Sheila's Guests and Reviews

Looking through those unpublished book reviews and unshelved but long-read books I found an Obsidian Trilogy and an Obsidian short story collection. It's definitely time to shelve them--the trilogy, in particular, is made up of quite large books and if I don't put them away the space will disappear. (Space does that--quantum book expansion I think.) So... I'll start with the short stories. Obsidian Worlds by Jason Werbeloff  is a fascinating collection, not for the easily offended, but uniquely odd, short enough to read while drinking coffee, and weird enough to have you reaching for your science book. Enjoy with some dark five-star coffee. Then there's the Obsidian Trilogy. Here, magic replaces science, but it's a well-thought-out kind of magic with genuine logic and fascinating differences, balanced by a well-developed fantasy world and fueled by good versus evil. I love how new characters and ideas are introduced in each book, extending the world and constant...

With the world growing darker (politically and in season), fires burning, waters flooding... I ought to look for something light to read, but I end up haunted by dark matter and enjoying the sense that perhaps we can learn, if not directly from the past then possibly from its fictional recreation. So here I am enjoying Alice in Sinland, Killing the Devil, following Stainer through a collegetown summer of drugs, watching Ruined Wings try to fly, Missing Presumed and Accountable to None. Dark matter indeed, but some of it's hauntingly evocative, literarily beautiful, and gripping to read. And some of it's just dark. Here are some book reviews anyway. Enjoy complex four-star coffee with the more complex reads, and dark five-stars for the darkest ones. Alice in Sinland by Antara Mann is an oddly surprising dark read. An up-and-coming lawyer is asked, "What do you want?" and realizes she always wanted to be a star. Down the rabbit-hole of modern-day stardom she goes, wh...

I was going to post some book reviews of tales set in dark days of past, present and future. Life kind of delayed me though, together with my own delightfully dark and beautifully bright and sunny day when the sun disappeared. Did you see the eclipse? It's long been a dream - on a par with dreaming that I might one day walk on the moon - that I could see a "real" solar eclipse. When I found it would only take an hour's drive (possibly longer with traffic), I tried holding my breath. But could I really impose on my husband to take time off and go with me? It turns out I could - in fact, he suggested it without even knowing my childhood dream. So here I sit at my computer, still wondering, still staring into space; did it really happen? And if dreams come true, can they come true in threes? Can I still walk on the moon? What surprised me most about the eclipse? The ring was white, not gold. What intrigued me most? The sky wasn't black. What absorbed me most? ...

The news is of danger. The world's not as safe as we'd choose. Though, to be fair, we never thought London was safe. Not when I was growing up and gangsters were a strange phenomenon. Not when the IRA held sway. Not when friends asked if we really wanted to risk taking our children there before we left the country. And surely not now, because nowhere is safe. Because safety is an illusion. So I read for escape... maybe. But which books help you escape? Self help books perhaps? They'll tell me how to protect myself against everything I've thought of that might go wrong. Except my protection goes wrong and I never thought the basement would flood that way. Children's books? I've read lots of those. They gather me back into innocent certainties with beautifully illustrated calm. But then I grow up when I close the book. Fantasies? They help, I guess, though I always end up ascribing fantastical beasthood to modern day fears. Action and adventure? At least f...