Book Reviews

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier

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At 252 pages, Kevin Brockmeier’s latest fictional offering, The Brief History of the Dead, has garned both praise and derision for either being too brief, or entirely too long. With an ending that excites some and disappoints others, The Brief History of the Dead is sure to be named among those books that one either loves or despises.

I have been held captive by Kevin Brockmeier’s writing for the entire weekend. I cannot deny that I closed the final page with some disappointment as I was not yet ready to be parted from these characters and also because of the reservations I have about the way the novel ends. That being said, I awoke this morning with a feeling of electricity and this tale still buzzing around inside of me.

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Next Stop, Disneyland!!! (and book porn and more)

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WE ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL…THE BIG DANCE…WOO HOO!!!

Some last minute line-up changes, including pulling Drew Brees off the bench and giving him the starting job this week, has given my team, The Conqueror Worms, their first ever (and incidently my first ever) Fantasy Football playoff win with a 111-92 victory over Jimmy’s Grind House (who owned my behind just a few weeks prior).

Jeff’s team, Browncoats, put the beat down, for the second time in as many meetings, on the first place juggernaut, Italian Stallions, to earn the right to go toe-to-toe with me in the Superbowl! I am certainly sorry for my brother-in-law, who I looked to get some vengeance on in the Big Game, but he got a wonderful consolation prize:

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Fantasy

Lankhmar Book 2: Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber

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Hearken back to April of this year, in the heart of the inaugural Once Upon a Time Challenge. Are you there? If so, you may recall that I read and reviewed a graphic novel by Howard Chaykin and Mike Mignola entitled simply, Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. This was a reprint of their earlier work, paying homage to Fritz Leiber, a prolific author who coined the phrase ‘sword and sorcery’. Although he wrote many other stories unrelated to these characters, it is for the many stories written over a 50 year span featuring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser that he is most well known. Immediately after reading the graphic novel I picked up the first book in Dark Horse’s collected stories of their adventures: Lankmar Book 1: Swords and Deviltry.

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Eclectic Musings of a Renaissance Geek