Book Series Review: Firmament
I suppose, technically, watching Star Wars with my dad was my first experience with sci-fi. Or maybe it was my Dora and the Purple Planet video game, although I feel like that doesn’t count. Either way, I was little then, and I didn’t give sci-fi another thought for years. If I had thought about it, […]
One More Thing…
Last week, I looked at a book that, while it was enjoyable, was too different from other mysteries to fit my expectations for the genre. This week, I want to look at a TV series that has a very important difference from most mysteries but still checks all my boxes. What Makes it Special The […]
Book Review: The Daughter of Time
Well, this is ironic. In last week’s post, I defended Deep Space Nine as “real” Star Trek when many other reviewers didn’t see it that way. This week, I’m going to be questioning whether a book that is widely considered one of the greatest mysteries of all time really fits that genre very well. First off, I […]
TV Review: Deep Space Nine
Space. The final frontier. These are the… Plot twist, not a lot of voyages happening here. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the third television series in the Star Trek universe and the first to move away from the usual starship setting. It is set on a space station—the titular DS9—instead. I’ve seen mixed reviews of […]
Book Review: Death by Misadventure
When I was a kid, I had a video game called “Ty the Tasmanian Tiger.” I absolutely adored it. Those years were also pretty much the extent of my video game experience. When I asked my high school classmates if they’d ever heard of the game, all I got was “no” and a sense that […]
Atticus for America: Part 2
Intro & Recap In last week’s post, I spent a good bit of time looking at what an American hero is and why they have faded in recent decades. I also explained why fictional heroes can be just as inspiring as real historical figures, especially as those figures begin to slip from our collective memory. […]
Atticus for America: Part 1
Introduction I’ve had this idea for a while, but always shied away as I don’t want this blog to be seen as political in any way, and I was afraid that’s how my thoughts would be interpreted. However, this topic drifts back to the front of my mind pretty frequently. As I’ve reflected more, I […]
10 Favorite Picture Books
This blog might not exist if my mom hadn’t read to me every night from birth to teenagerhood. Maybe I would have still fallen in love with books and writing—they seem to be in my blood—but my mom deserves loads of credit. Raising me on books got me on the right path early. It’s been […]
Book Review: A Man Lay Dead
We have reached our fourth and final “Queen of Crime,” the New Zealander Ngaio (Ny-oh) Marsh. She stands out as the only one of the four whose first book was the first I read. She begins her Inspector Alleyn series with A Man Lay Dead. It’s a typical country manor murder. An interesting mixture of […]
Book Review: The Crime at Black Dudley
We have made it to our penultimate Queen, Margery Allingham. I had not heard of Allingham, at least not that I remember, until watching the TV adaptation of her Campion series. Obviously, I could not learn about a new Golden Age author without adding her to my booklist. I’m very glad I did. In fact, […]