needs more demons?

irreverent opinions on books

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Entries Tagged as 'i-title'

Lindsey Davis: The Iron Hand of Mars

07 Dec 2007 · No Comments

Don’t worry, I’m not going to write about every single volume of Davis’ Marcus Didius Falco series. But this one is interesting because it both is and isn’t a major departure from the preceding 3 novels.
The basic ingredients are the same: historical fiction, hardboiled whodunnit, comedy of manners, political intrigue, and romance. But the proportions […]

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Tags: historical · mystery · i-title · d-author

Crystal Zevon: I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead

11 Oct 2007 · No Comments

Crystal Zevon’s biography of perennially misunderstood and mis-marketed songwriter Warren Zevon takes a holographic approach to the musician’s life (and death). Crystal Zevon (a former wife) provides chunks of bridging text, but the book consists mostly of brief chronologically-arranged snippets from an impressive array of Zevon’s family, friends, lovers, collaborators, and (most importantly) excerpts from […]

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Tags: rock · i-title · biography · z-author

Glen Matlock: I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol

11 Oct 2007 · No Comments

I’ve whined recently about how the London punk scene of ‘76-77 gets such a disproportionate share of media attention. So why’d I pick up Matlock’s book? Because his is one of the first-person perspectives I haven’t seen. Lydon’s and McLaren’s versions are amply documented. But Matlock’s part in the Pistols actually ends when Sid Vicious […]

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Tags: i-title · punk · autobiography · m-author

Michael Shea: The Incompleat Nifft

05 Mar 2006 · No Comments

Once upon a time (in the 1940s), Mssrs deCamp and Pratt teamed up to write a series of short novels about the magical misadventures of one Harold Shea. The tales had a proto-post-modern spin to them: Shea would get transported into myths and pre-copyright stories like Spenser’s Faerie Queene. The Shea stories have an absurdly […]

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Tags: i-title · fantasy · s-author

Jen Banbury: Like a Hole in the Head

01 Dec 2005 · No Comments

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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Tags: mystery · i-title · b-author