While I have always been a sci-fi fan, I’ve kept it mainly to film and television, with a few exceptions, James S.A. Corey’s brilliant Expanse series, Herbert’s Dune, some Bradbury, and of course, Arthur C. Clarke. I was always worried that if I dug into any of Isaac Asimov’s novels, that they would seem to…
Category: The Book Shelf
Lake Crescent: A Creature X Mystery (2021) – J.J. Dupuis
Lake Crescent, J.J. Dupuis’ follow up to his first Creature X Mystery, Roanoke Ridge, feels leaps and bounds beyond his first novel. Leaving behind Oregon, and the hunt for Bigfoot, his protaganist, Laura Reagan, who now hosts a cryptid hunting show that she is determined to infuse with science moves to Robert’s Arm, Newfoundland, hoping…
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2021) – Quentin Tarantino
Man am I divided on this one. I love that Tarantino has given us his first novel, and allows it to expand on his film of the same name. It has a pulpy style to it that fits perfectly with the era, and the aesthetic of the film story he told. It also lists movie…
Confess, Fletch (1976)- Gregory McDonald
The second Fletch book (written, not chonronlogically within its universe) sees the former investigative reporter flying into Boston from Italy. He’s there to track fown some stolen paintings for the De Grassi family, whose daughter he claims to be engaged to. He’s also planning on working on a book about a famed American artist. On…
Roanoke Ridge: A Creature X Mystery (2020) – J.J. Dupuis
The search for truth and proof combine in a fast-paced, enjoyable read from Toronto’s J.J. Dupuis in Roanoke Ridge. Classified as A Creature X Mystery, the novel combines a mystery (though easily solved) with a healthy dose of, and balanced look at, cryptozoology. One cryptid in particular is at the heart of this story, that…
The Hardy Boys: The House On The Cliff (1927/1959) – Franklin W. Dixon
The second adventure of Frank and Joe Hardy, sons of the Bayport detective Fenton Hardy, sees the boys taking on smugglers on the edges of their hometown, just outside the local police’s jurisdiction. Once again, the fast-moving story is more of an adventure than a mystery, and it also seems like most of the adults…
Lancaster: The Forging of a Very British Legend (2020) – John Nichol
I’ve always been a fan of history, it was one of my favourite classes in school. I would delve into it and try to imagine and conjure the world these people lived in, instead of simply memorising and delivering names and dates. When it comes to reading historical nonfiction I get a little reticent, because…
The Sittaford Mystery (1931) – Agatha Christie
The next mystery novel, The Sittaford Mystery aka Murder at Hazelmoor, from Agatha Christie didn’t feature any of her familiar characters, in fact it introduces us to a firebrand of a young woman named Emily, though she doesn’t enter the tale until a quarter way through. This time around, murder most foul strikes near Dartmoor,…
Whispers Under Ground (2012) – Ben Aaronovitch
The third book in what has become known as the Rivers of London series takes Peter Grant beneath London in the next volume of the urban fantasy series. Working a murder case, while still hunting down the Faceless Man and his students, Grant, alongside Lesley, who has now joined the Folly (where they work from)…
Battlestar Galactica 7: War of the Gods (1982) – Nicholas Yermakov, and Glen A. Larson
The next novel in the Galactica series, War of the Gods, seems to have eschewed the Galactica 1980 tie-in, and simply gone back to the Adama Journals intercut with chapters detailing the action of this adaptation of the epic two-parter that gave us a hint at a deeper mythology working in the series. After a…
The Mind Reels 