Tag: fantasy

As a general rule, I love Escape Pod. The stories (and readers!) tend to be excellent, however this week must be the exception which proves the rule. Maybe it’s because I never got into the whole MMORPG thing but I found this week’s story to be a bad rewrite/adaption of Groundhog Day. The movie wasn’t all that great and Save Me Plz is even worse. At least in Groundhog Day Bill Murray’s character, Phil Connors, had to do all the work himself; in Save Me Plz, Devon forces Meg into doing all the work for him. Even worse she liked the world the way it was!

So I say shame on you Mr. Eley for bringing us this tripe and implore you to look for more stories like:

Notes…

  • Why no, this post is not a blatant attempt at being named BofW and getting a free book from Escape Pod. What would ever give you that idea. *grin*
  • Ok, I could be fibbing when I made the above comment.
  • Alright I was fibbing and it is a blatant attempt at just that.
  • However I also wrote up this post to draw attention to what I feel are the very, very best of Escape Pod. Any sci-fi and/or fantasy fans not listening to Escape Pod should start and they should definitely start with the stories on this list!
Pan's Labyrinth Movie Poster

Mark’s Rating: 4 out of 5

A dark, brutal and depressing movie that touches the heart. Pan’s Labyrinth was imported form Spanish (original title: El laberinto del fauno) and is a modern fairy tale. Don’t let that fairy tale description fool you, this is no film for young children. The setting is somewhere in the countryside of Spain, 1944. Ofelia is a young child who dreams of fairies as she goes with her pregnant mother to meet her new stepfather. Her stepfather is a ruthless captain in the Spanish army who works to put some a rebellion in the region.

This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. Bold the ones you’ve read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien*
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein*
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children Of The Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card*
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson* This is really three books that they’ve lumped altogether and I don’t see any combined version for sale on Amazon. The individual books are: Lord Foul’s Bane (Book 1), The Illearth War (Book 2) and The Power That Preserves (Book 3).
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams*
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview With The Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash., Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein*
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

A while back on the advice of AWelkin, I picked up a copy of Ghosts in the Snow. I read it, loved it, got distracted and never wrote up any kind of review. A couple of weeks later, I read again. I still loved it but I still didn’t write up a review of it. Sometimes, life just works against you. *sigh*

I think the best description of Ghosts in the Snow, by Tamara Siler Jones, that I’ve heard is “forensic fantasy”. It’s got ghosts, magical items, foreign religions and gruesome murders. Dubric Bryerly is the Castellan1 of Castle Faldorrah and it is his duty to keep the peace. Recently, a serial killer has been stalking serving maids and killing them, one after another. The troubling part for everyone is that no one has seen the killer. The real trouble for Dubric is the ghosts of the slain are haunting him.
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