Books

NOS4A2: Book Review

I’ve read few Stephen King books – Bag of Bones, the Dark Tower, Skeleton Crew, It – before, but never anything from Joe Hill, King’s son. I was aware of Locke & Key as it was coming out, but I had never really gotten around to reading any of it. So, when the Sword & Laser Podcast chose NOS4A2 as its October pick, I figured this was as good a time as any to get started with Hill’s work.

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Three of the cast members of Cast a Deadly Spell - including Fred Ward as H. P. Lovecraft
film

Cast a Deadly Spell: Film Review

Cast a Deadly Spell is interesting as a historical artifact. While the film wears the trappings of the Cthulhu mythos, with the Necronomicon being the focus of the plot, and the protagonist bearing the name of H. P. Lovecraft (though with a different first name than the spectacularly racist author), it has almost more in common with the Hardboiled Detective variety of Urban Fantasy that we now associate with books like the Harry Dresden series. It’s not by any stretch the first urban fantasy work – Mike Resnick’s John Justin Mallory novels and War for the Oaks pre-dates it, with Resnick’s series also being hard-boiled detective fiction. But by being a movie made for HBO, it provided the genre a level of visibility that it had never before seen. But is it good?

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Anime

Re-Main Anime Review

Re-Main is the latest of what I’d call a series of anime series made with the Summer Olympics in mind, highlighting various sports from the game, including Sk-8: The Infinity (Skateboarding), Sport Climbing Girls (Bouldering and Speed Climbing), and Wave!! (Surfing). While those covered some of the new sports at these Olympic games, Re-Main focuses a longer, more established Summer Olympic sport – Water Polo.

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