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Cugel's Saga or The Skybreak Spatterlight by Jack Vance Book Review

Cugel’s Saga [Amazon affiliate link] and The Eyes of the Overworld are both described as picaresques, but in my mind, a key element of a picaresque is to take the absurdity and dial it up to eleven. Cugel as portrayed in the 1966 short stories has a kind of

Overlooked Again: The Phoenix Ring Book 2 by Jon Mollison Book Review

Joe Smith, the forgotten man, returns in Jon Mollison’s Overlooked Again [Silver Empire affiliate link]. Joe finally faces a true nemesis, a Prime with preternaturally keen hearing and sight, not to mention Gallic unflappability. This is also the first book two in the Heroes Unleashed universe, so we get

The Dying Earth by Jack Vance Book Review

The Dying Earth [Amazon link] is not at all what I expected. I knew that Jack Vance had written about a decaying and declining Earth of the far future, when the Sun has swollen with ruddy light. What I got was a collection of loosely connected short stories and novellas

King David's Spaceship by Jerry Pournelle Book Review

King David’s Spaceship [Amazon link] is the first book by Jerry Pournelle I remember reading. I picked it up from the local library in 2006, and I could not put it down. Colonel Nathan MacKinnie’s desperate quest to find a forgotten database of ancient technology on a barbaric

War Demons: The Prodigal Son Book 1 by Russell Newquist Book Review

War Demons [Silver Empire affiliate link] is the veteran’s take on supernatural horror. Sometimes we casually refer to the men who come back from war suffering from PTSD and survivor’s guilt as demon-haunted; but for Michael Alexander it is anything but a metaphor. We now come to the

Come, Seeling Night: Paxton Locke Book 3 by Daniel Humphreys Book Review

After thwarting Tlaloc in the last volume, Paxton Locke now needs to retrieve his girlfriend from his mother’s clutches [Silver Empire affiliate link]. The only problem is he’s in top-secret need-to-know magician jail until Division M figures out what to do with him. Of course, hilarity ensues. You

Hell Spawn: Saint Tommy NYPD Book 1 by Declan Finn Book Review

Hell Spawn [Silver Empire affiliate link] is a dark night of the soul style spiritual crisis combined with a pretty grim police procedural. Detective Tommy Nolan stands out to everyone for his saintly disposition in a profession that is notorious for shattering innocence and producing boundless cynicism. His mettle will