This week I continue my journey with Roland, the gunslinger, introduced to us in the first volume of The Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger. Roland is in trouble from the off when he wakes on an expansive miles-long beach that is the shoreline of the Western Sea, and immediately runs afoul of some of the…
Category: The Book Shelf
Star Wars: Rebel Rising (2017) – Beth Revis
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… I am truly enjoying the new canon Star Wars series, yes, I mourn some of the lost stories, now relegated to the Legends pile, but the new novels, comics, television series, and of course, the movies, all tie in with one another. Things are checked,…
Heart-Shaped Box (2007) – Joe Hill
After enjoying Hill’s short story collection a couple of weeks ago, as well as his fantastic work on Locke & Key, I decided to give a full novel a try, and the result ends up being a very satisfying ghost story, as we dive into a world of sex, violence and rock’n’roll. Judas Coyne (not…
The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger (1982) – Stephen King
Stephen King’s fantastic epic adventure gets underway with this stellar, yet surprising short entry into what will be a massive tome, The Gunslinger. Starting with the iconic line. “the man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed” one can’t help but be swept up in the epic western style fantasy. The Man…
20th Century Ghosts (2005) – Joe Hill
Joe Hill first came to my attention as the writer for the superior comic series Locke & Key, which is alternately fantastical, innocent, joyous and horrifying. As such I think I was properly ready for more of his work, and found a fascinating short story collection to use to expand on our relationship. 20th Century…
Star Wars: Phasma (2017) – Delilah S. Dawson
It’s been awhile since I dived into a Star Wars novel, but I got my hands on Phasma, a novel about one of the new characters introduced in the new Star Wars Trilogy and found myself swept up in the canon tale of who she is, what drives her, and how far she is willing…
Black House (2001) – Stephen King & Peter Straub
Back in 1984, Stephen King and Peter Straub paired up to craft a titanic fantasy novel known as The Talisman. Seventeen years later they paired up again to create a sequel to the tale that brought (Travelin’) Jack Sawyer back into the lives of readers. It’s some twenty odd years later, Jack Sawyer is 31,…
Solo: A Star Wars Story – The Official Guide (2018) – Pablo Hidalgo
As a Star Wars fan, hell, as a pop culture fan, DK Canada gets me. Their constantly growing library of books, no matter what the subject, are always fun, informative, filled with trivia, gorgeous photos and illustrations, and always seem to be designed to give us a closer look at the subject matter. The official…
Star Trek: Strangers from the Sky (1987) – Margaret Wander Bonanno
This week’s visit to the Book Shelf brings me the second Giant Star Trek novel from Pocket Books, and gives us a a different look at the first contact between Humans and Vulcans, a plot point that would later be visited in Star Trek: First Contact, though it could be argued that this book complements…
Alien Vault: The Definitive Story Behind the Film (2011) – Ian Nathan
I remember the summer that Alien opened, 1979, two years after Star Wars rocked the world. The Force stayed with me all through my childhood, and through to this very day. But Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, and a little magazine called Starlog, got me very interested in genre film and television. I wasn’t…
The Mind Reels 