not surprisingly, this turned out to be a pretty tall order. Aside from the six-episode “Happy Valley“, I didn’t have much luck coming up with anything that held her interest.
Until now.
Not A Review Of “Avengers: Age of Ultron”
So this week we (meaning I) finally got around to watching “Avengers: Age of Ultron“.
A: All of them, plus a few extra.
Continue reading “Not A Review Of “Avengers: Age of Ultron””
That Was The Year That Was
2015 isn’t quite over yet, but I already received this interesting set of statistics for the year from Goodreads. They unfortunately don’t seem to have provided a way to easily share it to WordPress (because, you know, everything only goes to Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest these days), so I copy-and-pasted it into a post. The nice formatting didn’t carry over, but you get the gist of it — most of what I read this year was, it seems, pretty average. And I didn’t quite make it to 5 books a month in 2015. I will have to try to do better next year!
Teaser Tuesday 12/15/2015: “The Lady Astronomer”
Last week I had a sad and didn’t do a post, but this week I’m back with a teaser from my current read, The Lady Astronomer, by Katy O’Dowd.
So far I would characterize this book as steampunk, but it’s steampunk that’s sort of been filtered through a Hayao Miyazaki “Kiki’s Delivery Service” meets “Howl’s Moving Castle” kind of sensibility. It’s cute, but don’t go in expecting something like The Difference Engine.
Lucretia was pulling some monster-like weeds that held a death grip on a pretty climbing rose when Mr. Trotters came belching and bellowing steam in her direction.
She sat back on her heels and regarded the steam-pig.
The steam-pig regarded her back.
“Lost your pipe again, Mr. Trotters?”
The steam-pig burped smoke and she sighed. “Come along then, we had better find it before you blow up.”
Mr. Trotters is, literally, a steam-powered mechanical pig. There’s also a miniature clockwork animal orchestra, a lemur (pictured on the cover), an owl (also pictured on the cover). It’s a veritable menagerie of natural and artificial creatures! And speaking of menageries, our old friend Bob seems to have encountered one, over in the world of Television Man …
Once Bob fired the shotgun, it was pretty much pandemonium. A half-dozen of the little monsters went down, but the rest of them rushed him in a mass. He blasted them again, sending black blood and umber fragments flying in every direction, but the next time he pulled the trigger it just clicked. Empty. He hadn’t even thought to look and see how many shells the gun could hold, let alone how many it contained.
Oops. Always remember to check your ammo, Bob.
Teaser Tuesday 12/1/2015: “Hard Bite”
So this week I’m reading Hard Bite, by one “Anonymous-9”, who as far as I know is not one of these guys:
Teaser Tuesday 11/24/2015: “The Black Mountain”
So this week I’m re-reading The Black Mountain, by Rex Stout, AKA The One Where Nero Wolfe Goes To Montenegro. Given that Wolfe normally doesn’t even like going out onto the sidewalk, this is serious business.
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 11/24/2015: “The Black Mountain””
Random Rejection: Innovation
So having finished up Queen of the Tearling, which was about as good as the scathing reviews suggested it would be, though it was just like The Hunger Games insofar as the heroine’s name started with a “K”, and it was just like Game of Thrones insofar as … um … oh! There’s a “red” sorceress in it.
Teaser Tuesday 11/10/15: “Queen of the Tearling”
So this week I’m reading Queen of the Tearling, by Erika Johanson, because the Calibre Random Book Picker told me to, and I already paid a buck ninety-nine for it a while ago, and Mango Momma advised me too late that I should read the reviews, which to be fair are mostly favorable, except when they’re scathing. (Seriously, read the scathing review — it’s one of the funniest I’ve seen since Meg took down Legon Awakening, a book I didn’t even manage to finish. Go ahead, I’ll wait.)
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 11/10/15: “Queen of the Tearling””
Viscosity 
