[Book Review] Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw

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hammers-on-bone-coverTitle: Hammers on Bone
Author: Cassandra Khaw (Twitter)
Rating: Highly Recommended
Genre/Category: Urban Fantasy, Noir, Detective, Lovecraftian Horror
Release Date: October 11, 2016
Publisher: Tor.com
Order Here: AMAZON | AMAZON (KINDLE) | BARNES AND NOBLE

Note: I received a free copy of this novella from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All of the views in review are my own.

I’ve been a huge Cassandra Khaw fan since reading her novella “Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef” last year. From the second that I saw the announcement back in May that Tor.com acquired two novellas from her, I was on the edge of my seat with excitement because her writing is so freaking good that my expectations were sky high.

And then I read the first novella “Hammers on Bone” and I felt as if my entire world had changed.

“Hammers on Bone” is a dark and twisted detective story with definite notes of Lovecraftian Horror that are turned inside out across the pages of the novella.Read More »

The Great Big Anita Blake Reread – Guilty Pleasures

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Content Warnings: This review of Guilty Pleasures talks about the following content that readers may find disturbing, upsetting, or triggering: racism, internalized misogyny, victim blaming with regard to childhood abuse and sexual trauma, sex worker shaming, connecting sex work with trauma or marginalization (as in the only people in this series who do sex work are people who are broken and/or marginalized and they all need rescuing), gender essentialism.

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“Vampires are People, too.”

– The button that Monica Vespucci is wearing when she and Anita first meet echoes a repeated message in this series about how vampires are people too. But people you know… suck. So vampires do too, and not just because it’s how they get nourishment.

Despite it being the first book in author Laurell K Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, Guilty Pleasures was probably the fourth or fifth book in the series that I read. It is um… a doozy of a book.Read More »

[Book Review] That Potent Alchemy by Tess Bowery

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that-potent-alchemy-coverTitle: That Potent Alchemy
Author: Tess Bowery (Twitter)
Rating: Highly Recommended
Genre/Category:  Historical Romance, Regency, Erotic, Queer, Entertainment,
Release Date: October 4, 2016

Publisher: Seamchecker Ent.

Order Here: AMAZON (KINDLE) | BARNES AND NOBLE

Note: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review. All of the views in this review are my own.

That Potent Alchemy, the third book in Tess Bowery’s “Treading the Boards” series blows all of the historical romances I’ve been reading clear out of the water. One of my frequent complaints about diversity in publishing is that it’s very difficult to find authors who write characters I can relate to because they’re like me. Because they’re queer and brown and gender-whatever like me.

And That Potent Alchemy gave me that sense of belonging, that “I could be here” feeling that I rarely find in the historical romances I read.

In Tess Bowery’s England, there’s room for queer women and genderfluid people to be.Read More »

Whose Luke Cage Reviews Matter To Me

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I started watching Luke Cage yesterday morning and immediately I found myself bombarded with the thinkiest of thoughts.

I have thoughts on respectability politics in the series, on Luke Cage’s old-fashioned everything, on Black womanhood, on the use of the word “nigga” inside our community.

And at the end of the day, I also have thoughts about how I am absolutely uninterested in any hot takes on the series that don’t come from Black women.Read More »

Dear Comic Fans: It’s been a year since my first post & y’all are still racist as heck when it comes to racebending

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Back in August 2015 I wrote “Dear Comic Fans: We Get it. You’re racist and racebending scares you,” as a direct response to the racist backlash towards Keiynan Lonsdale being cast as Wally West on the Flash television show.

Well, it’s been a little bit over a year and I honestly can tell you that yes, fandom is still filled to the brim with racists who think that if they scream about red hair and “blackwashing” loud enough, that no one will notice that the only time they know or care about changes to characters’ races when it concerns white characters being cast with actors of color.

Look, if the only thing you care about when it comes to casting is an authentic hair color, then I have to introduce you to the wonders of hair-dye and wigs. And then I get to beat you with a bag full of them for complaining endlessly when these (usually female) characters are racebent since you stay silent when a white male character isn’t done to style.

photogrid_1474736950131Neither of the two actors playing Barry Allen look like him.

Neither of them have his canon personality.

But where’s the press reporting about how terrible both of them are for the job because they don’t have blond hair and because it’s so strange to imagine this iconic blond character being played by men who have dark hair?

Suddenly, authentic appearances don’t matter and there’s no fuss about “iconic” anything.Read More »

Stop Using the Harry Potter series’ Original Publication Dates as an Excuse for Rowling’s Diversity Fails

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Every time I talk about J. K. Rowling’s current and continuing diversity fails, someone always has to show up to remind me how she “couldn’t write diversely because it was 1997”.

Without fail, people are more invested in protecting Rowling from criticism she will never see or care about than in acknowledging the way that her writing has continued to erase marginalized people while allegorizing their struggles in order to pad her plot and make her characters more interesting.

Even if I knew (or cared) more about the realities of publishing when I was seven years old, the fact of the matter is that JKR managed to put a ton of atypical things in her “kids’ series”. She wrote about the violent effects of racism and blood supremacy as well as child abuse and children coming of age in a war torn world.

And yet, she “couldn’t” include more than eight characters of color or any queer characters who made It to the end of the series alive or who were queer onscreen?

The “it was 1997” excuse for Rowling’s diversity fails only holds a scant bit of water when it comes to looking at the body of her work. Other writers wrote queer characters into their works, other authors managed to have diverse children’s books during the same period that Rowling was publishing her books.Read More »

Radioplay Day – Blue Beetle – Episode 1 “Drug Ring”

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blue-beetle-coverDownload Link: HERE

Airdate: May 15, 1940

Main Characters/Actors: Dan Garrett (Frank Lovejoy)

Is Dan Garrett anyone’s favorite Blue Beetle?

Granted, that’s a little bit unfair seeing as he was the only Blue Beetle for several decades, but you’ve got to wonder… Are there people (who weren’t you know… alive during the 40s) who hold Dan Garrett up as their favorite Blue Beetle when Jaime Reyes and Ted Kord exist?

That being said, Dan Garrett was popular enough to get his own radio series between May and September of 1940.  For an anti-drug, anti-gang morality tale that seriously misrepresents the effects of smoking marijuana (or “dope”) on human behavior, well… It was a thing.

(Look, all of these old-timey radioshows can’t be The Shadow or the KKK-busting Adventures of Superman. Some of them had to be the superhero version of public service announcements and in many ways, that’s what Blue Beetle was.)Read More »

Suicide Squad: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

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If I had to put it to numbers, I’d say that Suicide Squad is approximately 70% “my thing”.

The 30% that isn’t is largely comprised of the following: violence against women being brushed off or used as humor, most of the male/female relationships (and the fact that there are no positive female friendships or relationships in the squad), Katana basically not getting to do a lot beyond fight scenes and a few emotional moments, Slipknot being killed off within minutes of his introduction to prove a point, how David Ayer reframes Harley and the Joker’s relationship (and her characterization), and the Joker himself.

Had Suicide Squad come out in 2007 when I was a fresh-faced high school senior, I would have loved it entirely from the start. Of course, 2007!Stitch wasn’t as focused on picking out the problematic elements in the media they consumed as 2016!Stitch is.

As it stands, I actually enjoyed Suicide Squad almost as much as 2007!me would have. I went into the film kind of hopeful, having read several reviews that were really critical of the film but trying to will DC into having better luck with this film than with Batman Vs Superman (which I saw in theaters and hated but then, when I got the Ultimate Edition, came to understand it a bit more).

And you know what? It was entertaining as hell to watch.Read More »

It’s A DCEU Giveaway, Folks!

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So I’m doing another giveaway, this time for fans of Batman vs Superman. One person (in the US) will win big with:

  • A code for the digital HD version of the film
  • A digital copy of the soundtrack (on Amazon or iTunes)
  • A Funko POP figure related to the DCEU (value up to $11)

International bloggers, have no fear because I’m not leaving y’all out either.

One international winner will have a chance to win a digital copy of the Batman vs Superman soundtrack and a digital copy of my favorite comic in the multiverse: Superman: Secret Identity.

The giveaway will last untli the 21st  and the winners will be announced on this post within 48 hours of the end of the giveaway.

Now if you’re entering the giveaway, the following question is for you!  When you comment, use the same email or WordPress username that you do to sign up for the giveaway please and thanks!

If you could be in charge of any film in the DCEU and had all the different characters in the DC multiverse, what film would you make?

(I’m nosy and want to know what heroes you’d choose to incorporate into your potential film and what kind of film you’d make.)

Giveaway for US Folks

Giveaway for International Folks

Clearly, don’t enter both giveaways. If you do, I’m going to disqualify you.

Supervillains (No-So) Anonymous – Comet City Stories

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Comet City Supervillains Not So Anonymous

Every single person in the room shifts their chairs to the side with a cacophony of screeching, squeaking, rubber and metal on linoleum when I walk in to this month’s Supervillains Anonymous meeting in the basement of one of Comet City’s many rec centers.

I don’t blame them. I know what I look like, who I am. Nearly six feet tall with dark brown skin and purple scales spattered like paint across it, I look just normal enough to pass as entirely human. At least until I open my mouth and people get a look at my fangs and forked tongue and remember that some snakes are poisonous.

But then, what else could anyone expect from someone that used to be Mama Mambo’s prized protégé, Viper?Read More »

Black Pain and Death in Captain America: Civil War

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A lot of people die in Captain America: Civil War.

Within the first twenty  minutes alone, a good dozen people (at least) die between the confrontation with Rumlow and his men, the chase through the marketplace in Lagos, and the bomb.

You come to expect a lot of death in superhero films. Either the villains are killing people, the heroes are killing villains (and the occasional civilian casualty), or debris from a major fight kills people. Even superheroes who previous took oaths not to kill (like Batman) now shoot AR-15’s and snap necks to save the world.

That being said though, most (but not all) of the many people that die within the first few minutes of Captain America: Civil War are Black. In fact, most of the major incidents that trigger action within the film involve (or follow) the death and/or pain of Black people and how it affects white characters.

The point of this post is to look critically at how Black pain and death are handled in this movie and how Black pain and death in Civil War tends to revolve around white characters. I also aim to look at what it says about a film franchise that took over a decade before it had a film headlined by a Black character (and no Black women as main characters).Read More »

[Book Review] Stitch! by Yumi Tsukirino

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Stitch LargeTitle: Stitch!
Author: Yumi Tsukirino
Rating: Recommended
Genre/Category: Disney, Aliens, Cute and Fluffy, Children’s Books
Release Date: August 30, 2016

Publisher: Tokyopop

Order Here: AMAZON | AMAZON (KINDLE) | BARNES AND NOBLE

Note: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All of the views in review are my own.

Back in 2008, Lilo and Stitch got an anime spinoff that was more like an Alternate Universe version of the film and original cartoon series. The series (Stitch!) finished its third series back in 2011 and since then, no one’s heard much about Stitch until comic publisher Tokyopop added the official manga to their Disney Manga line.Read More »