February 12, 2019

We’re just a month into 2019, but the best book I’ve read this year is The Night Crossing by Robert Masello, who is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. The Night Crossing is a suspense-filled historical fantasy about the events that inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Review The Night Crossing follows in the wake of Masello’s…

April 28, 2017

On Sunday, Starz will premiere American Gods, based on the fantasy bestseller by Neil Gaiman. From the trailers, the show looks amazing. But it will be pretty damn hard to exceed the novel. Here’s why. By the time I finished American Gods, I felt the same way I did when I finished Stephen King’s The…

February 24, 2017

While I’ve been writing about Black Sails, a prequel to Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, today I’m posting a review of Robert Masello’s The Jekyll Revelation, a story based on another of Stevenson’s famous tales. The Jekyll Revelation is a clever play on Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr….

July 29, 2016

I’m still figuring out what to do in a post Game of Thrones world, so this week I’m resurrecting a post from the summer of 2013. Hope you enjoy it. For the third year in a row, I plan to spend my summer vacation in the Bahamas. It’s hard not to like the Caribbean with…

March 31, 2016

After this season’s first episode, I wrote that “On Black Sails, the Seeds of Treasure Island are Beginning to Grow.” Having watched the season finale twice, I think my initial observation was quite accurate. Above all things, this season was about the transformation of Long John Silver into the notorious pirate of Robert Louis Stevenson’s…

August 21, 2015

It looks like Inferno might be coming to the big screen. I don’t mean the film version of Dan Brown’s latest novel starring Tom Hanks. But Dante’s Inferno. Yep, you can’t make that up. I learned about it yesterday in an article on io9 titled “Get Ready, Sinners: Warner Bros. Is Making Dante’s Inferno Into…

July 14, 2015

The past several days, the internet has been abuzz with the story that Harper Lee’s new novel, Go Set A Watchman, portrays Atticus Finch as a racist. This is the same man she portrayed as a noble hero in To Kill A Mockingbird, which is set twenty years before Watchman. So how could the moral…

October 30, 2014

Last week, io9 ran an article titled “No, Bram Stoker Did Not Model Dracula On Vlad The Impaler,” which debunks the belief that Stoker’s legendary vampire was based on the notorious Wallachian prince. In fact, in early drafts of the novel, Stoker’s antagonist was apparently named “Count Wampyr.” You can’t make this up. The historical…

July 24, 2013

For the third year in a row, I plan to spend my summer vacation in the Bahamas. It’s hard not to like the Caribbean with its perfect beaches and wonderful resorts, but as a fan of history, the Caribbean always makes me think about pirates. Maybe it was the Disneyland ride I used to adore…

March 21, 2012

This week I’m taking another short break from my series on The Top 5 Clichés in Fantasy Fiction for a review of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars, as well as some comments on the new film John Carter, which is based on the novel. The novel tells the story of Captain John Carter,…

Join My Reader List

Join my reader list to receive a FREE novella, Click HERE!

Follow My Blog

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Privacy Policy

Your email address will never be shared. Read more about our privacy policy here.

Blog Archive