Genre fiction often gets a bad rap for following blueprints drawn up by great predecessors. The bad rap is often deserved; as much as I like mysteries, I’m fine with never reading another story with a crafty serial killer or wise, eccentric European gumshoe.
So when I say Auralia’s Colors is a different sort of fantasy [...]
Asia Times reporter Pepe Escobar likens his book Red Zone Blues to a series of blues songs, short blurbs that capture the sad song of life in Iraq during the 2007 troop surge. It sounds like it could work but ultimately does not.
Escobar bookends the book with segments padded with hyper-kinetic prose and slivers of [...]
Orson Scott Card’s Enchantment is a retooled, contemporary take on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. But it also feels like a 1990s version of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Card uses the modern setting–and some contemporary moral questions–without mauling the source material too much, providing a surprisingly deep and entertaining read.
Ivan Smetski [...]