Ranking of Kings is a show that, frankly, I missed the boat on. It was a show that everyone on AniTwitter, everyone on the anime podcasts I listened to were praising to high heavens, but I pushed off watching it. Until now. Now I’ve finally watched it and it’s time to give the show the consideration it deserves.
Continue reading “Anime Review: Ranking of Kings”
This weekend is Worldcon, and several weeks before the convention (basically the week before I got COVID), I finished reading the last of the novels that were up for Hugo Awards that weren’t part of a series that I hadn’t already started reading – She Who Became the Sun by Shelly Parker-Chan – a novel inspired by wuxia fiction, inspired by the rise of the Hongwu Emperor. It’s an… interesting book, but one which had some points that I stumbled over.
Continue reading “She Who Became the Sun: Book Review”
There is some discussion as to whether there needs to be a clear dividing line between the genres of Science Fiction & Fantasy, that a work needs to be one or the other. As someone who encountered Shadowrun during my formative years of Middle School (shortly after Dungeons & Dragons), I’ve ultimately become someone who has come to realize that fantasy and science fiction are like chocolate and peanut butter. So, when Light from Uncommon Stars came up as a book pick for the Swords & Laser book club, as I’ve attempted to get caught up on my book reading I decided to put it on my list – even more so when I saw that it was nominated for the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Continue reading “Light from Uncommon Stars: Book Review”
The Green Knight is the perfect re-imaging of this particular part of the Arthurian legend. It is dark, but not without hope. It presents honor & chivalry, but not without flexibility. It presents Gawain as, perhaps, the perfect Millennial knight.
Continue reading “The Green Knight: Film Review”
We have a trio of mecha anime that I watched this past year – the first of which to finish was Sakugan, something of an underdark exploration anime, combined with some Gurren Lagann-esque hot-bloodedness, and a well-done father-daughter dynamic with the leads.
Continue reading “Sakugan: Anime Review”
Fena: Pirate Princess is the first co-production in a while between Adult Swim/Cartoon Network and an anime studio (in this case, Production IG), possibly the first major series since the second season of The Big O. With an animation style and plot that feels like it’s meant to evoke Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water and The Mysterious Cities of Gold, while leaning into the “anime-ness” in a way that feels similar to Avatar: The Last Airbender, except in the sense of an anime studio looking at Avatar and going, “We can do this.” The question then is – can they do this?
Continue reading “Fena: Pirate Princess – Anime Review”
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S is Kyoto Animation’s big return to television after the horrific fire of 2019, along with the pandemic, so it feels right for them to come back with something as cheerful and heartwarming – and also horny on main – as Dragon Maid.
Continue reading “Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S: Anime Review”
It’s time for a review of another Sword & Laser Book Club pick.
Continue reading “Book Review: Piranesi”
Orphen’s second season is, arguably, a lot more focused than its first. That, unfortunately, doesn’t stop the show from tripping over its own feet when it comes to the world-building of the setting. In particular, it’s where the mythology of the setting is concerned, especially related to the organization known as the “Kimluck Church.”
Continue reading “Sorcerous Stabber Orphen: Battle of Kimluck: Anime Review”
In my review of The Warhound and the World’s Pain, I lamented that the book felt too short, and that the sexual assault sequence served no purpose. I should have noticed the finger curl on the monkey’s paw.
Continue reading “City in Autumn Stars: Novel Review”This week I have another martial arts film review, as I’m taking a look at Golden Harvest’s Feng Shui fueled adventure film, “Bury Me High”
Continue reading “Bury Me High: Film (Video) Review”
Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion series is interesting to discuss. Some stories have direct analogies to and inversions of Robert E. Howard’s work, like Elric. Others, like Hawkmoon, go in radically different directions. The first Von Bek novel probably falls more into the former camp – feeling like something of an inversion of Solomon Kaine, in multiple respects.
Continue reading “The Warhound and the World’s Pain: Book Review”
By all rights, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, at least this year’s show, should not exist. It’s an adaptation of a heroic fantasy light novel that not only isn’t an isekai, but is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary. That said, I’m glad it does.
Continue reading “Sorcerous Stabber Orphen (2019): Anime Review”
Dragons of Autumn Twilight ended with the refugees from Pax Tharkas having found a refuge in a mountain pass in the hope of (possibly) making it through the winter. The second book in the Dragonlance Chronicles series begins with the Heroes of the Lance having already gone on another adventure, and having brought the refugees to the Dwarven city of Pax Tharkas. In the roleplaying game modules, your player characters would have gone through this story. However, while much of the Dragonlance modules were adapted to the original Chronicles series, not all of them were. In the late 2000s, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman returned to Dragonlance to adapt this missing chapter into novel form.
Continue reading “Dragons of the Dwarven Depths: Book Review”
There aren’t a lot of fantasy comics out there, and the ones we get in the US are generally licensed from another property, whether Games like D&D or Pathfinder, or literary works like Game of Thrones, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, or Conan the Barbarian. So, when Marvel got the license to Conan comics again, I was interested, and when they re-launched their classic Conan titles – Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan, I added those books to my pull list.
Continue reading “Savage Sword of Conan #1-5: Comic Review”
When I was younger, there were a couple things that grabbed my imagination when it came to dungeon fantasy – there were the Monster Ecology articles in Dragon Magazine, and the descriptions of monsters in Hackmaster and KODT Magazine. The Monster Ecology articles envisioned a fleshed out dungeon ecology, where every monster, even ones created by coked out wizards like the Owlbear, had a life cycle and found a way to fit into an ecosystem – indeed, the articles presented the idea of a Dungeon Fantasy setting as an ecosystem that the monsters fit within.
Continue reading “Manga Review: Delicious in Dungeon Volume 1”
Krull feels like a film that is trying to cash in on a variety of trends. It’s a fantasy film like Conan. It’s a grand heroic epic like Star Wars, but it doesn’t quite pull all of them off. However, Krull has its strengths that make it worth watching. Continue reading “Film Review: Krull”
I’m continuing with the Tabletop related books in honor of GenCon this week, with the first novel in the Dragonlance series. Continue reading “Book (Video) Review – Dragons of Autumn Twilight”
This week, in honor of GenCon being this month, I’m starting off a short series video of reviews of books based on tabletop games. First off is an adaptation of the plot of one of the earliest sets of Magic: the Gathering. Continue reading “Book (Video) Review: The Brothers’ War”
This time I’m taking a look at the first published Drizzt Do’Urden novel, and the second Forgotten Realms novel. Referral Links Print – https://amzn.to/2uIaeh7 Omnibus – https://amzn.to/2GtQ9Ra Kindle – https://amzn.to/2GR6u1v Audiobook – https://amzn.to/2GumhnL Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero Member of The Console Xplosion Network: http://www.theconsolexplosion.com/ Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor/ Continue reading Book (Vlog) Review: The Crystal Shard
At long last, the first Record of Lodoss War novel has received an officially licensed US release. I’ve read it, and here are my thoughts, and some notes on the differences between the two releases. The Grey Witch is available from Amazon.com and RightStuf. Picking up the book through those links helps the site. Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero Member of … Continue reading Book Review: Record of Lodoss War – The Grey Witch (Video Review)
A few years ago I did a video review of the original OVA for Record of Lodoss War. At that time, the OVA was out of print, as was (and still is, sadly) the manga adaptation of the novels. Since then, Funimation (not the company I expected to do it) license rescued all of the anime, and now Seven Seas has done something I never expected to happen – they licensed the first novel, and gave it a fantastic edition in 2017. I got it for myself for Christmas, and finally was able to read it in February. Continue reading “Book Review: Record of Lodoss War – The Grey Witch”
When I reviewed the first Log Horizon book, I mentioned that were a few plot concepts that were set up in the next book in the series – a general malaise filling Akiba, along with the state of food in the world – and in turn a new discovery by Nyanta related to that. With the second installment of the series, the book dives further into that, and shifts genres somewhat. Continue reading “Book Review: Log Horizon Book 2 – The Knights of Camelot”
I’ve previously covered the first two books in Martha Wells’ Books of the Raksura series – The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea. I’ve finished reading the third installment of the series, and I want to give my thoughts on that. Continue reading “Book Review: The Siren Depths”
