Category Archives: Books

Elizabeth Bear’s Blood and Iron

One of the freshest and most interesting developments in fantasy literature over the past decade or two has been the emergence of what I tend to call “contemporary fantasy.” Known also as “urban fantasy” or sometimes “mythic literature,” it combines … Continue reading

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Robert A. Heinlein’s The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein and The Number of The Beast

Our kind but ever so iron-fisted Editor-in-Chief decreed some time ago that Green Man wouldn’t do science fiction, so we don’t. (And the last person to disobey this edict is still down in the rat-infested cellars below the GMR corporate … Continue reading

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Robert Heinlein’s The Cat Who Walks Through Walls: A Comedy of Manners

The Cat Who Walks Through Walls is, after over forty years of my reading works beyond count by Robert Heinlein, my favorite novel by him bar none. There are without doubt better written novels by Heinlein that stir strong passions in … Continue reading

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Elsa Hart’s The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne

The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne by Elsa Hart is an interesting take on the historical mystery. Sporting a pair of women investigators and an esoteric collection of both objects and suspects, The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne contains intrigue and danger … Continue reading

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William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s The Difference Engine

Steampunk is a relatively recent genre that mixes the image of a cyberpunk dystopia with the technology and culture of the Victorian Empire. I thought it was a fairly common motif, but it appears not to be as I can … Continue reading

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J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Annotated Hobbit

If The Lord of The Rings is the ultimate in adult fantasy works, and I believe it is, than The Hobbit is not truly the prequel to it, but rather a separate novel, and clearly, like Peter Pan, it is … Continue reading

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Elizabeth Bear’s Sub-Inspector Ferron series, “In the House of Aryaman, A Lonely Signal Burns” and “A Blessing of Unicorns”

As I write this review just before Election Day (2020), there have been but two novellas released in the fascinating Sub-Inspector Ferron series “In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns” and “A Blessing of Unicorns”.  I’m not sure how I … Continue reading

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J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit

Naomi de Bruyn wrote this review. What do you say about a classic, innovative, before-its-time, groundbreaking piece of fantastic literature? Something which has not already been said, something to encompass the entirety of a genre-making novel, read and loved by … Continue reading

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Gene Wolfe’s Castleview

I think one thing the reader must keep firmly in mind when reading anything by Gene Wolfe is that Wolfe likes to play with your head — and he seems to have developed an admirable store of ways to do … Continue reading

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Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold’s Lord Demon

Roger Zelazny is one of the few writers in any genre that I think honestly deserves the sobriquet “visionary.” My first contact with Zelazny was “A Rose for Ecclesiastes,” first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in … Continue reading

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