Book Review: Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler

While shelving in the long ago days of pagedom, I noticed a set of mysteries that had the same subtitle: Peculiar Crimes Unit. As Peculiar Crimes are much more interesting than Ordinary Crimes, I thought I’d give them a shot. The story follows two separate arcs: one set in the present, and one in the…

Rings of Power: S1, E5: Galadriel Is A Railroading DM

I said what I said. We make a little bit of progress here, but honestly, this episode felt a bit slower. Then again these first few episodes have been so jam-packed that a breather is needed. On the Harfoot side of things, we see that Nori and her family are a little behind, but still…

Book Review: Uprooted by Naomi Novik

  Pulling this review out of the archives while I wait impatiently for the next Rings of Power episode. I hadn’t read any of Naomi Novik’s books before, although I’ve got Temeraire on my TBR list. I grabbed this book purely because I needed something to read at work during lunch. I thought I’d just…

Rings of Power: S1, E4: THEY HAD US IN THE FIRST HALF NOT GONNA LIE

Y’ALL I SAW THE SCREENSHOTS AND THE TITLE AND I WAS CONVINCED THEY WERE JUST GONNA GO AHEAD AND NUKE NUMENOR I WAS SO CONFUSED IN THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES Luckily, however, it was allll a dream. That’s fated to happen. Curses! So I am quite pleased with how this episode went. On the Numenor…

Tolkien, Lewis, and Weird Fiction

Since we’re on the subject of Tolkien these days, I thought I’d look a bit into how Tolkien and Lewis were the anti-Lovecrafts. While you can see a strand of the eventual nihilism and disillusionment that marks post-World War I writing in late Victorian and Edwardian works (and that’s a long discussion about secularism for…

TV Review: Rings of Power S1, E3: Sir Barely Appearing In This Episode

All right, we are continuing on with this series until I become too angry to keep watching. We open up with Galadriel and Halbrand on a ship headed for Numenor. For the record, Numenor looks Utterly Awesome. Whatever else there is to say, the effects are stunning. (Thankfully. My reaction to the teaser trailer during…

TV Review: Rings of Power Episodes 1 and 2: Actually Pretty Good

I’m as surprised as you are! I’ve been hearing so many awful criticisms that I assumed it was going to be very anvilicious in its messages, but…it wasn’t. Real talk I think people were expecting that and then interpreted literally everything in the series in light of the expectation of it being “super woke”. But…

Rings of Power Predictions

I held out as long as I could. I told myself “you’re going to be so busy! Why waste time on something that will probably turn out awful! Remember how The Hobbit betrayed you! DO YOU WANT UNNECESSARY LOVE TRIANGLES AGAIN.” But the previews were so pretty. And there were Elves! There are probably going…