Locke and Key, Vol. 3 and 4

Vol. 3: Crown of Shadows, Vol. 4: Keys to the Kingdom

Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, 2009-2011

(December 2014)

Last time I commented on how the slightly childish exaggeration of the visual style in Locke and Key served to exaggerate the horror through the contrast with the gore and anguish it depicted. Little did I know.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Glory etc and so on it's a cake.

Merry Boxing Day.

Surface Detail

Iain M. Banks, 2010

(December 2014)

This is easily the longest of the Culture books, and arguably the weakest too, but we’ll come to that in due course. In the meantime I must confess that what I was planning to write about this has been unfortunately (and depressingly) overtaken by events in the real world.

It’s Me! It’s Me!

Japan is home to a very specific type of con-artist. There’s something called ‘Ore Ore’ Fraud (that ore being pronounced not as in a miner striking a seam of metallic rock, but as in an aggressively drunk Spaniard sarcastically celebrating the murder of a cow), which essentially translates as ‘It’s me, it’s me’.

The con works like this: the scamsters aggressively and persistently harangue their victims, often in their own homes, repeating the same simple message – “It’s me! It’s me!” – and through providing that information and nothing else hope that the natural credulity and weak-mindedness of their targets will act to embellish whatever details are necessary to convince them that this ‘me’ is someone who they actually know and appreciate and value. Once this cognitive sleight-of-hand has been achieved, the fraudsters then convince their marks to give them stuff that if they actually thought about it in any meaningful way at all they’d be extremely reluctant to bestow on them.

The Mirror Empire

Kameron Hurley, 2014

(October 2014)

  

A little round-up here of the conversation Pep and I had regarding The Mirror Empire and City of Stairs, for the sake of both convenience and indulging my slightly obsessive need to stick to the format.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

  

Just the Two of Us

THE GRAND AUTUMN 2014 SOCIAL MEDIA BLANKET COVERAGE SECONDARY WORLD NEW RELEASE DANCE BATTLE AND BAKE SALE BROUGHT TO YOU IN ASSOCIATION WITH KIRKDALE HOUSE OF MEAT, LOOKS GREAT, TASTES GREAT, VEAL’S GREAT!

Welcome back, pop pickers! After the first episode of this little here Mirror Empire vs City of Stairs dance battle went to air the phone lines opened and would you believe it, both contestants made it through the public vote! What were the odds? So join me and Pep of Two Dudes in an Attic as Round Three beckons…

Bookmark Three

Year Three in the blogosphere and, while no one yet suspects I am a dog, this was the year the realities of juggling work, study, and family really started to bite. Woof.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Shirley Jackson, 1962

(November 2014)

  

Now this is how you do narrative tension and an unreliable narrator. Terrifyingly fantastic.

Beasts of No Nation

Uzodinma Iweala, 2005

(November 2014)

Fucking hell. Not an easy read, this. Harrowing, frequently appalling, and just downright distressing, but then given it’s about a child soldier press-ganged into conflict in an unnamed African country those are exactly all the things it should be.

iCake

You can imagine me reading this post whilst wearing a black polo neck if you like, or making some more topical references about an executive's sexual orientation, or hoping fanboys get all excited about how it's essentially the same thing as the last one I made but there's half a teaspoon more cinnamon this time. Look, it's an apple cake and I'm a busy man and you need to start pulling your weight around here with the gags and stuff. I can't do it all for you, y'know?