Tag: book review

  • The Kick-Ass Writer (Book Review)

    Every word smith needs, from time to time, a reference, a remedy for writer’s block, or a fresh perspective. The Kick-Ass Writer can do all of these things and does it in a way that is unique to its author, Chuck Wendig.

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  • Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited (Book Review)

    71UxQ8v6SQLI don’t think it would be a stretch to call Cormac McCarthy one of our era’s greatest American writers. He has certainly carried the torch of a variety of writers that came before him, from Hemingway to O’Connor. McCarthy is known for his stripped down prose, and The Sunset Limited takes it even a step further.

    If you have read The Road, Child of God, or any of his other books, then you know that McCarthy works as a mechanical minimalist. He uses only the sparsest punctuation and avoids dialogue tags whenever possible. His style is gritty, realistic, and grotesque in a wonderful Southern Gothic sense.

    The Sunset Limited has the usual bleak McCarthy tone, but is written entirely in dramatic form. This is essentially a play script. However, its stage directions are more sparse than most plays. Really, the format seems to be McCarthy challenging himself. Whereas a lot of his novels force him to write so tight that there is no doubt who is speaking, regardless of notation, this seems to be an experiment in stripping a novel down to dialogue only.

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  • Monster in My Closet (Book Review)

    This is a review for the first book of the Monster Haven series, written by the Confabulator Café’s very own, R.L. Naquin. You can find Monster in my Closet, as well as the second book in the series, Pooka in my Pantry, wherever ebooks for Kindle and Nook are sold. The third installment of this six-book series, Fairies in my Fireplace, became available for purchase yesterday! Go check them out. Right now! What are you waiting for??

    This series is one of my new favorites. I read an over-abundance of urban fantasy, and while each has its own world and mythology, they all tend to echo each other.

    Not so with this book. This is something entirely new. Not only do we get to see monsters that have never before been included in urban fantasy, but there are new rules, and even new character archetypes.

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