Mr. Spock! How COULD you?!
I was at work the other day, minding my own business, when a co-worker mentioned in passing a song about Bilbo Baggins sung by Leonard Nimoy. "How can it be that I haven't heard of this before?" I...
Evildoers beware
Mark your calendars--The Tick Vs: Season Two is due out on DVD on August 7th! Its $34.99 price tag is a little painful, but this gloriously strange mid-nineties cartoon is totally worth it.
Hocus pocus... with a little hanky-panky
The release of The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes, Jennifer Crusie's newest collaboration (with authors Eileen Dreyer & Anne Stuart) totally snuck up on me this week. I think between anticipating the i...
WHHHHYYYY????
Slate has posted an essay about the upcoming movie adaptation of Richard Yates's 1961 book Revolutionary Road, described by the essayist as "one of the most depressing novels ever written". Why i...
The Last Summer (of You and Me), by Ann Brashares
I have spent years avoiding books like Ann Brashares's novel The Last Summer (of You and Me). Everything about it--the dreary cover art, the tasteful font, even the artistically placed paren...
Soon I Will Be Invincible, by Austin Grossman
At first glance, Austin Grossman’s debut novel Soon I Will Be Invincible has a lot in common with Ben Edlund’s The Tick. Both are witty stories about superheroes and their villainous counterparts attempting to make a name for themselves in cities that are overrun with muscle-bound do-gooders...
Holy cats!
HarperCollins Canada will apparently be offering a new edition of Susan Juby's Alice, I Think, aimed at adult readers. This book (due out in early August) is a perfect fit for the adult market--le...
Have we been missing out again?
Operating on a reader recommendation, I've put in a request for the 2005 Tor reprints of Michael de Larrabeitti's Borribles trilogy (originally published between 1978 and 1986). This is yet anoth...
Seems a little tacky.
Romance author Julia Quinn is offering what she calls "second epilogues" through her website. Each epilogue is about 30 pages long, and is available as an $1.99 HarperCollins e-book. Ms. Quinn h...
Wordcandy Book Snippet
Excerpt from:The Brat, by Lynsay SandsWhy you should buy a copy of your very own:Sands' books are sweet, funny, and pleasantly free of buttheaded male main characters. I can't tell you how rare th...
Gakuen Alice
We were excited to hear that Gakuen Alice, one of the darkest kid mangas on the planet, has finally been licensed. AnimeonDVD.com is reporting that Tokyopop will be releasing the first volume of G...
Father's Day Gift Suggestions, Part II
While all of the titles on our first list of suggested Father's Day Gifts are still awesome, we thought we'd add a few more books to to the pile.For the dad who likes mysteries, we suggest The Mon...
Uh... right.
There's yet another book being hyped as the next Harry Potter--but this one, at least, is being hyped by the same publisher who "discovered" Rowling's series. Barry Cunningham, a publisher for Ch...
New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer
New Moon, the sequel to Stephenie Meyer’s hugely successful YA novel Twilight, tries to take this ongoing vampire romance saga in a new direction... but hardcore fans of the first book shouldn’t worry: New Moon is just as silly as its predecessor...
ONE TO THREE MONTHS?!?
And this is why I can't stand the Korean manhwa publisher ICE Kunion: not only have they been blithely promising us the second volume of Goong for MONTHS, now they're screwing us over on volumes o...
See the bear dance...
Interested parties can now download the high-definition trailer for the upcoming The Golden Compass movie. While all the human actors look great--I can't believe how slinky Nicole Kidman looks--t...
Another one bites the dust
The film review site Pajiba is reporting that one of the big literary successes of 2006, Marisha Pessl's debut novel Specialty Topics in Calamity Physics, is going to be turned into a movie.This...
New romance recommendation
While going through the slim pickings in a small English-language bookstore in Italy, I unenthusiastically selected Single White Vampire, a cheesy-looking book by a writer I'd never heard of befor...
Cover art saves
We don't know anything about this book, and (if it's anything like the lion's share of Austen continuations/retellings) it will probably blow like a fog horn, but at least it has a snappy cover.So...
Desperate Duchesses, by Eloisa James
Romance novelist and Shakespeare professor Eloisa James clearly wants her books to push the boundaries of the romance genre. But while originality is a commendable goal, it’s usually a good idea to ...
We are BACK...
...and to celebrate our return to the vitally important world of pop-fiction-related blogging, I think somebody needs to send me an e-mail assuring me that this article is actually the world's lat...
No Humans Involved, by Kelley Armstrong
Kelley Armstong’s most recent book, No Humans Involved, is the first installment of her Women of the Otherworld series to feature a character without name-taking and ass-kicking magical powers. In fact, necromancer Jaime Vegas has decidedly mixed feelings about her “gift”—on one hand, it allows her to work as a successful celebrity medium; on the other, ghosts are constantly hanging around...
Manga babes in stars-and-stripes bikinis?
Here's an interesting article about the U.S. Navy using manga to explain its presence to the Japanese people. Er... I'm having some trouble imagining how a storyline could be built around this co...
Further unfairness
The Janet Evanovich editions aren't the only examples of superior cover art to be found in Europe. I am only on day ten of this trip, and I've already lusted after a girly, funky paperback copy of...
Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things, by Wendelin Van Draanen
Wendelin Van Draanen’s Sammy Keyes series is one of our favorites. It’s smart, straightforward, and it hasn’t put itself under pressure by announcing a finite number of installments, so plot lines develop at a natural pace. Van Draanen's eponymous heroine is a genuinely likable character, and her adventures consist of a nicely judged blend of mystery, romance, and hair-raising adventure...
Out for lunch
Hey, everybody. The Wordcandy staff is currently on vacation, so updates to the blog may be spotty for the next few days. The main site is all loaded up with new releases, though, so please head...
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home, by Joss Whedon
When we first heard that Joss Whedon was going to write a comic book series that would serve as the eighth season of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show, we weren’t sold on the idea. The first f...