Reviews
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The Friday Society by Adrienne Kress – Book Review
Caution: Contains one spoiler. Anyone who has ever spoken to me at length about steampunk will know this: While I do love steampunk, I’m a bigger fan of the idea of steampunk than I am of most steampunk books. My main complaint against them is that they tend to treat the pseudo-Victorian aesthetic as a decoration, rather than…
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BZRK by Michael Grant – Book Review
Conjoined twins Charles and Benjamin Armstrong have a vision of a utopian future—a future in which war, hunger, even minor conflict is nonexistent. They wish to see human society perfected. Which sounds pretty sweet, except that they hope to achieve it by sending brain-manipulating nanobots into the minds of the most powerful leaders on the…
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Epic – Movie Review
IN SHORT: A race of miniature tree elves are about to choose their next leader in a really stupid way. Hordes of personified tree rot plan to crash the party. WHAT IT IS: Fun and visually striking, Epic took me on a ride I genuinely enjoyed from start to finish. WHAT IT IS NOT: Don’t…
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Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve – Book Review
The people of the future no longer live on the ground. In the time between our period, theirs, and the pivotal Sixty Minute War, they’ve moved onto enormous mobile cities known as Traction Cities, which carry them around the world to escape the geological dangers created by the Sixty Minute War…and also away from other cities.…
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Beasts of Burden, Volume 1 by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson – Book Review
In Animal Rites, the first volume of graphic novel series Beasts of Burden, Pugsley, Jack, Ace, Whitey, Rex, and the Orphan are 5 dogs and a cat living fairly normal lives…until they encounter a ghost in Jack’s doghouse, a coven of witches, a werewolf, and several other supernatural oddities. Eventually, they combat so many paranormal dangers that…
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Blue Exorcist, Volumes 1-2 by Kazue Kato – Manga Review
Occasionally a manga comes along that makes me squee with glee every time a new volume is released. Though I’ve only read the first two volumes, I can tell that Blue Exorcist is going to be one of those manga. Volume 1 introduces Rin Okumura, a well-meaning but short-tempered teen who has been raised by Father Fujimoto, a…
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Foundling by D. M. Cornish – Book Review
Rossamund Bookchild is a foundling boy with a girl’s name. This name was given to him by the paper pinned to his blanket when he was left on the front stoop of Madam Opera’s Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls, and it has tormented him ever since. As the object of frequent jibes…
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Romeo and Juliet: The War by Stan Lee, etc. – Graphic Novel Review
Comic adaptations of Shakespeare are hardly new, but in my experience, rarely are they well-done enough to be appreciated outside of a “Here, read this comic because you’re having trouble with the Shakespearean language in the play” context. Of the several that I’ve attempted, only a few have been books that I’ve reread for their…
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Engineer Likes WordPress
Starting near the end of February, 2013, I began an experiment. I stopped playing video games for a whole month and started a blog. Because, you know, why not? Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed blogging quite a bit. You see, I love statistics. I love numbers. I love analyzing data. It’s part of being an engineer.…
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In Death Ground by David Weber and Steve White – Book Review
IN SHORT: A race of genocidal alien bugs has targeted humanity, and they’re coming after us with a lot of ships. I mean, A LOT OF SHIPS. WHAT IT IS: Expect lots of extremely detailed and well-written combat. Stuff blows up in this book. LOTS of stuff. The military tech of In Death Ground is…