needs more demons?

Barnes’ first novel is promising, if less than entirely satisfying, and certainly not lacking in ambition nor scope. It’s set in a fantastic London peopled by flamboyant, unlikely charactersat the close of the 19th century. Several folk are Not As They At First Seem, including the narrator, who does, it should be noted, remark in […]

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Somewhere deep in Darkman’s 800-page-plus bulk, there’s a scene in which Isodore, a character who vacillates between quixotic haplessness and menace, climbs a lighthouse where he is menaced by a small black bird that may or may not exist. He descends from the lighthouse and wanders off, in search, according to his young son (who […]

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Publishing cycles are strange things. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy burbled merrily along as a cult favorite for years, gradually picked up steam, and eventually became an unprecedented publishing phenomenon, and — as writers and publishers alike realized there was more money to be raked from the Tolkien-reading hordes — the template for a […]

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I’m not a big fan of movies that rely on “twist” endings. I think the value of surprise as an artistic technique is easily overrated. If it’s not a good movie if you know the ending, it’s just not a good movie, period.
But on the other hand, it can be really rewarding to see a […]

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