Category Archives: Books

Richard Labonté and Lawrence Schimel, editors’ The Future is Queer

I seem to be doing a land-office business in theme anthologies lately. Among these, it seems almost as a matter of course, are a number dealing with issues of gender, sexuality, and sexual identity. The most recent to cross my … Continue reading

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Chris Ware’s The Acme Novelty Library #16

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Henry David Thoreau wrote these words in his classic book Walden, in 1854. Wow — that’s 152 years ago! And, according to the characters in Chris Ware’s most recent graphic novel[ty] … Continue reading

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Charles M. Schulz’s The Complete Peanuts, 1959-1960

The Complete Peanuts is an on-going labour of love for editor Gary Groth and designer Seth. And it’s a semi-regular treat to receive the next volume. This is the fifth book so far and we’re up to 1959-60. I was … Continue reading

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Brian Froud and Ari Berk’s Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Letters

The third volume exploring the world of notorious Lady Angelica Cottington, Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Letters brings us a collection of her correspondence, saved and carefully pressed along with more of her victims . . . er, specimens . . … Continue reading

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Judith Berman’s Bear Daughter

Wendy Donahue wrote this review. An extraordinary novel by Judith Berman, Bear Daughter is a sequel to the story “Lord Stink” (Asimov’s, August 1997, reprinted in Lord Stink and Other Stories, Small Beer Press, 2002). Cloud, a 12-year-old who has … Continue reading

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Isabel Allende’s Zorro

There’s just nothing like reviewing a piece of fiction to get you thinking about things you wouldn’t otherwise have thought about at all … When I was a kid, all the major television networks were scheduling shows with a Western … Continue reading

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Ellen Datlow, Kelley Link and Gavin Grant, editors’ The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Eighteenth Annual Collection

What’s better in this world than the best? That’s what I asked myself when I received an advance review copy of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Like the seventeen before it, it promises some of the finest stories and … Continue reading

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Gregory Maguire’s Son of a Witch

Gili Bar-Hilel contributed this review. If you liked Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, you will probably like its sequel, for here is more of the same. Wicked did very well, and has been … Continue reading

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Patricia McKillip’s The House on Parchment Street

Book cover art can be a tricky topic. Publishers insist they take many things into consideration when choosing cover art. They balance things like branding, marketing, genre identification. They consider such factors as target audience, and author recognizability from book … Continue reading

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C.P. Lee’s Like the Night (Revisited): Bob Dylan and the road to the Manchester Free Trade Hall; and Derek Barker’s Isis: A Bob Dylan Anthology

The 1966 concert at the Manchester Free Trade Hall is the most legendary single performance of Bob Dylan’s career; perhaps of the entire rock era. This concert, at which an irate fan shouted “Judas!” at Dylan, almost immediately entered the … Continue reading

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