Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale (2010) Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Chris Samnee The long awaited story of Shepherd Book’s past. First. Too short. Way too short. Extremely too short. We are given brief glimpses of his past and how he became the man who boarded Serenity. I suppose Book is supposed to be remembering his past […]
Devil’s Cub (1932) Georgette Heyer It took me a ridiculously long time to realize that this is (sort of) a sequel to These Old Shades. Dominic Alistair, Marquis of Vidal, is the son of Justin Alastair, the Duke of Avon, and he is, if possible, more of a rake than his father. And her certainly […]
The Amazing Screw-On Head (2010) Mike Mignola I think that even for Mike Mignola this is a strange collection of stories. Amusing and interesting, yes, but also strange. The first story is about Screw-On Head, who is a head that screws into different bodies. Which is a fascinating idea. He’s sent out by President Lincoln […]
Hellboy: Masks and Monsters (2010) Mike Mignola, James Robinson, Scott Benefiel, Jasen Rodriguez These are two tales outside of the Hellboy time line (ie this is not a sequel to The Wild Hunt) but are crossover with other characters including Batman and Starman. Batman doesn’t play a particularly large role (after all, he’s a busy […]
Cotillion (1953) Georgette Heyer Kitty Charing has been adopted by the very rich and very unpleasant Matthew Penicuik who has decided that she will inherit his entire fortune–if she marries one of his great-nephews. Odds are on Jack, who is Uncle Matthew’s favorite (and Kitty’s too) but Kitty doesn’t like being told what to do, […]
Sins & Shadows (2009) Lyn Benedict If this hadn’t been my carry around to read during lunch book, I probably wouldn’t have finished it. But having nothing else to read, I slogged through and finished. But I didn’t like it. Where to begin with what I didn’t like? First and foremost, although there don’t seem […]
Running with the Pack (2010) edited by Ekaterina Sedia When I saw there was a new werewolf anthology edited by Ekatrerina Sedia with a story by Carrie Vaughn I automatically ordered it. Then of course, once it arrived, it sat around like anthologies tend to do, waiting for the “right” time to read it. But […]
The Track of Sand (2007) Andrea Camilleri translated by Stephen Sartarelli Despite the fact he is quite frequently a right bastard, I am terribly fond of Montalbano. Salvo awakes from a bad dream, and so wanders out to the beach behind is house to clear his head only to discover a dead horse–a horse that […]
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (2005) Lauren Willig Parts of this story I absolutely loved–Spies! Napoleonic France! Daring women! And did I mention spies! Other parts of the story I liked less well. It is a story within a story–an historian gets access to letters and diaries that she hopes will lead her […]
A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia (1994) Victor Pelevin translated by Andrew Bromfield I really really really like the title story to this collection, “A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia.” A young man wanders into a small central Russian village in search of a place he saw in a photograph. He arrives and discovers the […]