First Chapter Thoughts: One Hundred Years Of Solitude

It's been so long since I did one of these! I've been slacking on my reading this year (for, ah, fairly good reasons) but I've been meaning to read my magical realism classics for a while. I started House of the Spirits a while ago and promptly... put it down and forgot where it went. … Continue reading First Chapter Thoughts: One Hundred Years Of Solitude →

First Chapter Thoughts: Authority by Jeff Vandermeer

I recently finished Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer (read the review here), and while I've gotten mixed input from others about the rest of the trilogy, I can't help but be immensely curious. So I've picked up the second book, Authority, and we're already off to an interesting start. For starters, despite many of them being … Continue reading First Chapter Thoughts: Authority by Jeff Vandermeer →

The Gremlin’s Library: Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

Read my First Chapter Thoughts on Annihilation here! When I first read some of Annihilation (in the Nebula 2014 collection), I wasn't impressed. But now that I've read the whole thing, in its incandescently weird glory, I'm looking back at 2016 me and whispering, you silly prat. In my defense, Annihilation starts off slowly; it's almost … Continue reading The Gremlin’s Library: Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer →

The Gremlin’s Library: Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson

The first few pages of Midnight Robber feel like being dropped into a brand new language - and realistically, you are. If you know the language. you're fine. It takes a little readjustment, sure, but only the same amount of adjustment that a speaker of Received Pronounciation British English needs to do for the terms … Continue reading The Gremlin’s Library: Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson →

The Gremlin’s Library: Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer

Well. WELL. WELL. I was confused, mildly curious and definitely tempted by the first chapter. I was not prepared. God fucking damn. Dead Astronauts is the literary equivalent of that one scene from Neon Genesis Evangelion - well, okay, there's multiple. But the one that I can't stop thinking about is the notorious "mind rape" scene … Continue reading The Gremlin’s Library: Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer →