Book Review: Great Supernatural Stories: 101 Horrifying Tales

Book Review: Great Supernatural Stories: 101 Horrifying Tales compiled by Stefan Dziemianowicz This hefty volume collects a variety of public domain stories concerning the supernatural. While the majority fall roughly into the category of horror, some are more what we’d call “dark fantasy” and a handful are just “well, that’s a weird thing that happened.”… Continue reading Book Review: Great Supernatural Stories: 101 Horrifying Tales

Comic Book Review: Superman Smashes the Klan 1

Comic Book Review: Superman Smashes the Klan 1 written by Gene Luen Yang, art by Gurihiru It’s 1946 in the city of Metropolis, and times are changing fast in this post-War world. The Lee family is moving from the isolated neighborhood of Chinatown to the heart of the city, the first Chinese family to live… Continue reading Comic Book Review: Superman Smashes the Klan 1

Book Review: The Best of R.A. Lafferty

Book Review: The Best of R.A. Lafferty by R.A. Lafferty Raphael Aloysius Lafferty (1914-2002) was one of those “American originals” you hear about every so often. His writing takes some form from the American tall tale, some from Native American yarn spinning, and mixes it into a style all his own. This anthology collects 22… Continue reading Book Review: The Best of R.A. Lafferty

Book Review: Looking for Humboldt & Searching for German Footprints in New Mexico and Beyond

Book Review: Looking for Humboldt & Searching for German Footprints in New Mexico and Beyond by Erika Schelby The author is a German immigrant to New Mexico. While studying the history of her new state, she learned that Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), the famous Prussian naturalist and explorer, had passed through what would become New… Continue reading Book Review: Looking for Humboldt & Searching for German Footprints in New Mexico and Beyond

Magazine Review: High Adventure #160: Ten Detective Aces Special

Magazine Review: High Adventure #160: Ten Detective Aces Special edited by John P. Gunnison Ten Detective Aces started publication in 1928 under the title The Dragnet Magazine and primarily featured gangster stories. Public interest in gangsters as a separate subgenre was fading, so in 1930 the magazine started featuring more general crime and detective stories under the title Detective-Dragnet Magazine, and in 1933 switched to Ten… Continue reading Magazine Review: High Adventure #160: Ten Detective Aces Special

Book Review: Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories

Book Review: Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories by Naomi Kritzer This is the first collection of speculative fiction stories by Naomi Kritzer, headlined by the title piece, which won a Hugo Award in 2016.   There’s seventeen stories in all. “Cat Pictures Please” is a sweet story about an artificial intelligence accidentally created from a… Continue reading Book Review: Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories

Manga Review: Alice & Zoroku Volume 1

Manga Review: Alice & Zoroku Volume 1 by Tetsuya Imai Reality-warping superhuman beings exist, but the government is keeping them a secret, stashing any they find in a hidden facility to be studied as “Dreams of Alice.”  The most powerful of these is Sana, the Red Queen, who can summon up anything she can imagine,… Continue reading Manga Review: Alice & Zoroku Volume 1

Book Review: The Play of Death

Book Review: The Play of Death by Oliver Pötzsch Disclaimer:  I received a Kindle download of this book through a Goodreads giveaway to facilitate this review.  No other compensation was offered or requested. The year is 1670, and the people of Oberammergau are preparing their every-ten-years Passion Play…though some of them think it might be… Continue reading Book Review: The Play of Death

Book Review: Tuesdays With Morrie

Book Review: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom In 1995, there was fighting in Bosnia, O.J. Simpson was on trial for murder, and a man named Morrie Schwartz was teaching his last class about life.  It met on Tuesdays, and the student was sportswriter Mitch Albom.  Twenty years before, Mitch had been Morrie’s student in… Continue reading Book Review: Tuesdays With Morrie

Book Review: The Transplanted

Book Review: The Transplanted by John Bodnar This volume, written in the 1980s, is a survey of patterns of immigration into urban areas of the United States between 1830-1930 (approximately.)    It covers those who came to stay, those who just came to get a nest egg to improve life in their home country, and… Continue reading Book Review: The Transplanted