Once in a blue moon, I like to step out of my literary comfort zone of the sci-fi/fantasy section and read something of a more classic nature. Admittedly, several of these selections are motivated by works found within the aforementioned comfort zone, namely Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics and Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series ( Read more... )

WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE DRESDEN FILES SERIES! IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE SERIES AND DON'T WANT IT SPOILED, TURN BACK NOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I love the Dresden Files series, for a number of reasons: the mix of noir-style crime plots with urban fantasy; the characters that grow and change over the series; the fact that the ( Read more... )

For the past three years, I've participated in the Secret Santa over at ImpishIdea, a writing forum I'm a member of. This past Christmas, I got some nice stuff from my Secret Santa, mostly food. But included in the package was a copy of Alanna: the First Adventure, the first book in Tamora Pierce's Young Adult series, Song of the Lioness. I read ( Read more... )

This previous October saw the premier of two TV series based around the concept of "fairy tale characters/creatures in the real world". The first of these was ABC's Once Upon a Time, the second was NBC's Grimm. I'll be focusing on the former, as that's the one I have the bigger issues with.

For those who haven't been watching the series, the premise ( Read more... )