Monthly Archives: September 2023

Review: Venomous Lumpsucker (2022) by Ned Beauman

Posted on September 29, 2023 by Jeroen Admiraal

A biologist’s perspective. Venomous Lumpsucker is a near-future SF satire about animal extinction that is sort of sarcastically funny and disquieting at the same time. It follows a biologist, Karin, whose job it is to measure a species’ level of … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Science fiction | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Robert E. Howard – The Bloody Crown of Conan (Review)

Posted on September 25, 2023 by Jeroen Admiraal

Which, minus some supplementary material, contains only three Conan stories; three of the longer ones. Here we see Howard transitioning from hard and fast little stories to longer forms of storytelling. We see him handling this in two ways: in … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Fantasy | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Mikhail Bulgakov – Heart of a Dog (1925) Review

Posted on September 21, 2023 by Jeroen Admiraal

8.5/10 The publication of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog was the beginning of the author’s lifelong struggle with Soviet censorship and general destitution. Bulgakov was a very prolific author before this publication. In the early 1920s he wrote more … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Science fiction | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Junji Ito – Uzumaki (2000) Review

Posted on September 17, 2023 by Jeroen Admiraal

9/10 Uzumaki translates as the spiral, or the swirl. The story is about a Japanese town that is suffering under a supernatural curse in which its inhabitants become obsessed about spirals they see everywhere, in nature and so on, leading … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Comics | Tagged , , , , , | 22 Comments

Review: Martians, Go Home (1955) by Fredric Brown

Posted on September 13, 2023 by Jeroen Admiraal

8/10 Many alien-invasion-from-Mars novels had been written by the time Fredric Brown penned his version in 1954. H.G. Wells had been at it; Wyndham, Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke. Most of them featured all sorts of strange Martians: sentient clouds, tentacled … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Science fiction | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Robert E. Howard – The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian (Review)

Posted on September 10, 2023 by Jeroen Admiraal

“Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.” It’s Cimmerian September! You know what … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Fantasy | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments

J.R.R. Tolkien – The Fall of Numenor (2023) Review

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Jeroen Admiraal

With every new Tolkien publication, it is a valid question to ask: is this necessary? And: will this add anything of note to the body of work that has already been published? The answer is no, to the first question, … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Fantasy | Tagged , , , , | 29 Comments