Tag: reviews

December 17, 2012

Bewitched, Beloved, and Between Worlds

A review of Noah Chinn’s Bleeding Heart Yard: A Damned Love Story (Mundania Press, 2011) By Derek Newman-Stille Werewolves and witchcraft meet alternative worlds in Noah Chinn’s Bleeding Heart Yard: A Damned Love Story. Chinn explores the pervasive power of myths and myth-building, looking at how places come to be associated with mythical explanations, the way children will create urban...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 3

December 12, 2012

Little Tremours of the Weird to Shake Up the Mundane

A Review of Postscripts to Darkness 2 edited by Sean Moreland and Aalya Ahmad (Ex Hubris Imprints, 2012). By Derek Newman-Stille Postscripts to Darkness 2 is a fantastic sequel to the first volume, continuing the trend of infusing the familiar with the odd. The contributors to this volume illustrate an incredible ability to condense narratives to their bare essentials, creating...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

December 10, 2012

Being ‘Othered’ in the Otherworld.

A Review of Kelley Armstrong’s Spell Bound (Vintage Canada, 2012). By Derek Newman-Stille When you define yourself by your abilities, by the powers that make you distinct from others, what happens when you lose those powers? Kelley Armstrong explores this question in Spell Bound, the twelfth book in her Women of the Otherworld series. In Armstrong’s world, supernaturals are rare,...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 4

December 8, 2012

Vampiropocalyptic Cold

A review of Sandra Kasturi’s The Slowing of the World in Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead (Edge, 2011) By Derek Newman-Stille Vampires, living forever and experiencing the world through the longue duree, should be the personification of patience. Predators are known for their ability to wait for long periods of time for their prey, and, when that...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

December 7, 2012

OUTlaws and Tex Hex

A review of Gemma Files’ A Book of Tongues Book 1 in the Hexslinger Series (ChiZine Publications, 2010). By Derek Newman-Stille I have often shied away from the Western genre, seeing it as generally overly heterosexist and enforcing a restricting notion of masculinity, but I was intrigued when I saw that Gemma Files, who often writes pro-queer literature was writing...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 2

December 3, 2012

Supernatural Superhero Secrets

A Review of D D Barant’s Death Blows (St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 2010). By Derek Newman-Stille Death Blows will be the second of DD Barant’s The Bloodhound Files novels that I will have reviewed. You can check out the review of book one by clicking on DD Barant in the Tags section. In a world where everyone has supernatural powers, there...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comment: 1

December 1, 2012

Doomed to Repeat

A Review of Camille Alexa’s Children of the Device (In Here Be Monsters: Tongues and Teeth: Issue Seven, 2012) By Derek Newman-Stille Since the world is supposed to end at the end of this month according to the Mayan Calendar, I thought I would begin the month with an apocalyptic story by Camille Alexa. Nothing better prepares us for the...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 2

November 29, 2012

Eldritch Summonings from the World of the Unconventional

A Review of Here Be Monsters: Tongues and Teeth Edited by Duane Burry, Vincent Mackay, and Alexander Newcombe (Here be Monsters Speculative Fiction issue seven, September, 2012) By Derek Newman-Stille Here Be Monsters: Tongues and Teeth is the first of the Here Be Monsters anthologies that I have read, and I am extremely impressed with the quality of work in...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

November 22, 2012

American Expat Explores the American Myth

A review of Jerome Stueart’s One Nation Under Gods in Tesseracts 14: Strange Canadian Stories. By Derek Newman-Stille Jerome Stueart, an American expat and current Canadian, explores the American myth in his One Nation Under Gods. Stueart creates a United States in which American concepts of patriotism are physically manifest in American gods. Gods like Lady Liberty, Strike, and Patriot...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 5

November 19, 2012

Changeabilia

A Review of Douglas Smith’s Impossibilia (PS Publishing, 2008) By Derek Newman-Stille Impossibilia features Douglas Smith’s fascination with moral questions and morally ambiguous spaces where characters are forced to question conflicting values and ideologies. Through his characters, he asks readers What would change your morals? What are you willing to sacrifice? What would you do for the person you love?...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 2