Bibliophilia
Of the making of books there is no end.
Overmuch study maketh men mad.
If you're curious about my approach to "reviews," you might want to read this. If you're curious about me, I have a Website, and a blog about things Medieval and Celtic. I read a lot. I suppose you could say I am a professional reader; I have a Ph.D. in English from UCLA, with an emphasis on things Celtic, and literature before 1832. I serve as Webmaster and Managing Editor for The Green Man Review and volunteer as an Admin for Absolute Write.
My most recent books are about doing stuff with the iPad. Most of the books I review here are books I purchased, a family member purchased, or that I borrowed from a library. When a publisher or author provides a book or an e-arc or an ARC, I will state that in the review. I am not paid to review the books on this site. (I do occasionally serve as an outside reviewer for scholarly books being considered for publication by academic or scholarly presses).
I like ebooks. I like making ebooks. I like reading ebooks. I object, violently, to text dumps and poorly made ebooks, and will so note in reviews of books that have been badly produced by a publisher who thinks exporting a file from InDesign is all it takes. In general, I am not soliciting books for review. Please do not send me review books as attachments without conferring with me first, since your attachment will be automatically deleted by my server. I am no longer willing to review self-published books, unless you're an author I've previously reviewed, or you are publishing a backlist of previously commercially published books. You can contact me here.
If you purchase something after following an affiliate link on this site, I will receive a percentage of the price. This is my FTC disclosure, in case you wondered. In other words, I'm a mercenary hack.
Absolute Visions
This is an anthology of SF/F/Spec Fic/Horror from the members of Absolute Write, especially the forums.
There are familiar names here—Alma Alexander, and Suzanne Palmer, both of whom are familiar to SF/F fans. But the new names here are well-worth reading. I'm not going to list them all—but I will mention some of my favorites. Candace Petrik's "Gus" is downright chilling. I've read it several times, and it's a little more disturbing-in-a-good-way each time.
Fatihah Iman's "Daughter of the Void" deals with cross-cultural issues in a era of space travel, and space-going families in a marvelous, thoughtful way, in a tale that's pure story. Clinton Lawrence in "The Winter Camp" takes an old fey trope and renders it rich and strange. I loved Deleyan Lee's "Alchemy of A Murder," an Urban Fantasy tale with a rich well-thought out world, that, while the story is complete in itself has me wanting a lot more.
The cover illustration by Alessandra Kelley is lovely, with a lot of interesting details, and the ten black-and-white illustrations by other artists, including Puss in Boots, Shannon Tarvin, and Marina Lostetter are evocative.
This is a anthology of writers and illustrators whole work I'll be following.
