R.F. Bruce’s The Life and Times of Dinah Marton is the story of a multiple murderer. So let me start by telling you that I’ve never seen a single episode of Dexter, what I’m told is a series about a “good” serial killer. On the other hand, I have seen Downfall, the 2004 movie about…
I enjoy short stories. Why? Well, many are the times I just want to read something at the end of the day, something that I can enjoy in its small completeness. Sometimes I just want to take a break from writing, and I know if I get involved in a novel I’ll keep finding excuses…
Let me begin with a disclaimer (or maybe an excuse) – I don’t read a lot of crime/mystery novels, so please read on with that in mind. My experience in this genre is limited to Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse series, Johnson’s Longmire books, and Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novels. That’s it. Of course, I’ve also…
Atthys Gage is a writer with a lifelong love for myth, magic, and books. His second real job was in a bookstore. As was his third, fourth, fifth and sixth. Eventually, he stopped trying to sell books and started writing them. He has always had a fascination for that cloudy borderline between the normal and…
Let me start with a disclaimer – I’m not all that familiar with recent Young Adult genre fiction. Prior to reading Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker, and The Drowned Cities, the most recently published YA book I’ve read was Spacemen, Go Home by Milton Lesser, the last in the Winston Science Fiction YA series, published in…
Note: Prostitute of State has now been published! Visit Amazon and get yourself a copy! [NOTE: Prostitute of the State by Kate Kinnear is a free read posted on Bookkus.com. It has not yet been accepted for publication. So it’s not been editorially reviewed, and you will come across the occasional typo or rare…
[Disclosure statement: I’ve know Mike Hagan for a few years, having met him through Book Country where we helped each other by commenting on early drafts of our writing. Since then Mike and I have both had books published by Bookkus Publishing. When I decided to start reviewing books (gives me something to write…
Still drowsy, sipping your morning coffee, you stumble toward your computer as you get ready for a new day. Checking your e-mail, you’re hoping for a note about your story. After all, you joined that writer’s site a few weeks ago and have dutifully read and reviewed a number of posts since then. Your eyes…
Everyone wants feedback on their work – or do they? That might sound like an odd question, but let me tell you a story. When I was in college I once did something really stupid (only once?) and was on the receiving end of some negative feedback from people in the group I hung out…
I’m following up on two previous posts – Great Books and Originality – because the two often flow together, and I thought I’d point out a few examples from the world of Scifi. I recently read through the two volume set from the Library of America, “American Science Fiction.” The editors picked out nine “classic”…