Ninth City Burning, by J. Patrick Black
J. Patrick Black's novel Ninth City Burning features half a dozen point-of-view characters, ambitious world-building, and a sprawling intergalactic-warfare-meets-dystopian-future plot premise. I applaud the author's sheer guts, but the end result is more than a little overwhelming...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Ninth City Burning, by J. Patrick Black
This week's Book Giveaway is J. Patrick Black's Ninth City Burning, which I know absolutely nothing about, apart from the fact that I approve of the person they chose to write a promotional blurb (Patricia Briggs) and I really like the cover art. Our review will follow shortly...
SO COOL.
According to the Independent, archaeologists have discovered the remains of a probable Dark Ages royal palace at Tintagel in Cornwall, which might (emphasis on the "might") have a connection to the legendary figure of King Arthur. According to medieval historians, Arthur was...
How?
According to Deadline, Sony-based TriStar Pictures is attempting to continue the current run of Chronicles of Narnia movie adaptations. This seems like a risky proposition—Disney passed on the rest of the series after 2005’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and 2008’s Prince Caspian, and Fox 2000 dropped it...
YAY!
How did I miss this? Bone creator Jeff Smith just released Bone: Coda, a new and "completely superfluous" adventure featuring the Bone cousins. The standalone story, written and illustrated by Smith, was produced in honor of the 25th anniversary of the first issue of the (at the time) black-and-white, self-published comic...
Not the same thing.
In honor of the 56th birthday of Dr. Seuss's classic children's book Green Eggs and Ham, NPR just published an article about various restaurants' attempts to put the title dish on their menus. All of the featured recipes look very wholesome and impressive, but I feel like they're punting on a pretty critical issue...
Useful for someone, I guess.
Last week, Vulture helpfully compiled a list of Book-to-Film Adaptations Still to Come in 2016. There is nothing on this list I would willingly shell out $10.50 for, but fans of inspiring (read: tear-jerking) nonfiction...
The House of Shattered Wings, by Aliette de Bodard
Aliette de Bodard's novel The House of Shattered Wings looks like a standard fantasy novel, but has more in common with The Godfather than your typical sword-and-sorcery adventure. In an alternative universe/post-apocalyptic version of 20th century Paris, fallen angels periodically drop from the sky, stricken with amnesia but chock-full of magic. Those who survive Paris's magic-hunting street gangs usually join one of the Great Houses, mafia-like organizations...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The House of Shattered Wings, by Aliette De Bodard
This week's Book Giveaway is Aliette De Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings, which I had assumed—incorrectly, apparently—was a YA supernatural romance. (Probably one involving fallen angels.) It seems it's actually an award-winning sci-fi novel for adults, which I'm actually a lot more excited...
Don't count this one out
Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley has signed on to star in an upcoming movie adaptation of Patrick Hess's YA series Chaos Rising, according to Variety. There's been a lot of talk about the abrupt downturn in YA film attendance, but...
Cleaning up
According to the BBC, the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child script is the fastest-selling book in the UK this decade. It sold more than 680,000 copies in the first three days after its release, beating the previous record held by IFifty Shades of Grey. (British book snobs can heave a sigh of relief.) At its current rate, the script will be...
Shocking
Forbes just posted an interesting article about how scandals affect book sales. (Short answer: negatively.) The article takes specific aim at Gay Talese's new work, The Voyeur’s Motel, which has been...
Convenient
Well, this worked out nicely: after recently reading and reviewing Jane Mayer's Dark Money, I've been wondering what the Koch brothers have been up to during this most tumultuous of election cycles, and Gawker was kind enough to...
Fingers crossed
In the six-plus years since Jennifer Crusie's last book, Maybe This Time, I've pretty much given up hope of her producing anything else. Deadlines for several books have come and gone, and as far as I can tell, Crusie's writing has pretty much been limited to her (very entertaining) personal blog. But...
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling
In 2011, actress and comedian Mindy Kaling released a collection of essays called Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). Her book is 242 pages of the easiest reading on the planet: short, witty, ridiculously charming essays on everything from Kaling's weird affection for diet plans to her career goals to her ideal level of fame...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling
This week's Book Giveaway is Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, a collection of comedic essays about everything from Kaling's childhood to her unique path to stardom (which apparently involved writing and starring in a play based on Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's friendship)...
Mysterious~
I finally saw a trailer for Nerve, the upcoming movie adaptation of Jeanne Ryan's 2012 young-adult thriller of the same name. It looks pretty silly, honestly, but in a fun, colorful, glittery way. Plus, it's summer, and let's be honest...
Hmm. Maybe.
According to Lainey Gossip, there's a modern Jekyll and Hyde-inspired project in the works, possibly starring Captain America's Chris Evans. The plot sounds pretty thin...
Now with more bloodshed
If io9 is to be believed, the CW may have done the impossible: made an Archie TV adaptation that I actually want to watch. I'm not sure how much it actually has in common with the long-running comic book series, but I'll watch any teen show that "really wants to be Twin Peaks"...
Ouch
Wow, this Killing Joke animated film sounds like it was really poorly thought out. (And not just because I suspect a lot of parents are going to mistakenly think: "Hey, a Batman movie I can finally take my kids to!") I'm not...
"Sexless casseroles"
NPR recently posted an article called "Collards And Canoodling: How Helen Gurley Brown Promoted Premarital Cooking". I have long found Ms. Gurley Brown, the longtime former Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan, bizarrely fascinating, and I'm always interested in reading about food...
Paper and Fire, by Rachel Caine
Paper and Fire, the second book in Rachel Caine's Great Library series, picks ups immediately after the events of last year's Ink and Bone. The series is set in a world where access to knowledge is strictly controlled by the Great Library of Alexandria, and the personal ownership of books is forbidden. Caine's protagonist is Jess Brightwell, the son of a book smuggler...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Paper and Fire, by Rachel Caine
This week's Book Giveaway is Paper and Fire, the second book in Rachel Caine's 'The Great Library' YA series. (We reviewed the first book, Ink and Bone, here.) A full review will follow shortly...
Sad!
So, this is pathetic: according to THR, the fourth and final Divergent film will be aired as a TV movie, despite the fact that this will almost certainly require extensive re-casting. Lionsgate Films declined to comment on the situation, but this wouldn't be the first lackluster YA film series to be downgraded to...
Even more vital
Last week, Pajiba put together a list of Jane Austen's heroes, ranked by level of swoon-worthiness. (Please note: these are the film versions of various characters, not the book versions.) Of course, I firmly believe that Edmund Bertram could be played by Sex Incarnate and he'd still be a judgmental, easily manipulated doofus, so I'm ignoring their #10, but...
E.L. James, take note.
Stephenie Meyer has a new book coming out: The Chemist, to be released on November 15, 2016. I notice there's no mention of Twilight on the cover, although the artwork is thematically similar. Is this because Twilight is officially passé, or is...*
Vital questions of our times
The fine people at Lucky Peach recently put together a list of Nineteen of Roald Dahl’s Most Important Food Inventions. Sometimes I forget how incredibly messed up Dahl's writing was, and then a passage like this one, from The Witches, reminds me...
Missed opportunity
io9 recently introduced me to this brief look at the concept footage for a movie adaptation of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds, featuring the work of legendary filmmaker and stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen...
Dark Money, by Jane Mayer
On August 30, 2010, Janet Mayer published an article in the New Yorker called 'Covert Operations', an in-depth look at the political influence of Charles and David Koch, two American billionaire brothers who have devoted over a hundred million dollars to promoting libertarian causes. Over the next few years Mayer deepened and expanded her research on the subject, transforming her article into...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Dark Money, by Jane Mayer
This week's Book Giveaway is Jane Mayer's Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, which I read and enjoyed during my recent vacation. (There's nothing to beguile away a three-hour-long ferry ride like reading about the political fixations of creepy billionaires, in my opinion.) A full review will follow shortly...