Category Archives: Uncategorized

Martin Simpson: Vagrant Stanzas

I remember seeing Martin Simpson at a festival in England in the early 1980s. He was then one of the bright new hopes in English folk music, and had released his first album. I liked him, bought a few albums, … Continue reading

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Leona Wisoker’s Fires of the Desert

Fires of the Desert is Book Four of Leona Wisoker’s series, Children of the Desert, and, just when you thought things couldn’t get more complex and difficult, they do, although thankfully the darkness of Bells of the Kingdom is ameliorated. … Continue reading

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Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy is inarguably one of the seminal works of modern science fiction. It was one of the first to take its inspiration from the social sciences rather than the physical sciences (Gernsback’s formula of “better living through … Continue reading

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This May Day (A Letter to Anna)

Dear Anna, Our traditional May Pole ceremony happens about one year in ten given the typical weather on the first of May. This May Day gave us the usual weather: a cold, driving rain with just enough sleet to make … Continue reading

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A Kinrowan Estate story: Beef (A Memo to The Steward)

To: Ingrid, Estate Steward From: Gus, Estate Head Gardener Subject: Beef for next year As you are well aware, we don’t raise cattle here even though we do raise pigs, sheep, geese, chickens, turkeys, and even ducks. Obviously one of … Continue reading

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A Kinrowan Estate story: Tam Lin (A Letter to Anna)

Dear Anna, Thank you for the whisky. It was indeed as superb as I thought it would be. I shared it with Iain who said it so good that putting water in it would be a crime against all great … Continue reading

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Kate Griffin’s The Minority Council

The Minority Council, the fourth novel in Kate Griffin’s Midnight Mayor series, puts Matthew Swift, the current Midnight Mayor of London, is more peril of his and the Electric Blue Angels’ existence than in any of the previous novels as … Continue reading

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Iain M. Banks’ Surface Detail

Iain M. Banks’s Culture series began in 1987 in the midst of a galaxy-spanning war. By the time of Banks’s 2010 Culture novel Surface Detail (released in trade paper in 2011) the war is long over. The series seems to … Continue reading

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Kelley Armstrong’s Forbidden

Forbidden is essentially connective tissue for Kelley Armstrong’s ongoing Otherworld setting. It’s a handsomely illustrated novella — four images by Angilram complement the text in stark red, black and white. But really, the point of this followup to Frostbitten is … Continue reading

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Mike Resnick’s Stalking the Zombie

There’s actually a fairly long history for the fantasy detective genre, going back at least to Randall Garrett’s stories of Lord Darcy from the 1960s. The genre has enjoyed a roster of stellar practitioners — Michael Moorcock, Glenn Cook, Steven … Continue reading

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