Manga Review: Vampire Princess Miyu Volume Two: Encounters

Manga Review: Vampire Princess Miyu Volume Two: Encounters by Toshiki Hirano & Narumi Kakinouchi The Shinma (“god-demons”) are supernatural creatures that come from a place known as the Darkness, which many of them have escaped from to the bright and warm Earth.  It is the fate of Miyu, born of the union of a vampiric… Continue reading Manga Review: Vampire Princess Miyu Volume Two: Encounters

Manga Review: Inuyashiki #1-3

Manga Review: Inuyashiki #1-3 by Hiroya Oku Life is tough for Ichiro Inuyashiki.  He’s only 58, but looks a good ten years older.  His wife and children think he’s a loser (and they’re not entirely wrong,) he gets pushed around by jerks, and now he has cancer.  The prognosis is terminal, a few months at… Continue reading Manga Review: Inuyashiki #1-3

Manga Review: Noragami: Stray God #1

Manga Review: Noragami: Stray God #1 by Adachitoka Mutsumi is in a bad way.   Not only is she under stress studying for the high school entrance exams, but her classmates have turned against her, bullying Mutsumi and encouraging her to self-harm.  She’s locked herself in a toilet stall for a good cry when suddenly… Continue reading Manga Review: Noragami: Stray God #1

Magazine Review: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine July 2016

Magazine Review: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine July 2016 edited by Janet Hutchings Frederick Dannay, who along with Manfred B. Lee wrote the Ellery Queen mystery stories, was asked by Mercury Press to be the editor of a new magazine that would print a higher class of detective stories than the general run of pulps, with… Continue reading Magazine Review: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine July 2016

Book Review: Lobster Johnson: The Satan Factory

Book Review: Lobster Johnson: The Satan Factory by Thomas E. Sniegoski Disgraced doctor Jonas Chapel, on the run from the mob in Mexico, stumbles across a mysterious skeleton dripping a fluid that turns humans into monsters.  Soon thereafter Chapel’s back in New York, teaming up with the very gang boss who’d ordered the hit on… Continue reading Book Review: Lobster Johnson: The Satan Factory

Book Review: A Memory This Size and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 2013

Book Review: A Memory This Size and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 2013 Introduction by Lizzy Attree The Caine Prize is awarded to a short story written by an African author (which primarily means one born in Africa–all the authors in this volume are from Sub-Saharan Africa), published in English in the… Continue reading Book Review: A Memory This Size and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 2013

Book Review: Demons of the Night and Other Early Tales

Book Review: Demons of the Night and Other Early Tales by Seabury Quinn Seabury Grandin Quinn (1889-1969) was a prolific pulp author, producing more than five hundred short stories.  He’s best remembered for his Jules de Grandin stories appearing in Weird Tales, featuring a French-accented occult detective.  This particular collection, however, is focused around his other early… Continue reading Book Review: Demons of the Night and Other Early Tales

Manga Review: Afterschool Charisma

Manga Review: Afterschool Charisma by Kumiko Suekane Shiro Kamiya is an ordinary high school student until the day his father takes a job as headmaster of St. Kleio Academy, and enrolls Shiro in that exclusive school.  A very exclusive school indeed, as all the other students are clones of famous historical figures.  As the only… Continue reading Manga Review: Afterschool Charisma

Book Review: Splatterlands

Book Review: Splatterlands edited by Anthony Rivera and Sharon Lawson Disclaimer:  I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway on the premise that I would review it. According to Wikipedia, “splatterpunk” was a movement in horror writing between roughly 1985 and 1995,  distinguished by its graphic and often gory descriptions of violence and attempts to… Continue reading Book Review: Splatterlands