I visited Realms of Speculative Fiction today and found I’ve been tagged. I’m now supposed to get the nearest book, turn to page 123, and copy the fifth sentence. Hm, there an awful lot of books that could qualify as “nearest” with 8 bookshelves here… So I chose the book I just finished, Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear. That sentence is… You should go. Well, that’s a boring sentence. What’s on page 223? Seeker whirled and hurled the glass […]

I first heard of posting about forgotten books on Friday’s a couple of weeks ago and was reminded of it again today when I read the OF Blog’s feature on The Famished Road by Ben Okri. I’ve only been reading speculative fiction regularly for the last few years, so I thought I didn’t have any older books to mention since I already read and review a lot of the older ones I have missed here. However, a few books did […]

Elantrisby Brandon Sanderson656pp (Paperback)My Rating: 7/10Amazon Rating: 4.5/5LibraryThing Rating: 4.07/5Good Reads Rating: 4.23/5 Elantris is the first published novel by Brandon Sanderson, the author who will be completing the final novel in the Wheel of Time series. Although it leaves a few questions unanswered, this is a stand alone book and no sequels are planned. While Elantris is a solid debut and an entertaining story, it never rises above readable to the level of exceptional. The Shaod, a mysterious transformation […]

Duneby Frank Herbert544pp (Paperback)My Rating: 8.5/10Amazon Rating: 4.5/5LibraryThing Rating: 4.38/5Good Reads Rating: 4.32/5 Winner of the first Nebula award in 1965 and co-winner of the Hugo award, Dune is regarded with an almost reverent awe by some. As one of the first science fiction novels to emphasize characters, Dune is the precursor to many of the modern books in the genre that we read today. In spite of its reputation as a must-read novel in the genre, I put off […]

I was hoping to get a review up tonight, but I seem to be having a case of writer’s block tonight. Well, not exactly “block” since I know what I want to say – I’m just having difficulty articulating it at the moment. That review will be of the classic novel Dune by Frank Herbert, which I finished this weekend and rather enjoyed. Currently, I am reading Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris, the winner of the last poll on what to read […]