When I was about 13, I read a book called The Explorer by Francis Parkinson Keyes. It does not appear to be available on Amazon or the librarything (or anywhere else I looked), so unfortunately I can’t link to it, but it was definitely an adult romance, and not at all a romance I would expect to be available at a church library.

The “explorer” is a man who makes a living as an heretical archeologist hunting down ruins and then … READ MORE

The Thirteenth House (The Twelve Houses, Book 2) is the sequel to Mystic and Rider (The Twelve Houses, Book 1) by Sharon Shinn.  Both books, along with the third, Dark Moon Defender, are fantasy-romances set in the mythical kingdom of Gillengaria, and are, unfortunately, fraught with the saccharine tendencies of romance novels of every other genre.  Sharon Shinn, although a fascinating world-builder, is prone to romance novels, which is every author’s right, I suppose.

I love Gillengaria, and the concept of … READ MORE

Typically, I get three responses from men to whom I express my feminism.

A) “Well, don’t worry, as far as I’m concerned you are equal with me.” My response to this is something along the lines of “Thanks, but no thanks.” The fact that you think it is necessary to tell me that I am equal with you shows that we have a problem; equality is not granted, it should be understood as a basic premise. Feeling virtuous … READ MORE

The picture shows a woman, seated, back arched and head thrown back as if laughing - although her head above the chin is cut off, as if to say that who she is doesn’t matter; her near leg is raised provocatively. It’s not a seated pose; it’s not a comfortable pose. It is, in fact, a pose, a seductive pose. Every time I drive past the billboard, my first thought is that it’s an ad for a … READ MORE

There’s a scene from Shallow Hal (before the place where I walked out of a friend’s home because I found the movie so appalling I couldn’t sit through it) where Hal goes into a restaurant with an absurdly fat girl whom he sees as traditional heroin-chic skinny due to some magical maneovering earlier in the movie.  They sit down and she orders an ordinary or perhaps over large meal - cheeseburgers or some such.  His eyes grow approvingly wide, and he congratulates … READ MORE

I was amazed, astounded, and utterly delighted by this movie. I had to let it sit for a few days for my rapture to subside so I could think coherently and make sure I could write effectively about it…and it wasn’t even perfect. The movie revolves around three characters: Grey and Sam, a sister and brother respectively, and Charlie, their shared female love interest. The movie opens with some scenes of Grey at work, and then coming home … READ MORE

Note: I thought about explaining all the terms and jokes from the novels that this post contains.  But the thing about a joke is that it’s not funny if you explain it.  If you are intrigued at all, I would suggest picking up one of the books.  I started with Going Postal, but Sourcery and Pyramids are also good ones to start with.  I would not suggest starting with Night Watch because it is more serious than the others, and because you need to know Lord … READ MORE

It was less than discriminating. But, in my defense, I’ve been sick. And I just wanted to rent something easy to take my mind off of it.

So one of the movies I got was The Wedding Crashers. Fairly typical romantic comedy bullshit about a couple of hard-partying guys who find the right girls and fall in love, blah, blah, blah.

There was a mildly interesting shtick where the girl that Vince Vaughn’s character falls for is not *actually* … READ MORE

On the ‘TV to Big Screen’ shelves at Blockbuster, I found a DVD claiming to be erotica written and directed by women, for women.  That’s a big claim, so I rented it to see how it lived up to its cover copy.  It was called Bliss, and was put out by the Oxygen Network, which didn’t mean anything to me because I don’t have cable.

The DVD held 8 mini episodes, about 20 minutes each, each one with a different sexually charged … READ MORE

I just read a couple of books by Maria V. Snyder called Poison Study and Magic Study. I don’t know that I have ever read a fantasy novel set in an early industrial revolution time frame with a moderately successful communist military government before. Especially one that neither preached communism nor villified it, but showed the reasons the persons involved created it and the limitations and benefits of it. That was fascinating, no less because the second book compared that … READ MORE