Sorry everyone. My post for today is just the news that I am once more utterly consumed by Worm. If you want to hear why, you can read my first post on the subject. It turns out that the later arcs are also extremely compelling (and no, I’m not actually surprised).
If you want something else of mine to read and you haven’t yet read my Monday post, check that out. I’ll have more for you next week!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Julia Griffin’s Snow Queen.
I admit it: I’ve long been a fan of pretty pictures. It’s no surprise, then, that I’m a fan of Julia Griffin’s work. For example, I just cannot get over this kid’s hair. The fine detail, the shimmer of light, and the delicacy of each strand seems incredible. And the Snow Queen’s fur stole is similarly impressive; I feel like I’m looking at the fur of one of my ferrets.
Done entirely in colored pencils, this is just one of many images created by my friend Julia Griffin for her retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen. She’s been working on this project for the past three years, and the time has finally come for her to turn her collection of images into a book. If you like that picture, or if you like stories about young heroines, or even if you just like the idea having a pretty picture book, you should check out Julia’s Kickstarter project.
You want to see more art? There’s more good stuff where this came from:
I continue to be amazed by the semi-stippled effect she’s created, as well as by her impressive attention to detail.
You know, I was going to wax loquacious about how cool I think this stuff is, but I think I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves. You should totally check out Julia’s work, and take a look at Julia’s Snow Queen.
You can see some of Julia’s other work here.
Funny how these things work. I was going to write an article about this book for last Wednesday, but then I was caught up by Worm. If you haven’t read that article already, I strongly suggest that you do. The truth is, I’m still torn by the temptation to just fall back into reading more instead of writing this. But A Mighty Fortress deserves its dues, and it’s best for me to write about it before all recollections of my previous life are completely washed away by Worm.
A Mighty Fortress returns to the world of Safehold, with all of the previously established intrigue, religious strife, and budding world-wide warfare that David Weber has thrown together into this meaty fictional stew. At the end of the previous book in the series, I was feeling a little let down: it wasn’t that the book was bad, it was simply that it followed my expectations so completely that I didn’t feel inspired to immediately grab the next book. But now I’m glad that I did; while it wasn’t some magical honeymoon moment, like the first denouement of a radiantly new setting, it was most definitely a lot of fun. Still true to form and somewhat predictable, but totally worth the read.
Lock up your doors, close your shades, phone in sick. You’re about to disappear, pulled down by the rapturous embrace of another internet fic. It will keep you up late, and get you up early. For those of you with a hankering for excellent stories and an intelligent treatment of what happens when the superhumans come home to roost, I have to share the new drug in town. As with all good drugs, the first hit is free. Unlike most, the other hits are free too.
I was jonesing for more Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality yesterday (you know, that fic that I liked so much), and thought I’d check in to see whether there was a new post. While I was out of luck on that front, the author, Eliezer, did post a new note on November 1st. Better yet, he recommended another piece of internet-based fiction: Worm. The name isn’t much, I know, but bear with me.
Worm is excellent. As I write this, I’ve just lost an hour and a half of my afternoon to its charms, and I’m only pulling myself away because I absolutely have to force myself to write something. As soon as I have enough of this written that I can put off finishing it until Wednesday morning, I’m certain I’ll dive back in. It is compelling and appealing, and I really don’t want to stop. I don’t want to write my own material, I just want to read more Worm.
Whew, ok. That was all I got down before I fell back into the fic. If you want to know more about the story that’s grabbed me, read on. Continue reading
The next installment in the Heirs of Alexandria series is here! It took me all of three days to read it, tops, and that was while I was doing other things. Actually it might have been two days, I kind of lost track. Burdens of the Dead offers yet another compulsive read, much like the other books in the series, and explores a fantastical Renaissance-that-might-have-been in which magic works, demons plot the conquest of mankind, and forgotten gods still roam the Earth. If you haven’t read the other books in the series and any of that piques your interest, I strongly recommend that you pick up The Shadow of the Lion, the first installment in the series. I really love this series…
I have to admit, my memory of Wolf Who Rules has blended into the book that comes before it (Tinker, which I reviewed last week) and the next one in the series (Elfhome). As you might expect from such a situation, if you liked Tinker you’ll almost certainly like Wolf Who Rules.
I can extricate the details of the plot with some additional focus, but the stories all pile together, following one another so closely that it is not easy to tell where one ends and the next begins. Little is done to ease you back into the story beyond a few quick info drops, but this also means that if you’ve just read Tinker you’ll easily slide along into this one without any sense of confusion. Without one of the sometimes ponderous prolonged reintroductions that are so common to a series, Wolf Who Rules whisks you straight into the next adventure.
Wen Spencer surprised me. I picked up Tinker through the Baen ebook store, expecting to find something that would keep me suitably amused while traveling. The book did that, and then it grabbed me and pulled me in. While I should have been working, I read. While I should have been visiting with family, I read. While I should have been sleeping… you get the idea. It turns out that Spencer is very good at delivering on the promises of her pacing; she starts with a bang, and she quickly turns up the heat and adds increasing tension to the mix. There are a few spots where you can sit down and take a breath, but you won’t want to. Add some sections that make you wince and cringe and more sections that are laugh-out-loud funny, and you’ve got Tinker. It’s a bit like a less pulpy version of Girl Genius. Would you like to know more?
Ah, pseudonyms. Adam Hall was one of the pseudonyms used by the author Elleston Trevor (which was itself not the author’s original name). It seems entirely appropriate to me that such an excellent spy novel should come from someone who felt so compelled to shroud and change their own identity. If you like spy stories and intrigue, or would like to try dabbling in them for the very first time, look no further. Quiller is a far better Cold War spy than the cinematic Mr. Bond ever was, more deeply focused on the details of spycraft, practicing intimate information war as a metaphoric knife fight where you’re never truly certain as to who holds the advantage. Drawing blood is rarely the point of the duel, and secrets are more valuable than lives. The Quiller Memorandum, as you might have guessed, is a very exciting book.
Does the title feel achingly familiar? Just like something that you’ve read before? Well…
Within several hours of writing my piece last week, I had already finished reading 1636: The Devil’s Opera, meaning that I went through it in slightly more than one day despite several interruptions. It’s an addictive delight, just as I had anticipated it would be. In that way, it is completely in keeping with what I’ve come to expect from Eric Flint, and from his 1632 series. And now I want to go back to see what else David Carrico has on offer. He seems promising, and if his other works are anywhere near as good as this one, I’ll be happy to read them. Now then, about this book…
Fistful of Wits 