Fantasy
Unfortunately It Is Her Temple of Doom As longtime followers know, I harbored some genuine excitement for the final installment of Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart trilogy. The previous two books compelled and amused via their lush, sensual depiction of courtesan Phèdre’s horny alt-Renaissance adventures. But Kushiel’
Book Review
A Strange House in the Republic of Heaven How much love can one bear to have for a book which will only ever be half-finished? No matter how long I wait or how wrenchingly I romance the text, this first half is all there is of Aspects, and all
Book Review
Touring the Mediterranean, Sexual-Style In 2024 I read Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey because I’d found it in a tiny free library. But really I read it because ads for the book had haunted me from tweenhood, twining alluringly through the pages of my mid-aughties Dragon
Fantasy
The Other Guys Bioware no longer possesses a monopoly on CRPG romance. In recent years, many studios have left their mark upon the pantheon of video game beefcakes. Outside the Bioware frame, designers have found the opportunity to get a bit weirder with the beef, sprinkle a little variety onto
Fantasy
The Bioware Edition I am once again hitting the listicle well, and this time we clamber over an even lower bar. Have you ever wondered why the hot guys of video games, especially the ones that are narratively sexually available to the player, make so many straight male gamers piss
Book Review
A 1950s Collection Which Rips We’ll start with the cover: A beautiful blonde woman staring wistfully past a green scaly alien who has a big green conehead. Behind them looms a rocket ship and a purple glowing planetoid. I believe this image to be derived from one of the
Book Review
Every year I read The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy (BASFF) collection to see what’s going with (relatively) mainstream SFF. What I enjoy most about BASFF is the cycling guest editor. Every year the survey comes in at a fresh angle, the beam of our attention guided by
Book Review
Approaching Samuel Delany’s Conan/Semiotics Slash Fiction Have you ever wished Conan the Barbarian were the kind of guy to read critical theory? No? Too bad, because today we’re discussing the first volume of Samuel Delany’s Nevèrÿon stories. Nevèrÿon is a sword-and-sorcery-and-semiotics series
Book Review
Architectonically Sublime, or What? After many years of manifesting it into the used bookstore shelves before me, I finally located and acquired John Crowley’s Little, Big, in a lovely, aged first paperback edition. You might ask, “Why didn’t you just buy the book online or something, if you
Book Review
Of late, friends and advisors have provided me with leads on books about fantasy versions of Italy, to provide touchstone references for a manuscript I’m preparing which also involves a type of made-up Italy. Of these, I have recently completed The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch, the
Book Review
I encountered the work of Peter S. Beagle for the first time recently. Yes, I’ve never even read The Last Unicorn. Am I a Fake Fantasy Fan? Indubitably. I have seen the animated film, which is weird and yet touching and yet baffling. I know that Peter S. Beagle
Book Review
I Have Been Obliterated By 1 Million Words of Power In September I set off on an epic journey which I only barely survived. This journey was a walk from beginning to end through the three (sometimes four) volumes of Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, & Thorn series. I chose to