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It’s 1am, I’m in the epilog, and com’on, George, let’s wrap this thing up. 924 pages. Not that it isn’t good. The Storm of Swords is the third installment (some 1800 pages in) of The Song of Ice and Fire saga, a massive and sprawling tale from George R.R. Martin. It moves well, and most chapters always have a reason for being. Better yet, he engages in a practice I most fully approve of – killing off main characters. But that’s the joke I’ve seen on the net – “Whenever a fan asks Martin when the book is coming out, […]

I‘m really slanted on this book. See, it led to the resolution of a wonderful life-moment for me, just before it was too late. I picked this up at Slightly Foxed. Published by “Everyman’s Pocket Collection”, it is truly a pocket collection, dozens of great sea stories packed into a small hardcover – pocket-sized – book. I’ve read collections before – rather like them. A good collection will give you a wide range of selections; perfect for airplane rides – you get one you don’t like, skip to the next. And this, let me tell you, is one of the […]

I can’t tell for certain if author Thomas Koloniar was influenced by the story The Road. There, something happens, something that causes earthquakes, clouds the sky, and slowly kills off all plants and animals. As for the humans, well, they are forced to snack on the “other white meat”. Here, we know it’s a meteor. We see it coming as we establish our characters and then it hits – boom, and that’s pretty much it. One group is in a well-stocked missile complex, one set is in Hawaii (with the US Fleet and controlled borders) and a smaller group is […]

Carl Hiaasen sneers at Orlando, making it the butt of his Florida-bashing jokes. My model train club (based on Orlando) models Jacksonville (since it’s railroad-sexier). Orlando is a sprawling, simmering, distracted city. To those who use it for nothing more than the home-work drive, it’s little more than a blur beyond the I-4 guardrail. But I’ve lived here for thirty years, bicycled its streets, explored it from end to end. And when I heard about this collection of short stories punch-pinned across the city’s map, I had to check it out. In this collection, fifteen local authors have a go […]