Daniel Carter used to be a homicide detective, but his last case-the hunt for a …
Review of 'Carter & Lovecraft' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
Okay, so... yes, there are dangling plot threads, the initial hook is never explained, and for all the text, Carter and Lovecraft never end up with a whole bunch of agency and derring-do... but it works. It's creepy as hell, and it establishes just how little control humanity has over its own fate.
Revenge. It's something Sigrud je Harkvaldsson is very, very good at. Maybe the only thing. …
Review of 'City of miracles' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
I love these books just as much as I love the Craft sequence by Max Gladstone. There is just something about the world building here that makes the magic real, and the Gods fearsome and terrifying.
"In this new installment of Gail Simone's CLEAN ROOM, go back to the beginning to …
Review of 'Clean room' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
Pretty good but ends very suddenly. The demons don’t make much sense when you think about it, but this is more of a style-based book than a thinking thriller.
Review of "All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault" on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
It’s a silly book, but the glory of it is that it doesn’t try too hard for comedy, and instead looks at the inner life of someone who still isn’t really sure whether she even likes being male or female (protagonist is Asian, female, bi and genderqueer), or liking men or women, and then throws her into a world in which she is a superhero with powers and forces that are going to result in people getting hurt and her hurting people whether she likes it or not. And some times she does like it, and is not sure if that’s her or not either.
The ambiguity over free will, identity, feelings (sparks have “halos” and darklings have “shadows” that inspire awe and/or terror from being in their presence) contribute to an undertone of body horror even as she enjoys having superpowers. It is like Worms in this aspect.
Unfortunately …
It’s a silly book, but the glory of it is that it doesn’t try too hard for comedy, and instead looks at the inner life of someone who still isn’t really sure whether she even likes being male or female (protagonist is Asian, female, bi and genderqueer), or liking men or women, and then throws her into a world in which she is a superhero with powers and forces that are going to result in people getting hurt and her hurting people whether she likes it or not. And some times she does like it, and is not sure if that’s her or not either.
The ambiguity over free will, identity, feelings (sparks have “halos” and darklings have “shadows” that inspire awe and/or terror from being in their presence) contribute to an undertone of body horror even as she enjoys having superpowers. It is like Worms in this aspect.
Unfortunately the other characters are not nearly as well fleshed out, although it’s a question whether this is because Kim doesn’t really see her college friends as real people after a point.
also the geek cred name dropping of xkcd was really annoying after a point.
