“My lighthouse is no longer lit, Virgil, Because there are no more boats to warn off. Five hundred years ago we landed here, And five hundred years ago we, well… stopped.” They say that nothing is original anymore, and oftentimes I am hard pressed to agree. Until now. The past year has seen little in…
“Talking round and round a point was like wearing lace into battle.” Around January, the SFF community exploded over the most hyped debut of 2014, The Emperor’s Blades. It was quoted to be “amazing” and “a favorite.” I, naturally, walked into this book with a hint of trepidation a month later. And unfortunately, all the…
“Hear these portents, oh would-be master of masters, you who would be prince of the world, for these signs will see the undoing of all you have wrought. Mark the day a mirror beggars you of your reflection. Beware the hand of a dead king who will bring you to your knees. Fear the phoenix…
“I remember the lightning in the air and the lover bidding good-bye in the streets, and I can tell you what I think. We went to war because going to war is fun, because there’s something in the human breast that trills at the thought, although perhaps not the reality, of murdering its fellows in…
“’We all have walls, don’t we? You have your cynicism, her and her ice-queen act. A wall to keep everyone away, outside, so they won’t see the fear.’” I entered this book expecting a novel in the same vein as Daniel Polansky’s Low Town. This was mildly different. More of a better the Dresden Files…
Acerbic Writing 