“Stew…is the staple food in Fantasyland, so be warned. You may shortly be passionately longing for omelette, steak, or baked beans, but none of these will be forthcoming, indoors or out. Stew will be what you are served to eat every single time.”—The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones There is good news […]
The Long Way Home, by Louise Penny, is the 10th volume in the best-selling mystery series featuring Armand Gamache, the (now former) head homicide inspector with the Sûreté du Québec. Penny’s mysteries offer up an addictive blend of literary prose and classic mystery tropes. The style will appeal to fans of P.D. James, the Grand Dame […]
Reverence is 99 percent understanding and one percent irreverence. I might have just made up that axiom, but I stand by the math nonetheless. Regardless, few things are more enjoyable than a sci-fi or fantasy spoof that so perfectly skewers the genre it mimics that it threatens to become a genre classic in its own […]
Too much of a good thing certainly can be a good thing: extraordinary wealth or unlimited supplies of puppies, for example. But more often than not, there’s a tradeoff. You can overdose on almost anything, and, unfortunately, that includes genre reading. Many of us are here because we love immersing ourselves in fully fleshed-out fantasy […]