Justin Howe's Blog, page 22

Who? Fantômas!

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A woman found brutally murdered in a locked room. A chemically preserved corpse discovered in a steamer trunk. An audacious robbery committed by a masked and tuxedoed thief in a grand Paris hotel. Nothing connects these crimes, only the suspicion that the same perpetrator committed them all. Who? Fantômas!

Written between the years 1911 and 1914 by the writing team of Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre, the Fantômas serial ran for a total of thirty-two novels. In that time, the title charact...

Favorite Reads March 2018

Here we go with what I liked and loved in the way of books for the month of March.

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Lotus Blue by Cat Sparks: This is a fun, picaresque science fiction novel. Star and  her sister Nene are orphans living in a wagon caravan that travels between the far flung outposts of a blighted post-apocalyptic landscape. Star has hopes of ditching the caravan as soon as they reach the next big settlement, but events interfere with her plans and soon she’s traveling across the Obsidian Sea to do battle with...

“A Ghost Can Only Take” at Reckoning

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My rambling gonzo* epic-mundane** essay “A Ghost Can Only Take” about walking the liminal zone inside an industrial city, ghosts, history, and landscape memory has been published over at Reckoning Magazine. While you’re there you should check out the rest of the magazine. There’s lots of good weird stuff in there.

One thing I wish to highlight about that essay is how much it’s unfinished as it can’t be finished, as it’s about where I live and the present moment in all it’s fluid, ever-changi...

Favorite Reads February 2018

Here are my three favorite reads from last month.

[image error]Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley: Easiest way to describe this is it’s like Watership Down except only the really trippy bits and about crows instead of rabbits. But it’s more than that. It’s a series of linked stories centered on the interaction of Dar Oakley an immortal crow and various humans – a bronze age shaman, an Irish monk, a Native American storyteller, a spiritualist medium in the 1870s, and a near future professor....

Moon Roses

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I think these were on display to celebrate the Lunar New Year (Seollal) last week.

10 Hopes and Predictions for Star Trek: Discovery Season 2

I enjoyed the hell out of Star Trek: Discovery Season 1 even though it felt like four seasons squashed into one and had plenty of TV style whiplash plotting. My big hope for the next season is that there’s less of that whiplash and it’s more relaxed and introspective, which maybe about a quarter of season one was.

I’ll assume if you’re still reading you’ve either seen the season or don’t mind spoilers. Here goes:

Michele Yeoh makes a better recurring villain than Q ever did. But hopefully sh...

Things Published in 2017

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Here are things I had published in 2017. Give them a read or listen if you have the inclination. I’m quite proud of them.

A Late Quintessence: a story about censorship, alchemy, and the regenerative power of ideas from the perspective of a villain coming to realize too late that he was on the wrong side of history. May it come to pass. (Link / Audio)

Behind the Sun: this is a faux travelogue about a weird civilization that exists in the center of our hollow earth. Witness the strange past-ti...

Favorite Reads January 2018, and more

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Before I get into a rundown of the books I wanted to acknowledge the passing of one of the greats, Ursula K. Le Guin. I fell in love with The Wizard of Earthsea as a kid, and later when I was in my 20s and doing a lot of thrift and second hand book store prowling I knew anything I found by her would be a treat. At some point I had the chance to see her speak and it was great. She was fierce and funny and kind in all the best ways.

Now, about the books… you see I went back to the USA in Decem...

Man on Pipe

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2018 is the year I go back to posting quotidian pictures. Sorry, not sorry.

Favorite Reads of 2017

A dozen of my favorite reads from the past year in no particular order. Not all books were published in 2017. In fact, most weren’t.

Day of the Arrow By Philip Loraine: Folk horror among the 1950s jet set. If you like William Sloane and Shirley Jackson this might be for you.

The Internet of Garbage by Sarah Jeong: A brief history of the internet’s development, online harassment, and how we got from there to here. The internet is garbage.

Woe to Live On by Daniel Woodrell: If Huck Finn meets A...