Assaph Mehr's Blog, page 7

Book Review: The Blood Moon Feasts on My Dreams, by Douglas Lumsden

Alex Southerland is my favourite paranormal detective (after Felix, of course), and I’m always excited to read new installments in this excellent Urban Fantasy series.

What to Expect

A new case for Alex, starting with a studious teenager who disappears at night without going through the front door. In a typical fashion, Alex is dragged further in to conspiracies and cults, tangles with otherworldly forces and ancient sorcerers, and generally getting in over his head in a quest to stay ...

Book Review: Deathless Gods, by P. C. Hodgell

I’ve been following the Kencyrath chronicles series since it first came out 40 years ago, because it’s that good.

What to Expect

Another adventure for Jame, this time exploring the central lands and their various kingdoms and faiths (more or less). Things on the longer arc are happening in the background, and are nearing the climax.

What I liked

The world-building is top notch, with its fuzzy lines between life and death, real and divine. It’s not your ‘adventuring’ setup, but ra...

Writing and Polymathy

I’ve recently read Learn Like a Polymath: How to Teach Yourself Anything, Develop Multidisciplinary Expertise, and Become Irreplaceable, by Peter Hollins, and thought it had quite an interesting overlap to do with writing.

It’s a short book, covering what polymathy is (and isn’t), the core idea of skill transfer, and how to break knowledge down and adopt the right mindset.

The short version, is that for practical reasons polymathy isn’t simply high intelligence (for many reasons, not t...

Books Review: Trapped, Hunted, and half of Besieged, by Kevin Hearne

I’ve been enjoying the Iron Druid series, more or less binge-reading it.

What to Expect

Trapped takes place 12 years after the previous one, Tricked. Granuaile has finished her training, and it’s time to bind her to the earth and make her a full druid. Nothing goes to plan, of course, and despite Atticus’ best effort they are constantly interrupted.

Expect the usual romps involving gods of various pantheons – notably the Celtic, Norse, and Greek – as well as their associated mytholo...

Creative Writing and Day-jobs

No, not quite quitting work to get back to writing (almost, but not quite ). I do feel I’m getting there — now that I have a study with a lock on the door — and will be restarting a writing habit soon, but that isn’t the subject of today’s post.

I’ve written before about the cross-over of creative writing and my job in product management (and it’s generally applicable to much of corporate work). There is some transference back in the sense that publishing is a business, though I find the digi...

Book Review: Dead Things, by Stephen Blackmoore

This came up as a ‘you might enjoy’, and it certainly intrigued me to try — urban fantasy from the point of view of the necromancer.

What to Expect

A dark and twisting story, with lots of plot twists and rising tensions. Eric is a fallible human mage with a knack for dead things. That makes his views about life and death — not to say his perception of reality — somewhat less rigid then for most of us. Expect visits from various deities of the underworld and death, spell-slinging mages,...

Roman Bones and Boners

Researchers described the stone phallus as “unusually large.”
(Image credit: Historical Museum of Nueva Carteya) — via LiveScience

Welcome to this month’s Ancient Rome News column, where we survey the latest unearthing of Roman bones — and boners — that get armchair archaeologists inappropriately excited

Prepare yourself for a collection of old bones (sadly inanimate), large boners (hilariously decorated), and double entendres from this Roman enthusiast, who’s been known to weave all three...

Book & Shorts Review: Tricked and various shorts from the Iron Druid Chronicles, by Kevin Hearne

As I was checking the order of novels on Goodreads, I found a few short stories in the series. This review covers book #4 (Tricked) and the short up to that point.

What to Expect

Tricked sets Atticus up against creatures from Native American (Navajo) mythology. Coyote (who appeared in the previous novel) helps him out of his predicament with the Norse gods, and in return asks for a service. As can be expected from a Trickster god, this ‘service’ is rather tricky and Atticus gets dragge...

Book Review: The Fire Islands, by Gilbert M. Stack

I’m not sure where I first heard about this novel, but it drew my interest for obvious reasons — another reflection of Roman culture mixed with fantasy.

What to Expect

Expect a fantasy world loosely inspired by Ancient Rome. Marcus Venandus is a member of the legions of Aquila (the world’s version of Rome; ‘Eagle’ in Latin), posted in a far away island outpost. The archipelago has a strong Hawaiian (or at Polynesian) influences.

A minor officer in the legion, Marcus keeps his troops...

In a surprising twist, Felix has converted to Judaism 🫢

OK, maybe it’s a tad of click-bait But in working with ChatGPT (still based on GPT-3), I did the equivalent of Googling myself:

I find the mental image of Felix dressed as a Hassidic Jew absolutely hilarious

I did try to search (Google…) for “Accidental Detective”, but it only comes up with a Korean film. Goodreads returns a couple of book results, but nothing involving a Talmudic scholar. My conclusion is that it just sounds plausible, not a real thing.

Interestingly, my wife tri...