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Joe Hunter is struggling with depression. He is only just beginning to adjust to life since his beloved wife, Olivia, passed away when he hears her calling from the 'beyond.' "Where am I?" she calls out to Joe. While her body has died, her soul, her essence, is wandering in an afterlife that is made up of her memories. Memories which he mostly shares. But she is not the only spirit inhabiting the afterlife and she wanders to avoid the restless. Joe journeys into the afterlife each day to lure the restless dead away from his wife, but with each journey it gets harder for him to return and by opening the door to and from the afterlife, Joe allows some of the restless to invade his everyday life. As his wife gets more frantic, facing increasing horrors among the afterlife, Joe will need to make a decision about whether or not to make the ultimate sacrifice to help his wife. I've written before about how much I like Ramsey Campbell's slow-boiling horror and how th...

In the city of Charisat, along the desert known as The Waste, there is a massive temple built by the Ancients. A human named Sagai and Khat, of a humanoid race created by the Ancients to survive in the Waste, work together as relics dealers. They are hired to find some special relics believed to be part of the Ancient's technology which might be used to advance the current society (the Ancients were clearly much more technologically advanced that current society). But their discoveries open a metaphorical Pandora's Box.  There are those who wish to unleash the technology without study or training, which could destroy the entire civilization and Sagai and Khat may be the only ones able to keep the relics safe from the fanatics. I hope I'm not alone in this, but there are authors whose name I recognize and who I know I've read, but I can never remember what I generally think of their work.  Martha Wells is one of those authors for me.  And as I look back at past reviews I...

American legends John Henry (the steel driving man) and Paul Bunyan (the giant lumberjack) are reimagined and given new backstories in this modern fable by Mark Cecil. Paul Bunyan is a miner in the run-down, dirty Lump Town. He's stuck in the job with no way to leave and no way to advance. The town is tightly controlled by the mogul El Boffo. When Paul's wife, Lucette, gets sick from the toxic Lump that's being mined, Paul sets out to meet with El Boffo and bring it to his attention. But people don't just meet with El Boffo whenever they want and Paul learns that El Boffo runs a fighting ring and the winner might have a chance to meet the man who owns the mine.  Paul's a big, young man, but he's a gentle giant - he's never been in a fight in his life.  With the help of a good corner man and a supernatural 'gleam' that lights up in front of Paul, directing him with where to go or what to do, Paul quickly climbs the winner circle in the fighting ring, ...

1963 London is an intoxicating, exciting time.  Hollywood stars such as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton can be seen, bickering in bars. Noel Coward might not be too far away, champagne glass in hand. And if the night is right and the light is right, you might even catch a glimpse of Princess Margaret, all at the Savoy Hotel.  Quite the grand place to be seen.  Unless, that is, there's a dead body in one of the rooms and you're a young hotel worker from Canada and the police have their eyes on you as the murderer.  Such is the problem facing the young, attractive Priscilla Tempest. It doesn't help that Priscilla tends to enjoy the perks of her job (being in the press office for the Savoy) such as the slightly-more-than-occasional champagne, and she always seems to fall for the wrong man - one who brings trouble wherever he goes. So when it is learned that Priscilla spent time with the deceased man (who was an illegal arms dealer) the night before he was found dead...

In 1956 Iceland, fourteen year old Lara seeks to expand her horizons and goes off to spend the summer on the island of Vidney, just off of Reykjavik, working as an all-around maid/housekeeper for a young couple. But in August of that year, Lara has gone missing without a single trace of evidence. Did she continue to seek adventure, moving on without telling anyone, or did something happen to her? Lara is Iceland's most infamous unsolved crime - if, in fact, there was a crime. Now, in 1986, Iceland celebrates it's 200th anniversary but journalist Valur Robertsson is more interested in the 30-year-old story of Lara's disappearance than he is in the stodgy history of the country. He convinces his newspaper editor to let him investigate the story, finding that some people are a little more prone to opening up given the distance of time now. But as Valur gets close to making a revelation, he is suspiciously killed in a freak 'accident'.  Valur's sister, Sunna, picks ...

Just when I was beginning to think that the October Daye series had run it's course and maybe starting to get a little stale, author Seanan McGuire (the most prolific author I'm aware of) brings us the 17th book in the series and shakes up the reality of October's world. October "Toby" Daye has finally settled into a comfortable life and routine, comfortable with her life and lineage. But throughout her life she's ticked off more than a few powerful people, including Titania, the Summer Queen and co-creator of Faerie. No Toby is pulled into a new reality, a creation of Titania's. On the surface it might seem as though nothing has changed, but no thing and no one  is as Toby knows it. Including her closest friends and allies. This isn't just a nightmare, this is the new reality the way Titania believes it should be.  In order to survive and restore reality, Toby will need to navigate this hall of mirrors world, not knowing who to trust or to lean on, a...

The opening sentence on the Goodreads description for this book reads: This book tests the proposition that the humanities can, and at their best do, represent a commitment to ethical reading.  The essence of this book is to discuss and show, by discussion, the value and importance of the humanities in our everyday life. When educational institutions, whether higher education or secondary education, 'needs' to make cuts due to costs, it's usually the humanities that take the brunt. Peter Brooks (with Hilary Jewitt) have held symposiums to discuss the importance of the humanities and have then secured essays and transcriptions of these symposiums for this book. I found a number of interesting and thought-provoking ideas scattered throughout, the first of which was in Brooks' introduction in which, discussing the value of education, he mentions that "there is even a philanthropic organization ... that offers prizes of $100,000 to induce smart kids to drop out of coll...

The 1960's were a very popular time for spies in literature.  Post WWII and the Cold War at its peak, when no one trusted anyone else.  It was perfect for a man (of woman) to secretly gather intel on an enemy. James Bond, of course, is the cream of the crop - one of the most famous.  But the spy who should rival Bond is this woman - Modesty Blaise. Modesty has the perfect background for the work. She doesn't know her real name, she doesn't know exactly when she was born, and she doesn't even know her true nationality.  But she's dedicated to the Crown (Britain) ... and to Willie Garvin, a skilled knife fighter she once rescued. Britain is about to ship 10 million pounds worth of diamonds from South Africa to Beirut but word has come down that someone might be looking to steal the diamonds along the way.  The Crown (represented by Sir Gerald Tarrant) knows that Modesty has contacts in the international underground and might be able to get some more information o...

Having recently enjoyed The Complete Web of Horror , which collected and reprinted a stunning B&W comic series from a few decades back, I thought I'd go for another book of collected reprints, this time the classic comic magazine, Eerie . Eerie was not a magazine that I ever read, though I'd certainly seen it in the stores and would have admired some of the covers (such as the Frazetta piece used as the cover for this compilation). This seemed like a good opportunity to catch up on what I missed in my youth. But it turns out I didn't miss much. While one would want a nice balance between art and story, even in an anthology magazine like Eerie , it's pretty clear that the art takes center stage. This is one of the only comics/graphic novels I've read in which the artist is listed first in the front page credits. (Oddly it isn't consistent, I noticed only one or two instances when the writer was listed first.) So, with an all-star line-up of artists one would...

Zhu Yuanzhang is at the top of her game. She's successfully led an army against the Mongols and has freed southern China from the Mongol's control.  But Zhu isn't satisfied with this unprecedented success.  Now she want to take the throne for herself and become China's emperor.  Zhu isn't the only one who is feeling ambitious though.  Madam Zhang wants her husband to sit on that throne, and Madam Zhang might wield more power than even Zhu. But there is also Wang Baoxiang, a scholar going after the throne using a different method. Rather than brute force, Wang is playing a political game that might have southern China fall right into his hands. The first book in this duology, She Who Became the Sun, was a stunning surprise to me. I was so impressed with the language and the power of the story and the determination of the characters (particularly Zhu) and I was so eager to read this.  Unfortunately it is about as 'opposite' as one can get in almost every conc...

Boyd Halverson has had enough.  Enough of just about everything. So Boyd, once a reputable and respected journalist turned online troll and failed retail manager, walks into the Community National Bank with his .38 Special and walks out with $81,000 and the bank teller. Now Boyd and the teller, Angie Bing, are on the run. Boyd's only goal is to escape capture long enough to get even with the man he believes ruined his life. Chasing the duo are members of Boyd's ex-wife's family, and Angie's ex-fiancé. Who is NOT chasing the pair is the police. The bank trustees, who've been slowly liberating the bank of funds have not filed a report of the robbery. From California to Mexico to California again to Minnesota, Boyd and Angie, who's making the absolute most of being a 'hostage': When they settled in, Angie said, "I'll need fresh clothes tomorrow. Underwear and jeans and shirts and socks. And an electric toothbrush. And a new nose stud and probably a...