[Book] A Guile of Dragons by James Enge

Book cover The book starts in a very promising place.  It offers a map.  All of my favorite fantasy novels have included a map, and this leaves me excited for a tale with some traveling.  The first very short chapter introduces some world building back-story, a short story about gods.  Then, on page 19 (or the third page of story) the novel lands in a fantasy space that I find very overused and tired....

14 Nov 2018 · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] David Bowie: A Life by Dylan Jones

Book sleeve cover The author of this book took a huge amount of time to collect together statements and interviews from a vast array of people who knew or in some cases even briefly met David Bowie.  Jarringly, there are places where David Bowie's own statements are included.  All of these vignettes are presented each in whole, collected into chapters into an approximate order as to when the main point of each vignette happened....

31 Oct 2018 · 4 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] Bloodline by Claudia Gray

Book cover I realize that I've read and reviewed a lot of books that I don't really like.  This review isn't that.  I liked the book, Leia; Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray so much that when I found out she had another book in the Star Wars universe, I bought it right away. I really like to keep these reviews spoiler-free, and if I really enjoy a book, I actually have a much harder time writing about it, because - well - everything I enjoy about a book seems like a possible spoiler....

17 Oct 2018 · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud

Book cover North American Lake Monsters is a collection of short horror or at least suspense stories.  One short, The Monsters of Heaven, won the Shirley Jackson Award, and this book is on its third printing. Several of the stories introduce a monster, but the monster itself is inactive ... in one case, already dead, leaving these stories to be more about the evil we bring with us where the monster is just a catalyst or even excuse for some all-too-human transition into bad behavior....

3 Oct 2018 · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink