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Review: Apex Magazine Issue 105, February 2018
Apex Magazine Issue 105, February 2018 by Jason Sizemore My rating: 4 of 5 stars FICTIONA Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies (Alix Harrow) – The whole reason I got this issue was because of this story, which won some awards. Andrea Johnson writes, in the introduction to an interview with…
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Review: Across the Green Grass Fields
Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire My rating: 4 of 5 stars Without giving away the plot or meta-spoilers, I can say that Seanan McGuire has continued to find a way to keep these novellas fresh. All these books have been deconstructions/reconstructions of the Portal Fantasy trope, but I feel this one is…
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Review: Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 109, June 2019
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 109, June 2019 by John Joseph Adams My rating: 4 of 5 stars SCIENCE FICTIONBetween the Dark and the Dark (Deji Bryce Olukotun) – the story starts off with the common trope of generation ships and leaving a ruined Earth. I’ve even come across it a bunch of times during my current…
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Review: Blood Rites
Blood Rites by Jim Butcher My rating: 4 of 5 stars Butcher brings together all the storylines from the previous five books in this larger mystery. It’s a much bigger story than the previous books, but it works very well. I’m glad that Murph and Harry are continuing to develop their relationship. The opening caper…
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Review: Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day
Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day by Peter Reinhart My rating: 4 of 5 stars In a short time I’ve read 2 Reinhart bread books (and am working on another). It’s interesting to see his bread techniques evolve. Although, he’s careful to say that the techniques in this book aren’t necessarily better than what he…
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Review: The Frame-Up
The Frame-Up by Meghan Scott Molin My rating: 3 of 5 stars I got this book free as a Kindle First Read – or whatever they’re calling it nowadays This book sits at the intersection of a lot of genres and sub-genres. It’s a mystery, but it’s not told from the point of view of…
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Review: The Everyday Athlete Cookbook: 165 Recipes to Boost Energy, Performance, and Recovery
The Everyday Athlete Cookbook: 165 Recipes to Boost Energy, Performance, and Recovery by America’s Test Kitchen My rating: 4 of 5 stars ATK teams up with a dietitian and nutritionist to create a series of recipes for “athletes”, defined in the book as people who do vigorous exercise at least 3 times a week. So…
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Review: The Fifth Elephant
The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is my second time reading this book. Keeping the score of 3/5 stars Another mystery staring Samuel Vimes. This time he’s been sent by Vetinari to Uberwald as Ambassador. Vetinari purposely chose him because he thinks like a cop and isn’t the…
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Review: Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 108, May 2019
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 108, May 2019 by John Joseph Adams My rating: 4 of 5 stars SCIENCE FICTIONCocoons (Nancy Kress) – This story could very easily have gone to a horror place. But instead it ends up being about the complexity of humanity, the perils of colonizing a new world, and hope. This Way to…
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Others are also excited about Obojima Tales
I’ve been backing a few different D&D 5e adventures on kickstarter, but the one I’m most excited about getting fulfillment on is Obojima: Tales from the Tall Grass. It’s so freakin’ beautiful that I had to hold myself back from getting the package that came with everything. But I’m not the only one excited bout…
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Another Reason to be Glad I attend small concerts?
I like listening to NPR’s It’s Been a Minute and today’s episode was a real doozy. Here’s the descriptive paragraph from the NPR page for the episode: Every couple of weeks there’s a new story of a fan at a concert misbehaving. One fan threw ashes at Pink, another hit Drake with a cellphone, Miranda…
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Miscellanea: D&D, Disney, and French Browser Proposals
This post contains my thoughts on a few stories I’ve been saving up that don’t merit a post on their own. D&D Romance Just a day after posting about my kids getting into D&D, I came across this article on Tor.com about The Golden Age of D&D Romance. I had no idea it was a…
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How My Kids Got into Dungeons and Dragons
Two years ago, while spending time with my brothers, I played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time ever. David had been introduced to D&D by a coworker during COVID. Tony and Alex apparently had played in high school. I’m not sure when David’s wife started playing, but she joined us that night, too. David…
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Bad Time Records 2023 Concert: We Are the Union, Catbite, and Kill Lincoln
As I mentioned during my 2022 Music Wrap-Up, I got back into modern ska via Bad Time Records. So when Bad Time Records announced their Bad Time Records Tour 2023 featuring We Are the Union, Kill Lincoln, and Catbite – it was a no-brainer to buy the tickets. As a bonus, they’re also filming a…
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Review: Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 107, April 2019
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 107, April 2019 by John Joseph Adams My rating: 4 of 5 stars SCIENCE FICTIONThe Archronology of Love (Caroline M. Yoachim) – This short story involves an interesting idea where an alien race has created a VR history, but to make an analogy with archeology, when you view part of the history,…