So this week—and last week, and the week before that, and the week before that, and for several weeks yet to come—I am reading one of those novels for which the term “doorstopper” was invented: Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace.
So not long ago I was reading The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, by Michael Chabon.
So this week I’m reading Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest, in which the release of rogue technology destroys much of Seattle and unleashes a toxic gas, known as the Blight, that kills most things it touches, and reanimates some of those things as the living dead. In other words, it’s just like the launch of Windows ME.
This week I’m still reading The Shadow of Black Wings by James Calbraith, from the BookBub mailing list. I’m going to bend the rules a little bit this time in that this teaser quote from the book is not from the page I’m actually on, but it was simply too good not to use. Here goes:
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 10/1/2013: “The Shadow of Black Wings””
This week I’m reading The Shadow of Black Wings by James Calbraith, another book I got free from the BookBub mailing list. This one is sort of an alternate Victorian history/steampunk/fantasy mashup. Oh, and there are dragons. (T’Sian would, I think, eat them for lunch, but still, anything’s better with dragons right?) And now, on to the two-sentence quote!
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday: “The Shadow of Black Wings””
Having finally finished Gust Front and having proceeded to polish off Flowertown, I am now reading The Last Ringbearer, a book by Kirill Eskov (translated from the Russian) which postulates that the events of The Lord of the Rings are another example of history being written by the victors. In this telling, Sauron is just another king, Gandalf is a pompous ass who wants to destroy Mordor to stop its incipient industrial revolution, the elves are xenophobic and manipulative invaders from another dimension, Aragorn is a grubby usurper who murders Denethor (who was actually the king of Gondor rather than a mere steward) and keeps Faramir and Eowyn as hostages to ensure the cooperation of Rohan and Gondor … you get the idea. While not up to the level of other revisionist literature like Wicked, it’s interesting enough, and it’s freely available for download in various formats (to the displeasure of Tolkien’s publishers, apparently). More money to buy medication for Tucker!
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 2/12/2013: “The Last Ringbearer””
A few weeks ago, I posted a capsule review of the PS2 game “Shadow Hearts” and mentioned that I had the sequel queued up for my next game. I’ve got a few hours into the sequel now and while it’s too soon for an actual review, I would like to make a few comments about it:
Continue reading “Video Game Preview Review: “Shadow Hearts: Covenant””
So this week I finally finished up a game I’ve been playing for about six months, a fantasy RPG called Shadow Hearts. This game is relatively ancient by video game standards (it came out in 2001), but what can I say — I only play one game at a time and I have a stack of games eight inches high waiting for me. Once I’m done playing those, I can upgrade my PlayStation 2 to whatever is out at that point — probably the PlayStation 6. But I digress. Continue reading “Video Game Review: “Shadow Hearts””
Viscosity 