Category: book review

Audiobooks, book review

Swashbucklers, Rogues and Assassins: The Bad Boys of Fantasy

Melinda Kucsera

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The bad boys of Fantasy, like the buddy cop flicks we all love, are full of friendship, ribald comments, one-upmanship and enough jokes to lighten up the darkest story. Set in places that range from the epic to the intriguing, their exploits run the gamut from world-ending to a simple heist gone hilariously wrong. Whatever these guys get up to for their clients, you can be certain of one thing: you’re in for a fun ride.  Without further ado, I bring you the bad boys of fantasy.

Royce & Hadrian

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Royce and Hadrian’s exploits are penned by Michael J. Sullivan in his Riyria Chronicles series and in the Riyria Revelations series. The Riyria Chronicles series covers the twenty year period between the boys’ founding their unique partnership and the events in the Riyria Revelation series. Mr. Sullivan will keep writing those prequels as long as fans request them and I will keep requesting more. I love these guys!
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Audiobooks, book review

Audio Book vs Audio Drama

Melinda Kucsera

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in medias res continues its audio book obsession with a look into an emerging trend in the audio book world: audio dramas.

What’s the difference between an audio book and an audio drama?
A lot apparently. An audio book started out life as a book. Not a comic book or a screen play but a book. A book that sometime narrated. A book that included actual description of important things like wtf is going on in the action sequences, some kind of introduction to who the characters are and some reason to care about them.

Audio dramas start out life as a graphic novel or screenplay. They are meant  to be accompanied by visuals. The visual element is the important part of these works. Audio productions have no visual element. They are pure sound. Do you see a problem? I do and I’m not alone.

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Audiobooks, book review

Candy for Your Ears: Urban Fantasy

Melinda Kucsera

Me in a leather corset and boots

Urban fantasy audio books are like candy. You can’t consume just one. The first one always leads to the next and the next. It’s the gateway drug of audio books.

They’re the first person shooters of the fantasy genre. What makes these stories so addictive? Let’s toss them onto the operating table and dissect them to see what makes ’em tick.

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Audiobooks, book review

Red Queen versus White King: Alan Touring Through the Looking Glass

Melinda Kucsera

Unless you too just finished The Enigma: Alan Touring, you’re probably scratching your head right now at the title of today’s post. I did read it, and I’m still scratching my head over it. Before I attempt to make some sense out of this, because I will lose my mind if I don’t, I need to get one thing off my chest: If I die after having done something world-changing or just plain cool, do not compare me to a fairy tale character. Please, just don’t. I don’t care of I make some offhand remark  ONE time in my life and you … Continue reading Red Queen versus White King: Alan Touring Through the Looking Glass

Audiobooks, book review

Sound off: Advice from the Web

Melinda Kucsera

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While you relax and enjoy your well-deserved Sunday morning rituals, here’s some advice culled from the internet on a writing, creativity, motivation and process. While your sipping orange juice, some exotic tea, a coffee confection or plain old milk, let your mind consider these tidbits and store them away for future reference.

Here’s a new way to look at your writing from The New Yorker, a piece entitled, Omission: Choosing What to Leave out:

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Audiobooks, book review

Hypocrite? Who me? Say it isn’t so!

Melinda Kucsera

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Yesterday I posted a rambling review of The Girl in the Spider’s Web. Sharp readers no doubt noticed at the end of the post that I contradicted myself. I talked about avoiding the fourth installment of the Millenium series initially just because Stieg Larsson, the series’ creator, passed on and a new author picked up the thread of the story.

I mentioned a thing called author loyalty. Then I ended the post speaking about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Mycroft Holmes and my enthusiasm for reading it. That got me thinking about the whole issue. How long does an author have to be dead before author loyalty erodes and readers flock in comfort to a new author’s continuation of the saga?

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Audiobooks, book review

Caught in the Spider’s Web

Melinda Kucsera

The Girl in the Spider's Web: A Lisbeth Salander Novel - Millennium Series, Book 4 | [David Lagercrantz]

I just finished The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz, book 4 in the late Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Maybe you’ve decided to skip the book out of loyalty for Larsson. That was my plan but it went off the rails when my fellow audio book junkies (aka my IT office mates) decided to read the book.

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