Book35 of 2026: J. S. Barnes's Frankenstein's Monster
Writing a "sequel" to Shelley's classic feels like hubris, but this did enough inventive things that I'd say it was decent. Sure, it in no way captures the voice of the original, but that makes you wonder--why wasn't this a stand alone work?
Book 34 of 2026: Ava Reid, Innamorata
I can see why the booktokkers and romantasy fans were tilted by this one--it has some truly brutal dark fantasy aspects. Put it this way: Innamorata starts with the mc watching her grandmother get ritualistically dismembered in the rain. I loved this!
Mama very underrated
It’s inaccurate to say Mario is brave and Luigi is cowardly
Luigi is afraid of death, so he runs away from danger. Mario is afraid of living, so he runs towards death. Both brothers are cowards in their own way
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy
Unsurprisingly, we have the same jump off point with NIN
AMERICA
Oil spill painting in the background. Text reads Ashely Adams and ALOCASIA present Killing the Planet: Writing the Sixth Mass Extinction. May 16 at 6pm EST, Free, Virtual on Zoom. ALOCASIA.org. How do we articulate the devastation caused by ongoing environmental violence? How do we mourn the lives of billions of creatures lost solely for temporary profit? How can we grieve the futures that will not be while creating a new world worth fighting for? Killing the Planet: Writing the Sixth Mass Extinction is a generative writing workshop that gives writers a framework for braiding ecological disaster into personal narratives. Writers will be invited to be witnesses to extinctions great and small and imagine how we might pull ourselves away from the edge of collapse.
So so thrilled to announce the first installation of the ALOCASIA Summer Creative Writing Workshop Series, led in May by Ashely Adams! RSVP on Eventbrite to reserve your free ticket!
www.eventbrite.com/e/1987567638...
One thing they don't prep you for in academia is "kinds of students you will have." You gotta be ready when you get a Would-Be Comedian Using Your Class to Try Out New Bits.
Yeah that one fight is like Ultraman vs. Cthulhu, a bit over the top for me given the previous trilogy.
Book 33 of 2026: Richard Swan, Steel Gods
This was good, but I'm just not enjoying the Great Silence trilogy nearly as much as I did the previous Empire of the Wolf series. It's veering a little too much toward high fantasy for my tastes, and it feels rushed at points.
Hot damn
Recap of last Friday's AG3NTS OF CRVCIBLE game. What if unleashing suppressed political ideas was the work of corralling zombies? talesofthegrotesqueanddungeonesque.blogspot.com/2026/04/oper...
"May you meet JD Vance" is the new "May you live in interesting times."
Scenes from the flea market
You can tell we're watching Coachella
Fish and chips is serious business. When I go all out, I soak them, blanch them, then fry them twice.
Cake of Blood is an incredibly strange Spanish horror anthology. You can tell that it was hampered a bit by Franco regime's censors, but it does offer a little of everything--vampires, Frankenstein, ghosts--everything *except* for an actual blood cake!
Burgers got tall when they should have gotten wide.
Gonna do a playtest of the latest version of my "spies operating in a WS Burroughs-esque dreamscape" RPG tonight.
If you phrase it like that, I *definitely* think it's a scam
I knew you'd understand
Should have an x in it
Hate it when a magic card is called something like ‘blooblooblabla, ascendant heart of the exalted ones’. Love it when a magic card is called something like ‘rock rat’
...and dogpiles instigated by people everyone now recognizes as real shitbirds, when they probably should have realized it at the time! heh
Book 32 of 2026: Hideyuki Kikuchi, Mercenary Road
The Vampire Hunter D books are at their best when they have some Weird West element to them. This one does, which at least raises it above the previous one!
Seriously, people *jumped up my ass* for having the same opinion of those books back on G+
More like Steven Soldoutberg
