B Reviews / Book Reviews1880s / Angel / fanfic / Fantasy / friendship / Late Victorian / London / murder mystery / queer characters / Shapeshifter / Sherlock Holmes24 Comments
Dear Katherine Addison, Your steampunk fantasy novel, The Goblin Emperor, was my second favorite book of 2014 (my favorite being Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel). The Goblin Emperor held a tinge of melancholy, but also of hopefulness, and the balance of the two made the reading experience an ... more >
A Review Category / A Reviews / Book Reviews / Recommended ReadsPOC / POC author / SFF / Sherlock Holmes / short story/novellette8 Comments
Welcome to the Scattered Pearls Belt, a collection of ring habitats and orbitals ruled by exiled human scholars and powerful families, and held together by living mindships who carry people and freight between the stars. In this fluid society, human and mindship avatars mingle in corridors and in function rooms, ... more >
Publishing Newsbig data / book drive / Book-club / fitness apps / Sherlock Holmes4 Comments
Introducing the PBS NewsHour-New York Times book club, ‘Now Read This’ – I greeted this news with wan curiosity, although that’s probably unfair. It’s just that I’ve been so disappointed by the undoing of the NYTBR that I don’t know what to make of a Facebook-grounded book club. If any ... more >
B+ Reviews / Book Reviewsmystery / POC author / Series / Sherlock Holmes10 Comments
Dear Sherry Thomas: I read and reviewed the first book in your “Lady Sherlock” series, A Study in Scarlet Women, last year, and gave it a B-. In spite of the middling grade, I was definitely interested in reading this, the second book in the series. The prologue opens with Inspector ... more >
B Reviews / B Reviews Category / Book Reviewsheroine in disguise / murder mystery / POC author / Sherlock Holmes16 Comments
Dear Ms. Thomas: I know very little about Sherlock Holmes – I know of the pipe and the deerstalker cap, I’ve heard the phrase, “Elementary, my dear Watson”, and I know that Sherlock was an influential archtype in the development of the modern detective in fiction. I *think* I read ... more >
Publishing Newsdetective fiction / Elizabeth Gilbert / genre fiction / happiness / Literary Criticism / marriage proposals / reading / Sherlock Holmes10 Comments
Sherlock Holmes, Pro and Con – An interesting essay by Terry Teachout that actually reads more like a paen to deep thoughts in literature than a meditation on the positives and negatives of Sherlock Holmes. Teachout discusses the persistent popularity of the Holmes character, including the longevity of the original stories, despite ... more >