The Snarky Cats of Ulthar

Legal roofies! Interspecies sex! Happy slave race! Sympathetic rapists! Permanent disfigurement as legitimate punishment for teen girls! Statutory rape! People-eating giant spiders! Reducing children to two or three personality traits that will define their whole future! What horror show is this you ask? Why, it’s none other than Harry Potter . When Ron accidentally eats from a box of candy laced with a love potion meant for Harry, we learn that his twin brothers Fred and George make and sell such potions at their shop. How hilarious! So, if a wizard wants to buy a substance that allows them to brainwash someone into being obsessively in love with them (with all that entails) all they need to do is go to Fred and George Weasley’s joke shop. Dumbledore explains that giving someone a love potion is wrong because the feelings it causes aren’t real. That’s a nice way to explain the importance of consent to children. However, it doesn’t change the fact that in the world of Harry Potter, roo

Since this blog promises snarky reviews and Wilcox's take on Steven Erikson's Rejoice was a little too serious, I wrote another review for Twitter. You can read it below. In Rejoice , the Earth is put on a conservatorship by libertarian commie aliens who reduce government, end borders, and force all of Humankind to share, or else... They could've brainwashed everyone, but they didn’t because they’re good people. Pinky swear. If you suspect the aliens could be planning something nefarious, well, the Donald Trump stand-in agrees with you. This means you're a bad person and should be ashamed of yourself for not being grateful to the unseen omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient aliens.  Trump isn't the only real-life person with a Rejoice counterpart. There's also an Elon Musk whose electric cars aren't flammable and whose spaceships don't explode. For some reason, he's black. Also for some reason Erikson decided to make the Canadian PM a woman.  The US VP

I’ve read all the books in the Malazan Book of the Fallen main series written by Steven Erikson (I’ve also read the Esslemont ones, but that’s not really relevant right now). They were messy, messier than George R R Martin more famous A Song of Ice and Fire , though far more enjoyable. I even loved Erikson’s long-winded philosophical arguments. The other books of his I read weren’t as good. The Star Trek parody, Willful Child , wasn’t nearly as amusing as it believed itself to be, and the same can be said of the first two volumes of the Bauchelain and Korbal Broach short stories (I say the first two because I haven’t had the chance to read beyond that, so maybe it gets better). However, when Rejoice came out with its interesting premise – all-powerful aliens stop humans from using any kind of violence and now what? – I thought that it was worth giving it a shot. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Rejoice isn’t complex, Rejoice is an inspirational Facebook post stretched into a whole book. I

Helen of Troy, formerly of Sparta, the most beautiful woman in the world, daughter of Zeus, wife of Menelaus, lover of Paris, victim, whore, innocent, guilty. The romanticizing of Helen’s kidnapping has been around since ancient times and has endured to this day. It would be easy to play Devil’s advocate and say that since women’s feelings and agency were ignored in the olden days, Helen abandoning her duties as Queen of Sparta for the love of a handsome prince was seen as a kidnapping because the men couldn’t handle the idea of a woman having her own desires. However, the Odyssey  describes women as being extremely fickle and giving their loyalty to whichever man they’re sleeping with, which is why Penelope’s refusal in accepting a new husband makes her stand out. So, Helen being a willing participant wouldn’t be that shocking in ancient times. It would probably be more difficult to convince people that she actually was a victim. The Odyssey also has the gods talk about how they don’t

SPOILER ALERT! This is not a full review of The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova because I don’t remember enough about this book to make one. What I do remember, the mind-numbingly stupid detail that has been forever etched in my mind, is the fact that Dracula really needed a librarian and that if he ever got one to organize his vast collection of books, some of them incredibly rare, we’d all be doomed! Doomed, I tell you! DOOMED! Because apparently by reading thousands of outdated, though no doubt very interesting, books, Dracula would be able to achieve world domination. Maybe I’m exaggerating. Maybe the whole Dracula-needs-a-librarian plot wasn’t as prominent as I remember. Maybe there was some other masterplan that I missed because the extreme ridiculousness of that plot overrode everything. Maybe after more than 600 pages no conclusion could ever have lived up to my expectations. Whatever. In Kostova’s book, Vlad, the Impaler is essentially demoted to “the Historian”. Sure, impalin

This is a review of N K Jemisin’s book The City We Became . Needless to say, there will be SPOILERS . First, a short synopsis. In the world of The City We Became , cities are living organisms that are constantly evolving until they’re ready to be born. Then, they choose someone to be their avatar, someone who best embodies their defining characteristics. This time, it’s New York’s turn. Its chosen avatar is a young, black, queer, homeless man. Guiding him is the avatar of the city of São Paulo. However, New York is injured while fighting a tentacled antagonist who wishes to prevent this city’s birth. So, now, it’s up to the avatars of the five boroughs – Manhattan (racially and sexually ambiguous Manny), Brooklyn (African American, former rapper and current councilwoman Brooklyn), Bronx (Native American lesbian artist Bronca), Queens (Indian immigrant university student Padmini), and Staten Island (white (Irish) Aislyn) – to find each other, evade the enemy, find the wounded avatar, an