After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia edited by Ellen Datlow
Is Authoritarianism the Answer to Social Unrest?

Is Authoritarianism the Answer to Social Unrest?

Last week or so, I finished reading After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. Datlow is an award-winning editor. I heard about her last year when I participated in the Books of Horror Christmas exchange. (Books of Horror is one of the reader-oriented Facebook groups I follow.) So when I was looking for new-to-me Horror recently, I decided to give one of her anthologies a go. I’ll have more on my impressions of…

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The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke
August 2019’s Reads

August 2019’s Reads

I read a ton of stuff in August, more than usual even. It was nice to binge read a little instead of having to spread reading a single book out over a few days or longer. When I read Joe Hill’s Horns earlier this year, I fell in love with his writing style and storytelling skill. I’ve been slowly working my way through his other books, spreading them out a little so that I don’t run through them too quickly….

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Gil's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez
July 2019’s Reads

July 2019’s Reads

I recently changed up my schedule so that I’d have more time to read. Because I figured y’all weren’t content with the four to eight books or so that I detail here each month. Ok, honestly, I just enjoy reading, though it is necessary to my job, i.e. being a writer. Reading fiction is a pleasurable activity, but it’s also market research in a lot of ways. Which is probably more than you wanted to know. Over the past few…

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Night of the Living Yarn Stash

Night of the Living Yarn Stash

I have two vices in this world: books and yarn. I did have three, but I gave up soft drinks (mostly) in 2015 when I went on a weight-loss spree. Yes, I love chocolate, but since it’s a major food group and completely necessary to the health and well-being of the average writer’s brain, it doesn’t count. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been rearranging my books into something like an organized system, meaning that I now have a dedicated…

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The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan
May and June 2019’s Reads

May and June 2019’s Reads

Because I got a little distracted in early June and completely forgot to do May’s reads (ok, I procrastinated too long), you now have the pleasure of a fairly long list of the books I’ve read since May 1st. First, a short story, “10 Reasons Aliens Just Can’t Get Enough of This Small West Virginia Town” by Shae Davidson. In this cutesy SciFi story, Davidson builds a world changed greatly by the Visitation and the alien tourists who love Pine…

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Ravelry Implements a Non-Inclusive Policy to Combat Non-Inclusivity

Ravelry Implements a Non-Inclusive Policy to Combat Non-Inclusivity

Ravelry, a crochet and knitting social site, has implemented a No Trump Support ban because We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow support for open white supremacy. Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy. Let’s leave aside for a moment that it is absolute insanity to seriously equate President Trump with white supremacy; this is in no way factually correct and is, in fact, a delusion of the left. No, wait….

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Redemption (Daughters of the People, Book 6.5) by Lucy Varna
Redemption

Redemption

Spoiler alert: If you haven’t read the entire Daughters of the People Series to date, you may want to do so before reading this post as it contains serious spoilers. I’m working on Redemption, the penultimate Daughters of the People novel, right now. Well, I’ve been working on it for quite a while, since October 2017 to be precise. Long before that, I added the title in as an extra to the series. India Furia, the main female character, kept…

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The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen
April 2019’s Reads

April 2019’s Reads

April was not as heavy on the reading front as March was, thanks to a couple of long reads. Anyone who’s read this blog for a while should know that I am a huge Neil Gaiman fan. It started when my son was young and we discovered Coraline and The Graveyard Book. The stories are dark, twisted, and weird, especially considering that they’re aimed at younger readers, but that’s what we liked about them. My son grew older and into…

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The Master Vampire (The Vampyr, Book 4) by V.R. Cumming
The Master Vampire

The Master Vampire

I love my readers. No, really, I do. I write under four (*ahem* or more *ahem*) pen names and so far, nearly every reader for books published under every pen name has been a delight to interact with. But some of you are getting a little impatient. A couple of months ago, I received an email from a fan of the Vampyr Series (V.R. Cumming) that pushed me to write a post detailing exactly what’s been going on in my…

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First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen
March 2019’s Reads

March 2019’s Reads

I read a ton more than normal this month and ranged across a wide variety of genres, from classic SciFi to Southern Magical Realism to Horror. So, let’s get to it. I’m trying to work a little more classic Science Fiction and Fantasy into my reading, especially authors I haven’t read a lot of, like Arthur C. Clarke. Rendezvous with Rama is one of his more well-known and recommended novels, so when I spotted it at City Lights Bookstore in…

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