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Review: Zealot
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book has answered so many questions I had growing up reading the Bible. Assuming the acceptance of what the gospels said Jesus did- a lot of it is now put in perspective by understanding the world…
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Review: A Once Crowded Sky
A Once Crowded Sky by Tom King My rating: 5 of 5 stars If you love or have ever loved reading comics, you need to read this book. It is essentially a love letter to comic book fans. This is a world in which the characters are slightly self-aware. They don’t really know they’re in…
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Review: Walrus: Brandon Graham’s All Bum Album
Walrus: Brandon Graham’s All Bum Album by Brandon S. Graham My rating: 5 of 5 stars If you’re purchased comic artists’ sketch books before, you probably have a good idea of what you’re going to get. However, unlike other sketch books I’ve seen, this one contains little mini-comics scattered among the more traditional sketches. It’s…
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Humanity Has Truly Changed Very Little
Yesterday I read through the intro of Don’t Know Much About Mythology. It posited that one possible reason for myths was for the rich to control the poor. I thought, “Yeah. Makes sense back then with their god-kings, but we’re smarter now.” Then I thought about American politics and realized nothing has changed over the…
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I know I’m late to the game on this, but hurrah to JK Rowling for making the Harry Potter ebooks DRM-free! Just because of that, I’ll be sure to buy it this summer! Before I was scared about DRM-issues. I’ve been burned before – I have a bunch of Microsoft LIT books that I legally…
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Crowd Funding Update 5
I Fight Dragons – Project Atma (music): Things are on track with IFD. They are posting awesome videos of the recording process. It’s already March so as long as there aren’t any more delays, the album will be here in a few short months! Also, they’ll be on the Van’s Warped Tour, so I’ll be…
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My Books of 2013
It’s definitely hard to read books when you have other obligations. This year I had two semesters of graduate school and the majority of the second year of Scarlett’s life. Now I know why my mother, who loved reading, would only make it through a couple books a year. Frankly I only got through this…
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Kickstarter Update 3
I’m writing this in late August – by the time this post appears I should have received all of my Kickstarter goods or they should be in the mail. Interestingly, even though the Kickstarter backer cycles were spread over about a three month period, they’re all supposed to be delivering the product at around the…
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Review: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary by David Sedaris My rating: 5 of 5 stars With this book David Sedaris is a modern day Aesop. In the same way that we use Science Fiction and Humor to allow us to discuss our condition without chafing (they’re not talking about good ole ‘merica, they’re talking about…
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Review: The God Engines
The God Engines by John Scalzi My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a very short book. Well, technically it’s a novella – it even says so on the jacket flap. The MSRP is $25 and I think it’s not worth all that for how short it is. However, it’s $9 for hardcover or…
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Revew: Redshirts by John Scalzi
Redshirts by John Scalzi My rating: 4 of 5 stars (warning: This whole review is full of spoilers!) When I first heard about this book I thought about it in the same way that I thought of the Battleship movie. The Red Shirt joke is a fun joke that’s been parodied endlessly. But is it…
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Survivorship Bias and the Brain
Earlier in the year I came across an io9 article around 15 science fiction and fantasy novels that were rejected by publishers. The implication, of course, is what fools those publishers were – look at how many sales these books got and how how popular they remain today. Some of the books included The War…
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My favorite Hitchhiker’s Guide Quote
“And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all…
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Review: At Home: A Short History of Private Life
At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson My rating: 4 of 5 stars Although I enjoyed Bill Bryson’s other book A Short History of Nearly Everything, I actually didn’t know that when I picked this book up. I had heard the other book as an audio book so I didn’t remember…
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Review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 1
Entirely separately from my recent reintroduction into the traditional comic world, I’ve been into graphic novels, as you’ve probably read on this blog. An article I read on Cracked brought The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LoEG) back into my consciousness and then I read the [non-comic] books The Map of Time and Dracula. So I…