“Patience breeds perfection.” Sometimes you just need a fun story to break you out of the dull literary crap. And Brandon Draga’s subtle twists in his debut is exactly the kind of comfortable fantasy tale I needed. This pulpy Sword and Sorcery doesn’t take itself too seriously, inserts a whopping dose of humor at every…
“The danger was more subtle. It was the danger you feel when you stare into the eyes of a resting lion. It is the unspoken threat of harm from one who knows he is more powerful than you. It is the danger that comes with the wind on an icy night.” When a self-published author…
Some of you may know that I am writing a book. Currently, I am editing the entire novel by cutting it in half and rewriting from almost scratch. It’s a fun process, and I like to think I’ve improved immensely over the past four years. I’ve actually done a lot of thinking these past six…
“In the dark hours of a frostbitten morning, someone is digging.” Sometimes you need a comfortable read, a story with characters you’ve read multiple times, set in a land that’s not too strange or different. Sometimes you just need something that you’ve been to before, something you know from the very first page. Darkwalker by…
“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man’s will.…
“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…
“If you pick up a viper and it bites you, it’s not the viper’s fault, is it?” Novels are a bit like jokes. There’s some good ones. There’s some bad ones. Every now and then, one comes along that makes your stomach hurt because you can’t stop laughing. Then there are the groaners. Alex Bledsoe’s…
“His clothes and skin stank of hopelessness and self-disgust and other people’s blood.” For me to be immersed in a novel, I need a strong atmosphere and great dialogue. The most bittersweet thing about Peter Higgins debut, Wolfhound Century, is that he captures the bleak landscape and time period in such a brilliant way, yet…
“Is choosing a life path which subordinates you own sense of person to someone else’s a form of suicide?” Very rarely do I ever enjoy a good time travel tale. The logic isn’t always there, like in say Bioshock Infinite. But for a book so steeped in hard science, The Forever Engine manages to make…
“People lie. People exaggerate. They view the world through tainted glass, yet see themselves in a gilded mirror.” Whenever I need to take a break from the stress of picking a book (of which there is plenty, surprisingly) I tend to go after the pulpy serials that don’t tax the brain, yet provide oodles of…
Acerbic Writing 