![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() One of Christopher Frayling's intentions in first compiling his book Vampyres in 1978, reissued in 2016 in a handsome expanded edition, was to give vampirism the academic credit it deserves as a literary phenomenon. It would be another 10 years before Bram Stoker immortalised Vlad in his famous novel. The bloodthirsty prince makes a brief appearance in a narrative about the horrors of autocracy. As the BBC’s Dracula shows, we can still be in thrall to vampires – just as we have been for centuriesĪ fact often overlooked about Das Kapital by Karl Marx is that it was the first book in English literature to feature Vlad Dracula, more commonly known as Vlad the Impaler, in anything other than a purely historical guise. ![]()
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![]() ![]() I was particularly interested in the notion of the baku. I never truly felt invested in Lacey and her journey because there just wasn't enough development of her character at the start. However, the pace of the novel is at the cost of developing those characters and key scenes. The characters are diverse and the plot concept is intriguing. Why I liked it: Jinxedis an action packed middle grades novel with good intentions. Can Lacey hold on to Jinx and her dreams for the future? ![]() But Jinx is different than any other baku she's ever seen.He seems real.Īs Lacey settles into life at school, competing with the best students in a battle of the bakus that tests her abilities, she learns that Jinx is part of a dangerous secret. After she repairs it, the cat-shaped baku she calls Jinx opens its eyes and somehow gets her into her dream school. One night, Lacey comes across the broken form of a highly advanced baku. But when Lacey is rejected by the elite academy that promises that future, she's crushed. ![]() ![]() Lacey Chu has always dreamed of working as an engineer for MONCHA, the biggest tech firm in the world and the company behind the "baku"-a customizable "pet" with all the capabilities of a smartphone. The basic plot from Amazon: The Golden Compass for the digital age! When a coding star enters an elite technology academy, she discovers a world of competition, intrigue, and family secrets-plus a robotic companion that isn't what it seems. ![]() ![]() *spoilers below for Wild Seed and Mind of My MindĪnyanwu is such a compelling character that I feel a little cheated knowing that she gets so little of her story continued as Emma in Mind of My Mind - the ending was rather abrupt, and the resolution a little abrupt. I feel like the next two books might veer much further into sci-fi and not feel like this, especially Wild Seed, which follows Doro and Anyanwu from Ancient Egypt through the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. ![]() These “real” historical settings made the allegories that much more clear and made for a very grounded reading experience. ![]() I know the gist of the next 2 books in the series, the last of which was the first to be published, is set far into the future and involved aliens and shit, but honestly what I loved so much about these chronologically “first” two books are how deeply in tune they are with their respective historical settings, and how Octavia Butler deftly weaves between the supernatural - the supernatural megalomania of Doro or the supernatural empathy of Anyanwu - and real historical devastations of slavery and its legacy on American society into the late 20th century. I am reading this series very out of order - I finished Mind of My Mind a few months ago, so reading this is like reading a prequel. ![]() ![]() ![]() Only, Ronan isn’t easy to overlook, and he can’t escape the notice of the Socialmedialite… Suspended from his team, Ronan has come to Manhattan to escape the drama, lay low, fly under the radar. The press has spun a web of lies depicting him as rugby’s wild and reckless bad boy. Ronan Fitzpatrick, aka the best hooker the world of rugby has seen in decades, despises the media-social or otherwise. Virtual reality is Annie’s forte, but actual reality? Not so much. She is the Socialmedialite, anonymous creator of New York’s Finest and the internet’s darling. ![]() LADIES AND GENTS! I have an announcement!You know that guy I featured on my blog a few months ago? The really, really hot Irish rugby player who plays the position of ‘hooker’ in the RLI (Rugby League International)? The one with the anger management issues, the body of a gladiator and the face of a movie star? The one with the questionable fashion choices leading me to ask whether he was the lovechild of a leprechaun and a hobbit? Ronan Fitzpatrick? Yeah, that guy.Well, I have a confession to make…Īnnie Catrel, social media expert extraordinaire at Davidson & Croft Media and clandestine celebrity blogger, can make anyone shine in the court of public opinion. ![]() ![]() ![]() This was five years ago and it is still one of my favorite books. The first time I found out about him was when reading Abnett’s Ravenor series. It has taken me five years to aquire all three books in the original Eisenhorn trilogy. This is the Warhammer 40K Legends Collection that I have sporadically managed to collect in the last two years… I own 27 of the 80 books so far… The daemon Cherubael is back, and seeks to bring the inquisitor to ruin – either by his death, or by turning him to the service of the Dark Gods. But when a face from his past returns to haunt him, and he is implicated in a great tragedy that devastates the world of Thracian Primaris, Eisenhorn’s universe crumbles around him. ![]() A century after his recovery of the alien Necroteuch, Gregor Eisenhorn is one of the Imperial Inquisition’s most celebrated agents. ![]() ![]() ![]() In The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear, Seth Mnookin attempts to answer the question: Who decides which facts are true? Through interviews with parents, public-health professionals, scientists, and anti-vaccine activists, he researches how conspiracy theories are made, why they persist, and how we can find the truth with so much competing information.įrom anti-vaxxers to 9/11 conspiracy theorists to television hosts who demanded to see President Obama’s birth certificate, Mnookin explores the limits of rational thought and creates a cautionary tale for our time. As a result, parents became more and more suspicious of vaccines, and children unnecessarily died due to preventable diseases. Even though Wakefield’s research has been debunked several times over, he lost his medical license, and he has been revealed as a profiteer, powerful media personalities like Oprah and Jenny McCarthy spread his theory. ![]() In 1998, a British gastroenterologist named Andrew Wakefield published a paper that sparked one of today’s biggest conspiracy theories: Childhood vaccines cause autism. ![]() ![]() ![]() In this novel, Cleeves introduces readers to the series’ detective, Jimmy Perez, who will play a prominent part in the later Shetland mysteries. More and more strange juxtapositions occur as the mystery deepens. Robert who attended a party with Catherine at the Haa may have known her better than he lets on. Sally, as it turns out, has her heart set on Robert Ibitser, a well-known, affluent local. ![]() Sally, the deceased’s best friend is oddly ambivalent about her friend’s death. The town alternately mourns and revels in the notoriety of the tragedy. He even had the girl, Catherine, in for tea on the day she disappeared. Tait’s home is close to where the body was found. Few of the residents of Lerwick speak to him they have long suspected he was daft and possibly dangerous. Magnus Tait is an eccentric recluse who lives by himself at Hilhead. At least, he gives the appearance of being the murderer. Unique among detective stories, readers know who the killer is near the start of the novel. Raven Black is the first in the Ann Cleeves’s Shetland series. ![]() ![]() ![]() She is an educated and strong-willed woman. Initially he alienates a number of villagers, including Pelagia, the daughter of the village doctor. Captain Antonio Corelli, an officer of the Italian 33rd Acqui Infantry Division, has a jovial personality and a passion for the mandolin, and trains his battery of men (who have never fired a shot) to choral sing. Greece's Ionian Islands are occupied by the Italian Army when it brings a large garrison along with a few Germans to the tranquil island of Cephalonia, whose inhabitants surrender immediately. The novel's protagonists are portrayed by actors Nicolas Cage and Penélope Cruz. The film pays homage to the thousands of Italian soldiers executed at the Massacre of the Acqui Division by German forces in Cephalonia in September 1943, and to the people of Cephalonia who were killed in the post-war earthquake. It is based on the 1994 novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières. Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a 2001 war film directed by John Madden. ![]() ![]() ![]() He tries to hide the relationship from his parents, who expect a strictly traditional arranged marriage to a Muslim woman, but their romance faces an even greater hurdle when she falls into an inexplicable coma and he bonds with her parents (who you can't help but fall in love with thanks to the performances from Ray Romano and Holly Hunter). ![]() ![]() The story follows a standup comic (Nanjiani) who falls for a woman who heckles him (Kazan) at a show. Directed by Michael Showalter from a script by Nanjiani and Gordon, the film stars Nanjiani as himself and Zoe Kazan as Emily in the stranger-than-fiction story of two people falling in love despite clashing cultures, family expectations, and a mysterious life-threatening illness. Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon’s real-life love story serves as inspiration for the most delightful romantic comedy in years in The Big Sick. Run Time: 2 hr | Director: Michael ShowalterĬast: Kumail Najiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Encountering strange “statues” that weigh several tons in one of the shelter’s rooms, he eventually moves through a mirror there into a replica of the stricken city, where time moves at a fraction of the speed experienced in the shelter. Much of the novel focuses on the protagonist figuring out why those around him are living underground and why many of them believe that he is a physicist named Poreyra. Given instructions by a mysterious Mechanism to study the people living in the shelter, the protagonist proceeds as if he is a living machine given a modicum of free will (as explained by the Mechanism). His identity confusion derives from his “birth” on an assembly line under a kind of bell jar. One might even call Robot surrealist science fiction and liken it to Kafka’s work, or even Lem’s Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, since the main character spends most of his time wandering around the halls of an underground shelter, unsure of his own identity and his place in the community that has formed following an apocalyptic event on the surface. Indeed, both Robot and Lem’s His Master’s Voice (published in Polish just a few years apart) take up the fascinating but insoluble problem of whether or not we’re alone in the universe. If reading Adam Wiśniewski-Snerg’s Robot (Penguin Classics, 2021), translated by Tomasz Mirkowicz, makes you think about Stanislaw Lem’s work, you’re not alone. ![]() |