Tag: fantasy

Book Review – Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King

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Summary from Goodreads

Roland Deschain and his ka-tet are bearing southeast through the forests of Mid-World on their quest for the Dark Tower. Their path takes them to the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis. But beyond the tranquil farm town, the ground rises to the hulking darkness of Thunderclap, the source of a terrible affliction that is stealing the town’s soul. The wolves of Thunderclap and their unspeakable depredation are coming. To resist them is to risk all, but these are odds the gunslingers are used to. Their guns, however, will not be enough….

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Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King, the fifth book in his series The Dark Tower, is one I’d been wanting to get to for some time. After reading book four, Wizard & Glass, and then The Wind Through the Keyhole (4.5), I had had my fill of flashbacks and side-stories. Though it was without the addition of the latter, I can only imagine what the wait must have been like for fans who’d been reading the series since 1982. I enjoyed those books very much, but even I was more than ready to continue following Roland and company on their quest.Read More »

Book Review – The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King

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Summary from Goodreads

Roland Deschain and his ka-tet—Jake, Susannah, Eddie, and Oy, the billy-bumbler—encounter a ferocious storm just after crossing the River Whye on their way to the Outer Baronies. As they shelter from the howling gale, Roland tells his friends not just one strange story but two…and in so doing, casts new light on his own troubled past.

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Published in 2012, The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King is part of his popular and acclaimed Dark Tower series. Written after the series’ completion, this novel takes place between The Dark Tower IV: Wizard & Glass and The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla. The novel, apparently meant to fill in a noticeable gape between the two entries, explores some more of Roland’s personal history before embarking upon his quest, as well as expanding upon the lore of Mid-World.Read More »

Book Review – The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

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ColourOfMagicCover

The Colour of Magic is a 1983 comic fantasy novel written by Terry Pratchett. The novel is the first of 41 total books in the author’s immensely popular Discworld series. The story follows Rincewind, an incompetent and craven wizard who gets roped into escorting the Discworld’s first ever tourist. This tourist is a naïve but rich man named Twoflower from the Agatean Empire, who is accompanied by a sentient luggage chest with hundreds of legs. The book is divided into sections, each section kind of like its own short story, following the pair as they travel across the Discworld to see the sights and regularly get into mortal peril.Read More »

Book Review – Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor

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From the inside cover:

Welcome to Night Vale … a friendly desert community somewhere in the America Southwest, where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while its citizens pretend to sleep. It’s a town like any town, with a city hall, a bowling alley, a diner, a supermarket, and a community radio station reporting all the news that’s allowed to be heard. In this ordinary little town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are commonplace parts of everyday life, the lives of two women, with two mysteries, are about to converge.

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Welcome to Night Vale is a novel by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, set in the world of the podcast series of the same name and written by the same authors. As a fan of the podcast this novel has been on my radar for quite some time. I have a particular love for all things weird, eldritch, and vague yet menacing, so the series has been right up my alley since I heard the first episode. While the podcast has been going on for several years, with a number of live shows having been produced as well, this is the first time the series has ventured into the medium of prose.Read More »

“It’s Just a Kids Movie” Isn’t an Excuse

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Anastasia Iron Giant

Over the last few months, an argument has been brought to me a few times that I take issue with. My friends and I are fans of a lot of animated movies, so it isn’t uncommon for us to watch a fair amount of movies intended for younger audiences. During one of these viewings we were watching Anastasia, a 1999 20th Century Fox film directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman.

Part way through the first act I expressed that I was not enjoying the film because I did not think it was very well written. A friend of mine simply dismissed my criticisms, however, stating “It’s just a kids movie; don’t think so much about it.” This is a mindset I have always taken issue with. The genre or intended audience of something does not automatically forgive its shortcomings.Read More »

Finishing Wizard & Glass

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My final book for 2014 was supposed to be Wizard & Glass, the fourth book in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. Despite my best efforts, however, I was unable to finish it before the New Year. Nevertheless, it definitely would have fallen on my list of favourite books for 2014, so I thought I’d talk a little about my feelings on the novel.

This will not entirely be a review. While I will be critiquing it and discussing what takes place in it, it does not sit well with me to give a full review on the fourth installment of a series without having discussed any of the previous entries (this was also the reason I didn’t review A Dance with Dragons).Read More »