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“As the Shore to the Tides, So Blood Calls to Blood” Included on 2020 Locus Recommended Reading List

I'm surprised and honored to have my novelette, "As the Shore to the Tides, So Blood Calls to Blood" included on Locus Magazine's yearly list alongside so many other brilliant authors. This was an unexpected honor, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about what works loved in 2020, though I fear that I couldn't truly keep up with reading everything on the list. I also want to make sure I mention a few works not included in Locus Magazine's round-up. This list also signals the opening of Locus's 2021 Poll & Survey to the public. You can vote (or write in) your favorites to be considered for the Locus Award. Novels I recently finished reading The Blade Between by Sam J. Miller, and really enjoyed how he continued to add details to his own fantasy version of Hudson, NY by pitting old ghosts haunting the town against the new one:...

February 8, 2021
Awards Eligibility, Fantasy, Uncategorized, Writing
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Cover of the Xanth novel, "Dragon on a Pedestal" depicting a small blonde girl in a red, frilly dress petting a dragon who's looking up at her in adulation

We Got Xanthed

When I posted a poll to gauge interest in discussing different crap books in an upcoming episode of Podside Picnic, I should've been prepared for this. https://twitter.com/kjy1066/status/1297661342271320064?s=20 What else can I say other than: the public has spoken! This means that Pete and I will prioritize talking about the series of books written by none other than British-by-Birth, Florida-Man-by-Choice, (and all around perv) Piers Anthony. As Pete so succinctly put it: https://twitter.com/PodsidePete/status/1297663309009899524?s=20 I feel your pain, man If there's one good thing I could say about the Xanth books, it's that each one's generally stand-alone. That's why I started on the 7th book in the series and worked my way through whichever ones I could find. Thus my journey began So, look for our Xanth-stravaganza, coming soon to a Crap Books near you! ...

September 3, 2020
Uncategorized
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More Crap Books Episodes

Some good news! Due to the popularity of the Crap Books episodes, Podside Picnic decided to have me on once a month to ramble some more about my genre mis-education. This will continue for as long as it's still something Pete and I are interested in doing. I'm currently racking my brains to list different novels I've not yet discussed for upcoming episodes. Full disclosure: we may reserve the right to circle back for a deeper dive of certain tie-in novels we've already discussed at any time. For the moment, we'll very likely discuss the Shadowrun novel, Burning Bright (which I'm currently reading in preparation), as well as the Vampire: the Eternal Struggle CCG (!) tie-in, House of Secrets sometime soon. We'll probably want to also explore what Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman wrote after Dragonlance. There's plenty of material to draw from already, but we wanted to gauge interest. This is...

August 23, 2020
Public Appearance, Reading, Uncategorized
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Annotations to Crap Books II: Son of Crap Book

This post is a bit late, but I got invited back to Podside Picnic to continue my conversation with Pete on what we jokingly call "crap books". This time, we circled back to talk a little bit more about the influence of D&D and the Satanic Panic on what I'm calling my genre (mis)education. Again, the latest episode is free to listen here if you haven't yet, and I also had some follow-up posts with annotations that build upon that first episode. Because the crap books conversations tend to flow, I may misremember stuff, so of course I'd name the wrong title of Leiber's Lankhmar books. I mentioned Swords Against Wizardry or Swords Against Deviltry, when the one I meant is simply called The Swords of Lankhmar. My interest in Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser was spurred by my friend César lending me the books, but I don't remember if this was...

August 15, 2020
Horror, Memoir, Reading, Uncategorized
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