Book Review: China Dolls by Lisa See It is 1938, the tail end of the Great Depression, and San Francisco is trying to shake off its blues with a World’s Fair on Treasure Island. They’re going to need a lot of employees for that, and the prospect of a job draws Grace Lee all the… Continue reading Book Review: China Dolls
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Manga Review: Black Blizzard
Manga Review: Black Blizzard by Yoshihiro Tatsumi The year is 1956. Shinpei Konta, a card shark with five convictions (two for murder) and Susumu Yamaji, a pianist just convicted for murder, are handcuffed together on a train headed for prison. The weather has turned to a blizzard, and a landslide across the tracks derails the… Continue reading Manga Review: Black Blizzard
Comic Strip Review: Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy Volume 14: 1951-1953
Comic Strip Review: Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy Volume 14: 1951-1953 by Chester Gould Another of the fine IDW reprints which are trying to cover the entire Chester Gould run of Dick Tracy, moving into the early 1950s. As mentioned in the Max Allan Collins introduction, the stories shifted focus a bit. Dick Tracy is a full… Continue reading Comic Strip Review: Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy Volume 14: 1951-1953
Manga Review: The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 14
Manga Review: The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 14 story by Eiji Ohtsuka, art by Housui Yamazaki It’s finally out! To recap for newer readers, the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is five students at a Buddhist college that each have skills or talents related to the dead. They form a small firm that fulfills the last… Continue reading Manga Review: The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 14
Book Review: Women of the Night
Book Review: Women of the Night edited by Martin H. Greenberg With all the anthologies I’ve been reviewing, I’m surprised it took me this long to cover one edited by Martin H. Greenberg (1941-2011), who curated more than a thousand SF/F/Horror anthologies during his career. He was an excellent packager: If you wanted a book about… Continue reading Book Review: Women of the Night
Book Review: Galaxy of Ghouls
Book Review: Galaxy of Ghouls edited by Judith Merril October is scary stuff season, so let’s look at a book of creepy tales. This collection of 16 “science-fantasy” stories is themed around various monsters, from the classic to the out-there. We open with “Wolves Don’t Cry” by Bruce Elliott, turning the traditional werewolf story upside… Continue reading Book Review: Galaxy of Ghouls
Book Review: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume
Book Review: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume edited by Judith Merril This 1957 volume contains speculative fiction stories from magazines published in roughly the previous year, hand-picked by the editor to represent the best the field had to offer at the time. (I’ve previously reviewed the fifth annual, which switched the… Continue reading Book Review: The Year’s Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy Second Annual Volume
Book Review: The Year’s Best S-F: 5th Annual Edition
Book Review: The Year’s Best S-F: 5th Annual Edition edited by Judith Merrill This 1960 book features a selection of speculative fiction short stories published during the 1958-60 time period. Editor Judith Merrill provides an introduction about the concept of wonder, chatty introductions to each story (she doesn’t think much of Kingsley Amis as a… Continue reading Book Review: The Year’s Best S-F: 5th Annual Edition
Book Review: Fresh Fear
Book Review: Fresh Fear edited by William Cook Horror anthologies are like a box of chocolates. One story might be crunchy frog, another spring surprise, while a more disappointing one is just maple cream. (Seriously, maple cream?) This is because horror tends to be a balancing act between what the writer finds scary and what… Continue reading Book Review: Fresh Fear
Book Review: The Partnership
Book Review: The Partnership by Pamela Katz Disclaimer: I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway on the premise that I would review it. This copy was a bound galley, and changes have been made in the published edition (most notably, a proper index.) The Weimar Republic, Germany after World War One and before the… Continue reading Book Review: The Partnership