The new Murderbot novel is coming out later this year, so it’s time to get caught up here so I’m ready to talk about it once it comes out.
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Book Review: Children of Time
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky was this month’s pick for the Sword & Laser Book Club, and it’s a bit of a complicated book. The novel juggles two different kinds of stories, with two different levels of stakes, and which also vaguely intersect until the very end of the story. One of those stories was one which I enjoyed and looked forward to encountering – which was good because it took most of the book. The other kind of just had me on edge and wasn’t exactly a pleasant read.
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Final Fantasy XV: The Dawn of the Future – Book Review
Final Fantasy XV had a lot of DLC planned, to expand on the game’s story by providing additional plot details during the big time skip before the game’s final act, expanding on the game’s backstory, and even providing an alternate ending. We got… some of it. We got the backstory expansion. We got some elaboration on what characters were doing when they were off-camera at certain parts of the game. However, we didn’t get the whole story – we didn’t get the expansion discussing the time skip, and we didn’t get the alternate ending. However, the game’s writers wanted to make sure that story was told, leading to The Dawn of the Future – which adapts one released episode, and the plots of a bunch of unreleased ones, to give an alternate ending.
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Murderbot Diaries To Date (2022): Book Review
I’ve finally gotten caught up on the Murderbot Diaries series of novellas (and one novel), by Martha Wells – after taking far too long to read them. Frankly, I honestly think I should have read the books much sooner.
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Thoughts on The Essential James Beard Cookbook
When I gave my thoughts on James Beard’s Theory and Practice of Good Cooking, the focus of my thoughts on that book were – this is a solid template on how to write about cooking, and some of the guidance is good, but the passage of time has hindered the utility of some of these recipes. In 2012, The Essential James Beard Cookbook was published – collecting approximately 450 recipes from Beard’s writing and collecting it together into one book, with additional notes and sidebars addressing the passage of time – so I decided to check the book out.
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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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Anime Supremacy: Book Review
This time I have a book review of a novel about making anime.
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The Fold: Book (Vlog) Review
I haven’t done a book review in a while, so this week I’m taking a look at February’s Sword & Laser Book Club pick. Also, on top of the earlier review, I do get into some spoilers regarding the plot’s reveals in the second half of the video, if you want something more in-depth.
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The Epic Crush of Genie Lo: Book Review
There are some YA novels that I have read that feel like I’m reading an anime. This is, in part, because some of the light novels that have been adapted to anime were aimed for YA audiences. The Epic Crush of Genie Lo is an YA novel that definitely fits that concept, though one with some very different and unique narrative hooks because of the point of view character and setting that make it really worth your while (and makes me wish it would get turned into an animated series).
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