In addition to the 2011 Seiun Award Nominees, the 2011 Hugo Award Nominees were announced today. While io9 has beaten us to the list, where they have speed, we have quality – we have links to the web pages of nominated persons and magazines where possible and Amazon.com links to nominated works (of we weren’t able to link directly to them), plus little bit of analysis. Nominees are below the cut. Continue reading →
Category Archives: Books
2011 Seiun Award Nominations announced
The nominees for the 42nd annual Seiun Awards have been announced, and rather than wait until the winners have been announced like last time, I’ll give a run-down of the nominees, based on a Google translation of a Japanese site with the list, which can be found here. The original versions of the titles are being placed next to the Google Translated versions, in case someone who understands Japanese better wants to translate the titles for me.
The Hugo Award Nominations themselves are being announced this year, and that list will be posted later today. Continue reading →
“A Dance With Dragons” Release Date Set
Yes, we’ve been teased and disappointed a lot over the last few years. But with “Game of Thrones” coming to HBO this month, apparently the proverbial fire has been lit under George Martin’s hind quarters.
Bantam Books has set July 12, 2011 as the release date for the sixth book in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. Martin maintains that the delay is due to him needing to fully map out the last two books in the series. Note, that “Dragons” is not yet finished, but will be in time for publication.
It’s been a long wait for fans, hopefully it pays off.
From George Martin’s “Not a Blog“
Book Review – Conspiracies
F. Paul Wilson is one of the wave of horror-thriller writers to come after Stephen King who haven’t gotten the degree of cultural awareness that King has gotten. This is particularly odd considering that he created a very interesting character who is featured in the book I’m reviewing today – Repairman Jack. Continue reading →
Fantasy Author Brian Jacques Has Passed Away
Prolific fantasy author, Brian Jacques, passed away this weekend from a heart attack at age 71.
Jacques is best known for his Redwall series of fantasy novels that featured anthropomorphic woodland creatures in and around the abbey of Redwall. One of the best descriptions of his books have been “Lord of the Rings meets Watership Down.”
Book Review: Chimerascope
Joe swore when he saw Cath doing a kid. He had left her for just a minute, to get a beer from the booth on the pier before it closed for the night…
…Kid’s not more than seven, he thought. Cath promised me no kids. She promised.
–“By Her Hand, She Draws You Down” (63).
Anthologies present a problem for our 42-point review system, even when they collect one author’s work. Rather than give Douglas Smith’s collection a score, I’m posting a review that tries to hit our usual categories along the way.
Book Review: Sarah Court
Craig Davidson’s work has attracted the attention of people like Peter Straub, Chuck Palahniuk (to whose style Davidson’s sometimes draws comparison), Irvine Welsh, and Clive Barker. Most recently, Toronto’s ChiZine Publications brings us Sarah Court, a bizarre, biting novel that defies easy classification. Welcome to Sarah Court, home to the disturbed and the damaged: fathers who destroy their children, a nerd who imagines he’s a vampire, a foster mother who sports a vicious streak, and a thing that lives in a box.
Book Review – “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief”
Longtime reader Erf submitted the following review:
The first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series has been highly recommended to me by a few YA readers I know. With The Lightning Thief, the series is off to a pretty good start.
Continue reading →
Novel Review: Dracula
No really, we haven’t ever reviewed it before. Seriously. I checked.
Novel Review: Let the Right One In
Think the vampire has seen its twilight due to over and misuse? Read John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Let the Right One In1. This creepy Swedish novel has made the undead scary again and inspired two film adaptations. We’ll be reviewing both of those in October. Today, we’re examining the novel—and providing a preview of this year’s Halloween Reviews.
1. Låt den rätte komma in, Let Me In