Brett Michael Orr's Blog, page 4

Review: The Glittering Court

For a plot that’s basically about selling beautiful women, The Glittering Court as a novel doesn’t seem to know what it’s selling me. It alternates between so many agendas that I’m not sure if it’s a gritty allusion to human trafficking, or a social stance against 1800’s era sexism, or a criticism of the British/American [...]

Series Review – Death Note

On my blog, I typically highlight and review novels, but every once in a while, I can be tempted into the incredibly rich and detailed complexities of Japanese manga. Over the last few months, I’ve read my way throughDeath Note,a twelve-volume(108-chapter) manga about a young student who discovers a notebook with the power to kill [...]

What is the Rowling Outline?

There’s no questionthat Harry Potteris a worldwidecommercial success on paper and on film, and an inspiration for thousands of writers around the world. J.K. Rowling’s struggles with publication are often-talked about by writers, but what few really discuss is heroutlining technique,and in this blog post, I delve into the method behind her magical madness, and [...]

Review: Shiver

Whenever someone mentions a plot about a girl falling in love with a werewolf, alarm bells start ringing in my head. Thankfully there’s no vampires or awkward Kristen Stewarts in Maggie Stiefvater’sSHIVER,the first inThe Wolves of Mercy Falls –instead, there’s a sappy romance and a direwarning to stay away from local wolves. SHIVERhas a strong [...]

Movie Review – Batman v Superman (Dawn of Justice)

This review is SPOILER-FREE. If there’s one thing that’s most iconic about superhero films, it’s their tendency to have massive, bombastic action sequences that typically involve a combination of evil supervillains or alien invasions, oftentimes ending in the utter destruction of massive urban centers. In the previous outing for Superman, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel [...]

Review: THE SIDEKICKS

Contemporary novels are driven by their characters, by the intrinsic humanity we as readers are able to find in the paper construct of a novel. In lines of black ink, and in the images our mind conjures from these pages, our soul reaches out to a person that doesn’t even exist – and in-between realandimaginary, [...]

Review: SIDEKICKS

Contemporary novels are driven by their characters, by the intrinsic humanity we as readers are able to find in the paper construct of a novel. In lines of black ink, and in the images our mind conjures from these pages, our soul reaches out to a person that doesn’t even exist – and in-between realandimaginary, [...]

Review: Queen of Shadows

Once every decade or so, readers are privileged enough to experience a saga unfolding before them, an epic series that will sweep them away into a narrative they’ll always remember. With Queen of Shadows, the fourth book in the six-book Throne of Glass series, Sarah J Maas has catapulted her books into that legendary, unforgettable [...]

Review: Passenger

I wanted to like Passenger. Alexandra Bracken may have disappointed me before, but I’m always willing to give books and authors a second chance – sometimes I might be proven wrong. Sadly, that was not the case with Passenger, the new time-travel series by Bracken, which I buddy-read with fellow blogger, PasoMaddie. At the heart [...]

Official Giveaway – SIGNED The Bureau of Time Poster

Tonight I’m happy to announce a brand-new giveaway, and the first of its kind for The Bureau of Time! I’m giving away an official SIGNED poster for Australian citizens and fans of my novel – there’s just one up for grabs, so get those entries in quick! You’ll have until 11:59pm Sunday the 6th of [...]