Reviews
Showing 597 Reviews
Showing 597 Reviews
March 20th, 2012
A lost novel is a very strange thing. The term implies that the author’s career carries or carried (as is often the case) enough weight to justify the publication of a previously unreleased work, which creates problems for a critic. How should one judge a never-released, not-quite-finished book? Is it fair to judge this “lost” novel through the lens of the author’s legacy, and more importantly, is any alternative even possible?
Read Review →March 6th, 2012
Aspiring writers dream of the day they sell their first screenplay. But for many, that day is only the beginning of a long waking nightmare, drawn out over years, as their beloved creation is battered, eviscerated, and rewritten by drooling barbarians. And there are no guarantees that their story, in any form, will ever make it to the screen. Instead, it will remain mired in Development Hell.
Read Review →February 15th, 2012
The Wolf Gift marks Anne Rice’s return to the gothic horror novels that her fans adore, this time taking a detour from vampire territory into the lair of the werewolf. Reuben Golding is a handsome, wealthy young reporter nicknamed “Sunshine Boy” due to his charmed life and easy smile. On assignment at a sprawling estate in the mountains of Mendocino, California, Reuben meets the elegant Marchent who has lived a tragic life as the heir of Nideck Point.
Read Review →February 13th, 2012
It's been ten years since journalist and world-famous pick-up artist Neil Strauss unleashed his biographical masterpiece, The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band on an unsuspecting world.
Read Review →February 7th, 2012
Remember those 'What If' comics that Marvel used to put out? There was the one that asked what would have happened if the black costume had possessed Spider-Man, and another that posited what things would have been like if Dr. Doom was viewed as a hero. I couldn't help but be reminded of these while reading Matt Ruff's new novel 'The Mirage,' considering the story plays off that same 'what if' premise. What if America was a third world country?
Read Review →January 30th, 2012
U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens is back, juggling three cases with his laconic ease and typical shoot-first-ask-questions-never approach to law-making. Elmore Leonard’s in fine form here, with a breezy novel that effortlessly weaves together three plot lines originally planned as separate short stories for his beloved character.
Read Review →January 17th, 2012
Caleb J. Ross’ newest novella As a Machine and Parts is one part Max Barry and one part typography experiment a la Mark Z. Danielewski.
Read Review →January 10th, 2012
After the success of Submarine as both a book and a movie, Welsh author Joe Dunthorne continues to carve out a niche for himself in whimsical relationship comedy with his sophomore effort, Wild Abandon. It’s very much a novel of our times, addressing dinner party chattering points from wind power to recycling to legalizing dope to education. Even the briefest plot summary establishes its quirky, here-and-now credentials: in essence, it charts the progress of a spring awakening at a Welsh commune. How very twenty-teens.
Read Review →January 4th, 2012
William Gibson is a man out of time.
Read Review →December 13th, 2011
2011 could easily be called “The Year of Dave Grohl" because these 365 days have been all his. The founder and frontman of arena rock titans the Foo Fighters, Grohl began the year watching his band’s seventh studio album, Wasting Light, easily saunter into the number one slot of the Billboard 200 chart. That tends to happen when you sell over two hundred thousand copies in the first week.
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