Writer, Editor, Artist, GameLit-ist
Pt. 4 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza
Intro (Pt. 0)
Reviews:
Book 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions · International (pt. 1 + 2)
If Prisoner of Azkaban was “darkness to light,” then Goblet is a search for balance.
Continue reading “Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”
Since time before record, the worlds of Ki and Kur have been entangled. Every fourth day, the boundaries of space and time are disturbed, so that each world is seemingly transposed with the other, and an alien sun rises in its sky, with catastrophic results. The light of Kur’s star is deadly to the life of Ki, and vice versa; every contact between the creatures of the two worlds likewise produces only violence, corruption, and decay. Yet contact is frequent enough, on the fourth day when the barriers put up by nature are thin and porous. Over many years each world has been colonized by invaders born under its enemy’s sun, spreading disease and death.
Civilized life still exists on Ki, but only at great cost. For those who are unwilling or unable to pay that price, there are other ways to live as well—but they are far from pleasant.
This is a review of chapters 1-3 of Pyrebound, a fantasy novel originating as a web serial. When this post was first written in May 2019, it was still publishing
Continue reading “First Impressions: Pyrebound (A Web Novel)”Continue reading “From “Virtual War” by Gloria Skurzynski”“Now, Corgan, how did you get that broken skin on your hand?”
“Dammit, Mendor, I told you I don’t know.”
Mendor’s gasp was like a gale blowing through the Box.
“Where did you learn that word, Corgan?”
“What word?” But he knew exactly the word Mendor meant.
Pt. 3 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza
Intro (Pt. 0)
Reviews:
Book 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions · International (pt. 1 + 2)
What a lumpy book.
Continue reading “Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”
Pt. 2 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza
Intro (Pt. 0)
Reviews:
Book 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions · International (pt. 1 + 2)
I was wrong. This isn’t Matilda: The Fantasy YA Series. It’s Rugrats: The Fantasy YA Series.
Think about it.
Continue reading “Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”
Pt. 1 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza
Intro (Pt. 0)
Reviews:
Book 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions · International (pt. 1 + 2)
Disclaimer: I don’t like J. K. Rowling, nor do I endorse her. I’m analyzing, critiquing, and mocking a book series which remains relevant because it’s been a pop cultural tour de force as long as I’ve been alive.
Never again will I wonder what Matilda would be like as the first book of a seven-part series. It is here before me: Harry Potter and the Sorcerolosopher’s Stone.
This is a good, upstanding, morally upright adventure. It gives me the impression that J. K. Rowling respects kids’ intelligence and urges them to trust their instincts, even when their hunches aren’t totally right.
There’s a part, though, where the narration says something like “maybe Harry was imagining things, but Slytherin didn’t seem very nice.” In this case Harry’s instincts are totally right, because all of Slytherin is so evil and awful. Prove me wrong.
Continue reading “Review: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (…or Sorceror’s)”
Pt. 0 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza
Reviews:
Book 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions · International (pt. 1 + 2)
Harry Potter is just another series on my neverending list of stuff to read. I’ve never read it before, which is surprising because I grew up with the books, and fans of the books, and movies based on the books, and birthday parties inspired by the books, all around me. I claimed to like reading, too.
Continue reading “Growing Up with Harry Potter (Without Reading It)”A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hmán, as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. The séroni could say it better than I say it now. Not better than I could say it in a poem. What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure, as the crah is the last part of a poem. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then—that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it. You say you have poets in your world. Do they not teach you this?
…And how could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back—if we did not know that every day in a life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that those are that day?
There’s a book quote on my blog. Why? ‘Cause that’s just what I do sometimes. I also do media criticism, which means everything from analyzing old and new fiction trends to squinting at BlazBlue to complaining about Harry Potter. (It’s the national pastime.)
Maybe I should watch a Melissa McCarthy movie soon, eh?
Continue reading “She’s a Slob: Funnywomen and My Very Limited Experience with Gross-Out Comedy”