James Bond is back, in the modern era. Jeffrey Deaver, acclaimed author of the Lincoln Rhyme novels updates 007 for the 21st century with his novel, Carte Blanche. While there are recognizable names and characters, Deaver shakes things up a little bit as he establishes a new timeline for Ian Fleming’s iconic character. This time…
Category: The Book Shelf
Star Wars: Dark Apprentice (1994) – Kevin J. Anderson
It’s amazing how time gets by from you. I last read a Star Wars book in May 2021, and I read the first installment of Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Academy Trilogy in March of 2021. It’s now the end of 2024! But diving into the next Star Wars novel in publication order, Dark Apprentice, the…
The Mystery Guest (2023) – Nita Prose
I absolutely loved Nita Prose’s The Maid, and as I found myself getting tired of running in the repetitive book cycle I was in it seemed like a good idea to pick up the second novel featuring Molly Gray. Set some time after the events of the first book, The Mystery Guest returns us to…
Batman: Resurrection (2024) – John Jackson Miller
It seems like for many of us, 1989’s Batman directed by Tim Burton, and it’s follow-up, Batman Returns from 1992 really resonated with John Jackson Miller. With Batman: Resurrection, Miller takes us to the intervening years, and explores some of the ideas that nag a lot of viewers about the events of Batman. And to…
Star Trek: My Brother’s Keeper, Book Two – Constitution (1999) – Michael Jan Friedman
Michael Jan Friedman has the final frontier down. The second book in My Brother’s Keeper trilogy, Constitution continues the story begun in Republic, which details the friendship of James T. Kirk and Gary Mitchell. Set following the events of Where No Man Has Gone Before, the first book saw Kirk relating the initial blossoming of…
The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007) – Brian Selznick
I remember being completely enchanted when I realized the movie, Hugo, was not only about a boy who lived in a train station, but about Georges Melies, the famed French director, and his wonderful collection of films. It absolutely swept me up in it’s narrative. But I had never read Brian Selznick’s original book, which…
Later (2021) – Stephen King
I have raved countless times about how much I love Stephen King novels. I love when I hit up one I have never read, though they are becoming fewer in number. Happily, Later was one that I hadn’t dug into yet and it absolutely delighted me. Later introduces us to Jamie Conklin, a young boy…
Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Call to Darkness (1989) – Michael Jan Friedman
We’re still early into The Next Generation novel series, this is only the ninth in the series. Set in the second season, while the third season was just getting underway on television, the book had to be written while the second season was in production. And that means not everything was going to work as…
The Queen (2024) – Nick Cutter
Canadian author Nick Cutter (aka Craig Davidson) really knows to deliver a tale that gets under your skin, and horrifies you, and he does it again with The Queen. Combining a coming-of-age tale with explicitly detailed body horror, this one was a page-turner from the beginning and is completely engrossing. Cutter plunges readers right into…
The Haunting of Velkwood (2024) – Gwendolyn Kiste
The Haunting of Velkwood is an original manner of ghost story. It took me a little while to really get into it, because I kept trying to figure things out a little more in terms of science, spatial and temporal issues of what was happening instead of settling in for a but of a supernatural…
The Mind Reels 