reviews

A Killing Game, That Is Author: Barry Lyga Just when you think you know what you can expect from a man he throws you a curve ball.  You think you can trust him, you let your guard down, you let yourself dream of a future of satisfying horror stories and then, out of the blue, he does something terrible.  Unthinkable.  Almost unforgivable.  That’s right; he ends a book with a cliffhanger.  Oh, Barry Lyga, I thought I knew you better than that. Game is the sequel to Lyga’s excellent YA horror novel I Hunt Killers.  He set up a terrific [...]

Victorian Intrigue, Cont. Author: M. Louisa Locke Welcome back to the world of San Francisco circa 1880.  Author M. Louisa Locke brings the 19th century city to life for a third time in Bloody Lessons, the latest installment of the Victorian San Francisco Mystery Series.  In this outing we’re drawn into the world of politics and public schools.  The more things change, the more they stay the same. Mrs. Annie Fuller is once again our main protagonist – she is the owner of a boarding house and also works on the side as the fortune teller Miss Sibyl, giving financial [...]

Footnotes on the Forecastle... Author:  David Foster Wallace What makes something funny?  Is it the bizarre story, the unique characters or the style of the delivery?  How crucial is it that you be a member of the target audience?  Or is it all much more intangible than that?  These kinds of thoughts were frequently flopping around my brain as I read A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, a comedic essay by David Foster Wallace.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it helped me answer any of the above questions¹. Wallace rose to prominence in the 1990s with the groundbreaking (and [...]