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Recent Posts
- What’s New for the 16th of August: Deborah Grabien’s music criticism essays; new Americana and jazz, and some music for the Dog Days of Summer
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Midsomer Strangeness
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Contradances
- What’s New for the 26th of July: Witches in fiction, both books and film; an Americana reissue and some music on a smoky theme
- A Kinrowan Estate story: chicken pot pieces
- What’s New for the 19th of July: Charles de Lint’s Ottawa novels with a quote from Drink Down the Moon, Gary’s review of Nordic fiddle music, It’s Michele Walther and Irina Behrendt playing Aaron Copland’s ‘Hoe Down’ from his Rodeo album
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Midsomer Odd Things
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Library and Its Librarian
- What’s New for the Fifth of July: Remembering Jane Yolen; some new Americana and jazz music; Fishing Blues
- A Kinrowan Estate Story: Recursive Loops
- What’s New for June 21: Jennifer Stevenson’s ‘Solstice’
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Turkish Coffee
- What’s New for the 7th of June: Foxes in literature, live Balkan music, comforting jazz, Americana jazz, and wonderfully weird fusion jazz; and John Fogerty live
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Bloodied Kings
- What’s New for the 24th of May: Gary’s Review of Elizabeth Bear’s White Space novels, iain’s review of the Lonely Signal Burns novellas by her, she reading her own story, ‘The Chains That You Refuse’, and I see Gary has some tasty music reviews fir us as well
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Our Greensward
- What’s New for the 10th of May: books reviewed by Jennifer Stevenson, music by Teddy Thompson, Americana music from all over, and some live music from John Fogerty
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Walk
- What’s New for the 26th of April: the nature of Stories; some new and newish SF, plus new world, jazz, folk and Americana music
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Spring Day
- What’s New for the 12th of April: Some new and recent SF; new Americana, Norwegian folk rock and jazz; and thoughts on War For The Oaks
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Unified Theory of Libraries (A Letter to Anna)
- What’s New for the 29th of March: Beer and spirits, in song and text, some new Scandinavian fiddle music and jazz flute music, and more
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Ghostly Librarian
- What’s New for the 15th of March: some DeLint stories for early spring; lots of polskas, Serbian folk rock, progressive jazz, and Nordic music from the archives
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Hedge Witches
- What’s New for the 1st of March: Emma Bull’s War for The Oaks, Rosanne Cash’s ‘Runaway Train’, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, plus new Americana and jazz music
- A Kinrorwan Estate story: Cranachanh
- What’s New for the 15th of February: Some Seanan McGuire fantasy, Alison Bechdel’s latest, Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin; Nordic sounds, old time, Americana and Tex-Mex music
- What’s New for the 1st of February: Kage Baker retrospective; new Americana, Buddhist chants and Finnish songs, new and reissued jazz, and more
Category Archives: Books
Tim Lebbon’s Relics
Vince and Angela are just your average happy couple living in London. She’s a grad student, he works for a real estate company, and they have a cozy apartment and a great sex life. Except, of course, for the fact … Continue reading
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China Miéville’s Kraken
Don’t let the tentacles fool you — yes, China Miéville’s Kraken takes as its starting point a tentacular god of the deep reminiscent of the stories of H. P. Lovecraft, but then Miéville adds to it the baroque psychogeographies of … Continue reading
Christopher Fowler’s The Victoria Vanishes
The trick to enjoying Christopher Fowler’s The Victoria Vanishes is to avoid thinking too hard about it. Bear in mind that there is indeed plenty to enjoy here, much of it residing in the rich characterization of the members of … Continue reading
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Elizabeth Bear’s Bone and Jewel Creatures
Elizabeth Bear’s novella Bone and Jewel Creatures takes us to a bizarre fantasy world that Bear doesn’t describe so much as imply. Bijou the Artificer is a Wizard of Messaline; she makes Artifices out of bone, wire, and jewels. Sometimes … Continue reading
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Tagged fantasy, short fiction
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Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map
In the late summer of 1854, cholera struck a densely crowded poor neighborhood in London’s Soho district. Within days, hundreds were dead, and dozens more had fled the area for other parts of London or the surrounding countryside. In terms … Continue reading
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Tagged epidemics, London, public Heath
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Justin Gustainis’ The Devil Will Come: A Modern Collection of Devilish Fiction
You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but sometimes you can get a pretty good hint as to where things are headed. So it is with Justin Gustainis’ collection The Devil Will Come: A Modern … Continue reading
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Patricia A. McKillip’s The Bards of Bone Plain
I’ve noted before the importance of music in the works of Patricia McKillip. I’ve probably also said something about the poetic quality of her writing. I know I’ve mentioned the way magic infuses her stories, context rather than event. That’s … Continue reading
Farah Mendlesoh’s Rhetorics of Fantasy
Lory Hess penned this review. Farah Mendlesohn takes fantasy seriously. Other scholars may tend to skip over the genre, or feel the need to explain or excuse their focus on popular fiction, but she takes for granted the worthiness of … Continue reading
Peter S. Beagle’s In Calabria
Let’s get this out of the way early: Peter S. Beagle’s In Calabria does in fact feature a unicorn. However, looking at it as a sequel to The Last Unicorn is a mistake. There are no Schmendricks here, and the … Continue reading
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What’s New for the 1st of January: music from Sunas, banana French toast, music in fiction and other matters…
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne? Robert Burns Shhh… We need to be more than just a wee bit quieter than usual as a lot of the residents of … Continue reading →