Inside Man: Double Threat by F. Paul Wilson

"healing crystals" on a table

In F. Paul Wilson’s Double Threat, the main character, Stanka Daley, is a con artist who makes the fateful, life-changing decision to hide out in a desert cave while on the run from some angry housewives she scammed with a fake car contest.

While Daley, as she prefers to be known, hides in that cave, a strange slug-like creature drops on her head and knocks her out. When she comes to, she stumbles to the house of Juana, a local who watches over the cave and who informs her that surviving an interaction with the alaret, as the creature is known, is a vanishingly rare occurrence, and that she will now serve as Daley’s guide.

Daley isn’t sure what to think when Juana tells her that her life will change forever, but she soon finds out what she means when she starts seeing a man following her and hears his voice in her head. Is she going insane, or did something far stranger happen to her because of the alaret?

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Oh, What a Year in Reading (2021)

A book lying in leaves

Despite the general state of the world, 2021 was actually a good year in reading for me. By the end of the year, I’d read 105 books, which is close to my previous all-time record from 2017 when I read 111. My secret? I read a lot of manga because my brain was mush.

Honestly, though, I think it would take a lot for me to have a genuine reading slump. I had a much harder time focusing for the first half of 2020 and still read a hugely respectable 75 books that year. That’s an unqualified success by just about any standard.

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Bandits by Elmore Leonard

Published: April 10th, 2012 (Audio version) Publisher: Harper Audio Genre(s): Crime, Thriller Format: Audiobook Length: 8 hours and 35 minutes Reading Raylan got me in the mood for more Elmore Leonard, and in fact I’m now on my third Leonard book in a row. The second, Bandits, first published in 1987, tells the story of … Read more

The Massive Vol. 1: Black Pacific by Brian Wood et al

Published: April 2nd, 2013 Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Genre(s): Graphic Novel Format: Paperback Length: 176 pages The Massive tells the story of the Ninth Wave conservationist force ship The Kapital as its crew tries to survive in a post-apocalyptic world and find their missing sister-ship, The Massive. The Kapital’s crew is an odd group of misfits … Read more

Raylan by Elmore Leonard

Published: January 17th, 2012 Publisher: Harper Audio Genre(s): Crime, Thriller Format: Audiobook Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins When I was in high school, I watched Out of Sight and Get Shorty and became intrigued by Elmore Leonard, whose books were turned into such crackling crime thrillers. I quickly took it upon myself to familiarize myself with his … Read more

Horrible Author Thinks Libraries Are Outdated Concept

Earlier this week, Terry Deary, author of the popular (in the UK) Horrible Histories series, started quite the shit-storm when he declared that libraries “have been around too long” and are “no longer relevant”, among other things. Apparently Deary just wants people to buy his books instead of getting them for free. Never mind the fact … Read more

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride

Published: October 12, 2010 Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. Genre(s): Young Adult, Fantasy Format: eBook Length: 352 pages In Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, Sam LaCroix is a college drop-out with a dead-end job at a burger joint. He just coasts along, hanging out with his friends/coworkers Ramon, Brooke and Frank, never quite satisfied with his … Read more

For Sale: Used Ebooks, Electrons Slightly Creased

Amazon raised eyebrows in the publishing world last week with news of a patent they received for reselling used ebooks. Several authors I follow on Twitter expressed immediate concern, including Chuck Wendig, who wrote a hilariously foul-mouthed blog post and began tweeting jokes about used ebooks. Now, it’s possible that the patent is just Amazon … Read more

A Selection of Scary Stories

I’ve never been a huge fan of horror, but over the years I’ve gained an appreciation of scary stories. They aren’t necessarily the same thing, either. As I see it, horror is a genre with a few common tropes, one of which is that the story may or may not be scary. For example, I’ve never … Read more

Old Friends -or- The Same Book Over and Over Again

When I was a kid I read and re-read the same handful of books. The complete works of Douglas Adams were in heavy rotation. Hitchhiker’s Guide, sure, but I also read Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency until the cover fell off. I also picked up Roald Dahl over and over again. I remember reading The … Read more

Strange Attractors by Charles Soule and Greg Scott

Story: Charles Soule Art: Greg Scott Published: April 9th, 2013 Publisher: Archaia Entertainment Genre(s): Graphic Novel, Science Fiction Format: Hardcover Length: 128 pages In Strange Attractors, Heller Wilson is a grad student studying complexity theory, a branch of mathematics devoted to the study of complex systems. He’s a career-minded guy, and is currently working on … Read more

Bad Medicine Volume 1

Story: Nunzio DeFillipis & Christina Weir Art: Christopher Mitten Colors: Bill Crabtree Published: January 30th, 2013 Publisher: Oni Press Genre(s): Graphic Novel, Fantasy Format: Paperback Length: 120 pages Bad Medicine follows disgraced former cardiologist Dr. Randal Horne and hard-nosed NYPD detective Joely Huffman as they work together to solve strange murders apparently caused by fringe … Read more

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

Published: January 11th 2012 Publisher: Little, Brown and Company Genre(s): Fantasy, Spy Thriller, Comedy Format: Hardcover Length: 486 pages When the heroine of The Rook wakes up, she finds herself standing in a park in the pouring rain, surrounded by dead bodies and with no memory of her life or the events that led her … Read more