“Every goddamned thing about this Test grated. And let’s be honest here: ‘grated’ is just the wrong word to use. Maybe ‘vexed’ is better? I always liked the sound of ‘vexed.’ It was comfortingly old-school, like something that someone in a Jane Austen adaptation would utter, in a steely British accent, after he mopped his…
“…flick through pages defining an alien realm in which justice was king and superheroes fought the good fight to uphold dignity and equality. There was laidback humour in them, too, a sunny-side-up sense of cheeky bravado – since the world wasn’t the dystopia that existed just outside the door to his box.” I woke up…
“’Let me tell you something about the dead, as someone who’s seen a few of them. They don’t care what we do. They don’t yearn for vengeance, and they don’t hope for redemption. They rot…Stick around Low Town and you’ll find out I’m right.’” There are very few authors who can effectively change the sub-genre…
“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…
Anybody who’s anybody in the field of speculative fiction knows the name of China Mieville. He’s only the winner of three Arthur C. Clarke awards, two British Fantasy Awards, three Locus Awards, one Hugo, and one World Fantasy Award. His work in 2010 was The City and the City, a noir novel that has received…
Well, it seems I was tagged by the amazing J.A. Romano in this new meme about a writer’s work and whatnot. Don’t worry; I don’t ramble. Much. 1. What’s the name of your current WIP? As of right now, it appears to be called The Cold Silence. But that could change umpteen times from finishing.…
“Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. If you can’t reach heaven, raise hell.” Why do we love action heroes who can take down a giant of a man, brush through firepower without a wink of blood, and still outsmart the villain with an IQ of 165? Why is it that we like the brilliant, the…
“’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…
“But could you call it a victory if around a hundred thousand people had died? Was it really called winning when your own army was nearly destroyed?” There comes a time when the second book in a series in infinitely better than the first. While it had its flaws, Mark Charan Newton’s City of Ruin…
“Nobody noticed when Inspector Christian Little of Scotland Yard disappeared, and nobody was looking for him when he was found.” From the very beginning, this book hooks straight into you. From then on, the pace only gets better. But as you follow the twisting trail of bodies, you begin to dig deeper, find that the…
Acerbic Writing 