L.S. Popovich's Blog, page 24
December 2, 2021
Review of The Cutest Girl in Class by Quentin S. Crisp
I have already come to expect greatness from the publisher Snuggly Books. This did not let me down. It is an intriguing descent into a particularly uncanny-valley subculture. It left me wondering where the name Sooki comes from. Urban Dictionary offers a number of possibilities. Turns out it is not an uncommon Eastern name. But […]
November 29, 2021
Review of Eight Dogs, or “hakkenden”: An Ill-Considered Jest, Being the First 14 Chapters of Nansao Satomi Hakkenden by Bakin Takizawa
“The Hakkenden” is the nickname for the longer titles by which this monumental novel has been known since it appeared in Japan in serial form. Bakin was one of the most prolific authors of all time, and wrote historical novels in a variety of styles. His work might be superficially compared to Alexandre Dumas: A […]
November 25, 2021
Review of Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions by Neil Gaiman
Started out strong but ended up inconsistent. Whereas the much-touted Gene Wolfe produced unpredictable story collections of genre-bending, unconventional tales of varied length culled from a wide selection of magazines over decades, IMO any of Wolfe’s collections are better than the totality of Gaiman’s output. It is not just that this collection is inconsistent, but […]
November 22, 2021
Review of Third Winter’s War (Seventh Realm, #3) by M.L. Little
This third book continues in the Seventh Realm to bring us more of what every reader is likely to adore from the first two including a large cast of colorful characters and an intriguing plot with expert world building. It begins where the last book left off and shapes into a culminating encapsulation of the […]
