Nicholas Bruner's Blog, page 7

What I’m Reading: Inker and Crown

If you like my Last Days of Atlantis series, I think it’s a good bet you’ll like Inker and Crown, by Megan O’Russell. They’re both multi-character-arc epic fantasies with a flawed scribe as a main character. And they both have multiple related organizations that...

What I’m Reading: To Every Thing a Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia

Bruce Kuklick is a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and his book To Every Thing a Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia is a labor of love on his part. It’s also the kind of book I personally love–a mix of baseball...

What I’m Reading: Markos

Markos is better known as the Gospel of Mark, but in Sarah Ruden’s new translation of the Gospels, she hews more closely to the original Greek than most versions. Hence, Mark becomes Markos, Matthew becomes Maththaios, Luke becomes Loukas, John becomes Iohannes, and Jesus...

What I’m Reading: The Giants’ Spear

The Giants’ Spear is the final book in Jamie Edmundson’s Weapon Takers Saga, and all the various story arcs come to their final conclusion here. (I also reviewed the first book in the series, Toric’s Dagger; the second book, Bolivar’s Sword; and, the third...

What I’m Reading: Drawn From Life: Selected Essays of Michel de Montaigne

Drawn From LIfe is a collection of essays by Michel de Montaigne, a wealthy Frenchman in the 16th century. He was a key early figure in the French Enlightenment and one of the best-educated men of his age. His father decided that Michel’s native...

What I’m Reading: The Scar

The Scar, by China Mieville, is a sequel of sorts to the dark steampunk fantasy Perdido Street Station, which I have reviewed previously. It’s set in Bas-Lag, the same world as PSS, and we learn at one point that one of the main characters...

Scary Movies: M3GAN

My kids wanted to see this movie this past weekend, so I went into the theater with low expectations. From the previews, I expected M3GAN to be a schlocky B-movie, along the lines of the Chucky franchise. In fact, it turned out to be...

Scary Movies: White Zombie

The movie this time out is White Zombie from 1932. It’s said to be the first zombie movie and stars Bela Lugosi as Murder Legendre, an evil sugar mill owner who uses zombies as slave labor in his mill. The female lead, Madeleine, is...

What I’m Reading: Isaiah

Over Christmas of 2022, I decided to read the biblical book of Isaiah. A number of selections form Isaiah occur every year in the lectionary readings at my church during Advent, and I decided to delve further. I’ll be honest, Isaiah has never been...

Scary Movies: Pit and the Pendulum

Pit and the Pendulum is the second in director Roger Corman’s cycle of eight Edgar Allan Poe movies, most starring Vincent Price. Others in the cycle I’ve also reviewed include The Raven, Tales of Terror, and The Tomb of Ligeia. Of the eight, this...