Tag: fantasy

Teaser Tuesday 7/30/2013: “Reversion: The Inevitable Horror”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week I’m reading Reversion: The Inevitable Horror, by one J. Thorn, which purports to be for fans of Clive Barker, Stephen King’s story “The Langoliers”, or a previous Teaser Tuesday entry, Hugh Howey’s Wool.  I can sort of see the comparison to “The Langoliers” in that Reversion also takes place in a world (possibly a pocket dimension) that is in the process of disintegrating, but (so far, anyway) it is nothing like Wool or anything I’ve read by Clive Barker.  In fact I wouldn’t even categorize it as horror, despite the presence of hordes of zombies, who mostly stand around in large groups attempting to prevent Our Heroes from moving.  In that, they are not unlike all the drivers who clog the freeways around Southern California.  Hmm, perhaps it’s a horror novel after all …

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Teaser Tuesday 7/16/2013: “The Sirens of Titan”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

Still reading The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut’s classic from 1959, this week. We’ve just gotten to the point of meeting the members of a new religion whose members handicap themselves by carrying heavy weights, dressing in ugly clothes, wearing bad makeup, etc.  Shades of “Harrison Bergeron“!  And by “shades” I do not mean “dark glasses worn to impair your eyesight and eliminate any advantage you may enjoy due to your superior vision.”

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Teaser Tuesday: “The Sirens of Titan”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week’s free Prime book is The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut’s classic from 1959. I haven’t picked up any Vonnegut since Hocus Pocus, but now that I’ve discovered that most of his books appear to be available to be borrowed for free via Prime, I’m sure to pick up more of them.

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That First Draft Is A Doozy

~ James Viscosi ~ 3 Comments

Despite some recent challenges with the dogs, I finally finished up the first draft of the heavily-rewritten The War of the Ravels, which concludes the story begun in Shards. At almost 50% longer than part one, The War of the Ravels wraps up the contest between Mercy, Kihantroh, and a few new players in the quest to reassemble Tyndallëau’s Heart and put it to use saving the world, or something.

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Teaser Tuesday 6/25/2013: “Hal Spacejock”

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

So this week I’m reading a book called Hal Spacejock, by Simon Haynes. (This is after polishing off the very short post-apocalyptic SF book H2O, by Irving Belateche, which while not making it to Teaser Tuesday, is notable because a central plot point is the remnant of the Internet that still exists in its devastated world. The Internet scrap is called the Line, capitalized, which caused me to draw constant comparisons between it and the Line from The Half-Made World. Needless to say, H2O did not benefit from the comparison. But I digress.)

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Teaser Tuesday 6/18/13: Haunted House

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

This week’s Teaser Tuesday is from Haunted House, by J.A. Konrath and Jack Kilborn (who, despite having different names, are in fact the same person, unlike, say, “Simon & Simon”, who had the same name but were different people). The setup is that a number of characters from previous books by the same author have been brought together in a house where, apparently, everything is trying to kill them. If that sounds a bit “Saw”-ish to you then, well, I’ll have to take your word for it, because I have never seen a “Saw” movie. But it does sort of sound like what I imagine a “Saw” movie might involve.

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Teaser Tuesday 6/11/13: “The Last Kind Words”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

Since last week I featured a rejection letter from Tom Piccirilli’s old magazine “Pirate Writings”, I was inspired to get around to reading his book The Last Kind Words (currently available for the Kindle for $0.99). I haven’t read any of Tom Piccirilli’s work since A Choir of Ill Children, which is one of my favorite book names, though All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes By still holds the position of Best Title Ever. But I digress.

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Teaser Tuesday 5/28/2013: “The Dreaming Void”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week I’m still reading Peter F. Hamilton’s The Dreaming Void, part one of his “Void” trilogy.  At 90% through, the faithful still haven’t gotten their ships built yet for launching their pilgrimage to the Void, which will either (1) take them to an Elysian realm of eternal life and happiness or (2) cause the Void to wake up and devour the galaxy.  I’m betting it won’t be (1).

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Teaser Tuesday 5/21/2013: “The Dreaming Void”

~ James Viscosi ~ Leave a comment

This week I’m almost halfway through Peter F. Hamilton’s The Dreaming Void, part one of his “Void” trilogy, in which humanity discovers that what they thought was a black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy is, in fact, some sort of ancient, gigantic artifact that periodically wakes up and eats nearby stars. So of course, somebody decides they have to send a ship into it. Readers of Hamilton’s earlier “Commonwealth Sage”, in whose universe the “Void” trilogy is set, will remember how well it turned out the last time humans sent ships poking around such a construct. (Hint: Not well.) Like most of Hamilton’s books, this one is taking a nice long time to get going, but, also like most of Hamilton’s books, I expect that once the plot really kicks in, I won’t want to put it down.

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Teaser Tuesday 4/16/2013: “Oz Reimagined”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This month’s free Prime book is Oz Reimagined: New Tales from the Emerald City and Beyond, a collection of short stories inspired by, you guessed it, the Oz stories of L. Frank Baum. Not just based on the characters from the Wizard of Oz, the stories includes Ozma, the Gump, Jack Pumpkinhead, and others. The collection has a foreword by Gregory Maguire of Wicked fame, which should tell you that you are in for some revisionism. As in this story, “Off to See the Emperor”, by Orson Scott Card, in which six-year-old Frank Baum and nine-year-old Theodora are trying to get Theodora’s mother’s ring back, and the Lion is being less than helpful about it.

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