Rumballs on the eve of War: Michele Lang’s Lady Lazarus

On February 8, 2012, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on Twitter The scene is Budapest, Hungary  in the late 1930′s. Hitler’s saber rattling over in Germany  is becoming more and more bellicose, and there is the scent of war in the air. The quasi-fascistic pre war Hungary is not the most pleasant of places, especially for a Jew like Magda.  The fact that [...]

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Transcending Part of Speech: Kafkaesque, edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel

On January 23, 2012, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on Twitter   Kafkaesque Adjective Marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity e.g. Kafkaesque bureaucracies. Marked by surreal distortion and often a sense of impending danger. In the manner of something written by Franz Kafka. There are precious few writers whose names have transcended their status as a proper noun. Dickens has become [...]

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Flying Unfriendly Skies: The Black Lung Captain, by Chris Wooding

On January 16, 2012, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on Twitter   Captain Darian Frey has had some more reversals of fortune. Despite the encounter at Retribution Falls, keeping his beloved aerium fueled airship The Ketty Jay is serious business. His navigator is still weird and possibly inhuman, his daemonologist is still haunted by something he won’t talk about, his outrider fighter pilots [...]

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The World as MMORPG: The Restoration Game by Ken Macleod

On December 19, 2011, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on TwitterLucy Stone works as a game designer in Edinburgh. Digital Damage is making a Massively multiplayer online role playing game based on dark ages Britain. With Zombies and other odd things.  Slaving away at this game, Lucy gets a call from her mother, a fellow émigré from a troubled region in the Caucaus.  [...]

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A twisty maze of passages all alike: Mirror Maze by Michaele Jordan

On December 14, 2011, in Book Review, News, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on TwitterJacob Aldridge, scion of a respectable, well off family in 1882 London, has had the shadow of tragedy hanging over him. His beloved fiancée, Rhoda Carothers, has suddenly died, and he seems more than usually affected by the tragedy.  A chance meeting with Livia Aram is shocking to both, for Livia very much [...]

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Steampunk, Zombies and Alternate History: Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest

On December 7, 2011, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on Twitter Its late 19th Century Seattle.  The gold rush of the Klondike a couple of decades earlier  meant that the city was large and growing when inventor Leviticus Blue’s magnum opus due too greedily and too deep, releasing a gas that turns those who breathe it too deeply into the walking dead.  Those [...]

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Sing, Muse! Moses Siregar III’s The Black God’s War

On November 14, 2011, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on TwitterSing, Muse!: Moses Siregar III‘s The Black God’s War Two very different realms have struggled against each other for years. The Rezzians, worshipers of ten deities, have engaged in a holy war against their godless neighbors, the Pawleons. With the birth of a royal son who is also a prophesied holy leader with [...]

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Fae and Fallen in the Time of Troubles: Stina Leicht’s Of Blood and Honey

On October 10, 2011, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on Twitter   A savage pant—almost a laugh—puffed foul breath that blew hair from Sanders’s forehead. Sanders raised a fist, but the beast caught his arm with ease and slammed it on the concrete floor. Liam felt bones give way with a sickening snap and was pinned between satisfaction and revulsion. Sanders howled. A [...]

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The Problem of Free Will: Prospero Regained and the Prospero’s Daughter Trilogy by L. Jagi Lamplighter

On September 21, 2011, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on Twitter       “Ah!” Malagigi’s eyes flickered over the three staffs of power we carried—the staffs that were our Prospero Family legacy: Gregor’s Staff of Darkness, Erasmus’s Staff of Decay , and my flute, The Staff of Winds—before coming to rest upon Durandel riding in its sheath at Erasmus’s side.  Softly, he [...]

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The return of the Hierophant of the New Weird: The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer

On August 15, 2011, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on Twitterhierophant noun. 1. (Historical Terms) (in ancient Greece) an official high priest of religious mysteries, esp those of Eleusis 2. a person who interprets and explains esoteric mysteries Back when I wrote a review of Finch, I called Jeff Vandermeer the “Hierophant of the New Weird”.  I used that unusual word on purpose, then, and [...]

You can’t take the Crimson Skies from Me: A Review of Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding

On August 4, 2011, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on Twitter   Take a captain of a beat up old ship that sometimes can barely fly, but he loves it to death. He’s a veteran of a recent war, has no love for the Navy, and seeks freedom and profit, from trading between ports to a bit of light piracy and theft now [...]

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Exploring the domain of Hard SF and beyond: A review of Jonathan Strahan’s anthology Engineering Infinity

On July 21, 2011, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on Twitter   A Review of Engineering Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan   Jonathan Strahan is a freelance editor known for the wide variety of anthologies and author collections he has helped mold into shape. Ranging from collections of Jack Vance and Larry Niven to the New Space Opera to the Sword and Sorcery [...]

The Alternate Steampunk Albertian Age: A review of The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder

On June 29, 2011, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on Twitter    The creature stalked forward, bent, its talon like hands flexing, and Burton saw that his first impression was accurate: the thing walked on two-foot-high stilts. Its lanky body was clad in a skintight white scaly suit that glittered in the dim light of the single guttering gas lamp. Something circular glowed [...]

The Coming of the Quantum Paratime Princes : A review of Cowboy Angels

On June 9, 2011, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on TwitterCowboy Angels A novel by Paul McAuley Review by Paul Weimer   “There are white-tailed deer and woodland caribou and mule deer. Wolves and black bears, and short-faced bears too-those are as big as grizzlies. A few panthers.” “Pretty good hunting in Manhattan” “We call the island New Amsterdam here…If you want to [...]

Vodka, Spirits and Secondary World Fantasy: The Winds of Khalakovo

On May 19, 2011, in Book Review, Paul Weimer, by Paul Weimer

Share on TwitterThe Winds of Khalakovo A novel by Bradley P Beaulieu Review by Paul Weimer “You look thin” Rehada said, perhaps growing tired of the silence. She held two snifters of infused vodka, one of which she handed to Nikandr as she settled gracefully upon the nearby pillows. “The work on the Gorovna…” Thankfully [...]

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