Review of Engine Summer by John Crowley

This blog does take its time, basking in the sun beside mainstream waters. But that thimbleful of regular readers will know that diving into the rich undercurrents of lesser known fiction is likely its sweet spot—or at least hopes to be. There may be no sweeter spot of lesser known writers than John Crowley. His sophomore effort, Engine Summer (1979), sticks out to this day.

Engine Summer is the story of Rush-that-Speaks. Teen member of a river tribe, he lives and works building simple homes, collecting food for winter, and ensuring rituals and traditions are carried out. A pastoral, peaceful existence, they do not worry about attacks or violence. Rush-that-Speaks befriends a young woman named Once-a-Day, but when she chooses to leave the tribe to go on a walkabout, he decides to follow his own heart too and see what's out there in the big, wide world.

Review of Memories of the Space Age by J.G. Ballard

Themed anthologies are a common thing, but rarely do editors get to put together themed collections. A single author's oeuvre is rarely large enough to connect the dots for 200-300 pages of material. But such is an option with J.G. Ballard. Centered on mankind's obsession with vehicular movement and the cosmos, Memories of the Space Age (1988) offers the reader a range of stories touching upon humanity's physiological and psychological reaction existence in the stratosphere and beyond.

The collection kicks off with two interrelated stories. First is “The Cage of Sand”. Set in Cape Canaveral decades in the future, a once thriving community of shopping malls and homes now scarcely pulls itself together. Sands brought from Mars now pollute their backyards and dead astronauts orbit the Earth in abandoned space capsules. Not an optimistic view of NASA's chances in the void beyond, Ballard nevertheless captures a certain yearning in a manner that feels Bradbury-esque—not something you often say about Ballard. Focusing on one aspect of that setting, “The Dead Astronaut” tells of a grieving widow's desire to get the corpse of her astronaut husband out of orbit and back to Earth. By concluding the story the way he does, Ballard emphasizes the futility of mammals beyond the stratosphere while stirring a few conspiracy pots.

Review of The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeeves & China Mieville

There are many a writer looking for the golden path—the key to unlock the secret to bestselling success. And then there is China Mieville. Wielding his own key since the beginning, he has even taken his endeavors beyond fiction, not producing a new story since 2016. For whatever reason, perhaps because he's a fan of John Wick, perhaps The Matrix, or more likely Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Mieville chose to team up with Keanu Reeves in 2024 to adapt Reeve's graphic novel BRZRKR to the written word. The Book of Elsewhere is the result.

The Book of Elsewhere tells of an immortal superhero trying to gain mortality. Echoing Neo's character arc from Matrix, our man BRZRKR has punched, kicked, ripped, and torn his way through history, sometimes winning, sometimes, sometimes, losing, sometimes dying, but always coming back to life—no matter how hard he tries to stay dead. Also ignoring time and mortality is a pig, yes, a pig, who uses every chance he gets to stick his tusks in BRZRKR. But there is alight at the end of the tunnel. BRZRKR meets a scientist who begins examining the immortal man, and may be able to uncover the key to his mortality.

Review of The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem

It's history that the counter-culture hippies of the 60s and 70s eventually evolved into the yuppies of the 80s. But not all evolved. A few took their fringe communes and evolved them into cults even further from civilization. As much of the hippie movement centered on San Francisco, it's not a surprise that some of these communes/cults ended up in the wilds of California. In 2018's The Feral Detective, Jonathan Lethem puts a New York divorcee in the Mojave, then adds a missing teen, a handful of dogs, and a terse private eye, giving readers a recipe for a funny take on the politics of 2016.

Jonathan Lethem has written a wide spectrum of novels, from science fiction fevre dreams to modern Manhattan noir, subtle satire to rural Maine dystopias. The Feral Detective may very well be Lethem's lightest fare. Its mold is classic. A quirky woman hires an esoteric private eye to track down a runaway teen in the bizarre outskirts of Los Angeles. From there, things resolve in unexpected but not unexpected fashion. There are clues, people to be interviewed, a twist or two,ingredients you know will likely be present.

Cardboard Corner: Review of "Battle of Neom" expansion for Redline

I do not normally review small expansions for card games. But, in contrast to many heavily corporatized TCG-esque games hitting the market these days, Redline is an indie game worth feeding the buzz. As always, I am not being paid for this review.

Redline: Tactical Card Combat has done things the right way. Rather than spend significant time and energy dumping a large quantity of unknown content onto the market and see how it goes, they've started practically and scaled slowly. The core set, released in 2021, consisted of two starter decks and the tokens, dials, dice, etc. needed to play. The follow up release was another pair of starter decks which could be mixed and matched with the core. Bringing us here, the third expansion: “Battle of Neom”. With two new starter decks for the current factions, things just keep getting better.

“Battle for Neom” introduces a couple new core mechanisms applicable to both existing factions. First is the keyword Scorched Earth, which is found on the three new missions included in the set. Missions with the keyword can be damage and destroyed, i.e. flipped over and their capture cost set to five. Also, if a player had control of that mission, they lose it. Such missions coming alive, players can feel the battlefield change underfoot. The second is Entrenchment. The equivalent of being dug in, entrenchment counters act as shields, absorbing individual points of damage and a new dynamic to the efreets which feature it.

Review of Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

Aztec culture, the roaring 20s, Tommy guns, methamphetamine, Native Americans, the KKK, bowler hats, and Model Ts. What a mongrel, you might say. But Francis Spufford's 2023 Cahokia Jazz brings this dog to barking life through the titular city, and with it the richest, most audacious, most adventurous alternate history mystery you've read—or at least that I've read.

Cahokia Jazz is set in an alternate 1920s-ish America in which Aztec culture still survives and Manifest Destiny didn't quite capture all the land it intended. Cahokia city is set dead smack in the middle of the country, and as a result forms a meeting grounds of cultures and religions—European, indigenous, and beyond. These peoples playing nice until they don't, the book opens on a classic murder mystery scene: a dead body has been found on the roof of one of Cahokia's buildings, the man's heart torn from his chest.

Review of King of Morning, Queen of Day by Ian McDonald

Each year that goes by only adds to the wealth of fantastika available for reading. This means each year certain titles fade from the scene. One diamond already lost to the fog of history is Grainne by Keith Roberts. Defying genre's core, it mixes faery, reality, with eastern philosophy in mature, transcendent fashion. Ian McDonald's King of Morning, Queen of Day by Ian McDonald (1991) attempts to achieve those heights.

King of Morning, Queen of Day is technically an Irish generational novel. Split into three distinct sections, from late 19th century, through the early 20th, and onto the present day (at least as of 1991), the novel offers windows into the lives of three successive women: the great-grandmother, grandmother, and the grand-daughter. (The mother forms an interlude.) Emily sees faeries and photographs them while Edward, her father, thinks he has observed extra-terrestrials in the cosmos through his telescope. Emily's daughter Jessica is a youth in Ireland at the time the IRA was forming and starting to sow violence. And lastly is the great-grandaughter, Enye. A graphic designer by day, she destroys mythic beings on the streets of Dublin by night with her digitized katana. Yes, digitized katana. Anything but a fairy Batman, however, her fight is her own. She struggles to integrate with society, much to the chagrin of her prospective boyfriends.

Cardboard Corner: Review of "The Feast of Hemlock Vale" expansion for Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Note: this is a review of both the Campaign and Investigator expansions for “The Feast of Hemlock Vale”. There will be zero spoilers save story intro.

It was announced in 2023 that MJ Newman, original and long-time designer of Arkham Horror: The Card Game, would be handing over the reins of the game to two new designers, Duke Harrist and Nicholas Kory. A major waypoint in the game's history, there were multiple directions the game could have been taken, and fans waited with bated breath how the new design team would handle one of the greatest cooperative games ever made. In February 2024 these questions were answered with “The Feast of Hemlock Vale” Investigator and Campaign expansions.

You can breathe. Carrying the pun forward (in poor style), Harrist and Kory in fact bring a breath of fresh air to Arkham Horror. Zero sleight to MJ Newman and all that she accomplished in seven years, but you can tell a new set of eyes looked at the game and knew how to offer players something classic yet evolutionary.

Review of number9dream by David Mitchell

David Mitchell is living proof that style and technique matter. You've read the generic stories out there—the mysteries, the adventures, the historical novels, the dystopias, etc. But throw a Mitchell novel into that mix and it sticks out like a lighthouse. Boiled to their bare bones, his stories aren't any different than those discount brands. It's Mitchell's way with words that distinguish his books. number9dream is his 2001 (stylish) take on bildungsroman.

If you have a bildungsroman, then you need a young person to grow, and in the case of number9dream that person is nineteen-year old Eiji Miyake. Alone in Tokyo on a mission, he seeks his long estranged father. But sub-consciously, of course, he is seeking direction, purpose in life. Through a swirl of bizarre blue-collar jobs, cafe run-ins, immutable strangers, as well as a healthy dose of youthful imagination, Eiji does eventually find what he's looking for. The journey, as they say however, is what matters.