Libromancer's Apprentice

ComicBlitz Launches Unlimited Comic Book Subscription Service for the iPad
Pretty cool, but like everything else in the digital reading subscription game, still has a ways to go.

Library Science Fiction: “Tomes and Talismans”
This just sounds super cool to me, some day maybe I'll even have a chance to watch it.

Canva for Nonprofits
Great tool for creating graphic media, now available in full for non-profits.

Entire editorial staff of Elsevier journal Lingua resigns over high price, lack of open access
This... is kind of amazing.

Victory for Users: Librarian of Congress Renews and Expands Protections for Fair Uses
Always a good direction.

2015 World Fantasy Awards Ballot
Sherri S. Tepper won a life-time achievement award!  Also, how did I not realize that this was happening within my range of reasonable to attend events?  AAAAAH!

Anne Frank’s diary in a copyright law paradox 70 years after her death
For those interested in copyright and complications.

This Trunk Stuffed With 17th-Century…

Every Heart a Doorway / Seanan McGuire (Powell's Books)

Eleanor West collects children who have slipped through the cracks and come back changed, reaching out to parents who no longer know their children, offering to help their lost boys and girls.  A boarding school asylum for children seemingly driven insane by unknown trauma.

The children who Eleanor gathers aren't crazy, they've slipped through doorways open only to them and into other worlds.  Worlds where their experiences changed and shaped them, worlds with monsters and magic, worlds where the rules of reality differ strongly from our own.  The school is an asylum not for damaged children, but a shelter from a world unable to understand them while teaching the students how to fit in until they find their door again.

The school may be the safest place for these changelings, but darkness lurks with an agenda of its own.


Excellent read, one that will appeal to both teen and adult readers without pandering to either au…

While our adventurers huddle in the dark caverns, Smaug's approach brings terror and horror to the citizens of Lake-town.


Tolkien does a lot with very few pages in this chapter.  The battle is framed, and the motivations and intentions of our actors are laid out.

The guards of Lake-town (which I now realize is named Esgaroth) mount a defense against the incoming dragon while the Master seeks to save himself among the confused panic.  We get their determination and desperation, as well as Smaug's cunning and hunger.


We also meet Bard, not a man haunted by legacy or the derision of the town, but a man known for his grim-outlook but also for his worth and courage.  He stands as the captain of the archers holding the line against Smaug's wrath, and as the man the thrush brings news from the mountain.  The black arrow is one of legacy, but not one of legend, an arrow that has served Bard and his father well over the years.  An arrow used by a normal man with a normal bow.

Tolki…

Mythmaker / Marianne de Pierres (Powell's Books)

Previously reviewed: Peacemaker
Virgin’s in a tight spot. A murder rap hangs over her head and isn’t likely to go away unless she agrees to work for an organisation called GJIC with Nate Sixkiller as her immediate boss. Being blackmailed is one thing, discovering that her mother is both alive and the President of GJIC is quite another. Then there’s the escalation of Mythos sightings, and the bounty on her head. Oddly, the strange and dangerous Hamish Burns is the only one she can rely on. Virgin’s life gets… untidy.
Mythmaker picks up immediately on the heels of Peacemaker, with Virginia tangled up in the aftermath of the Mythos incursions and revelations about both her mother and GJIC.

Unfortunately for Virginia, things are just getting worse.  Local law enforcement has a axe to grind, the Mythos appearances are increasing rapidly, and agents are instigating war between factions for their own gain.

Like Peacemaker, we have a p…

Trapped in the dark, our party is forced into action by necessity.


Bilbo and the dwarfs spend days in the darkness, waiting on the dragon's return, and it's again Bilbo who takes the lead.
"Come, come!" he said.  "'While there's life there's hope!' as my father used to say, and 'Third time pays for all.'  I am going down the tunnel once again.  I have been that way twice, when I knew there was a dragon at the other end, so I will risk a third visit when I am no longer sure.  Anyway the only way out is down.  And I think this time you had better all come with me." The Dwarfs, making quite the dwarfish racket too, follow the hobbit's lead to some extent.  These dwarfs are cautious, worried about their own skins, even when all signs indicate that Smaug is no where in residence.  Most notably is the lack of light.  They're in the middle of a mountain, and Smaug himself gave off a burning glow.


Ultimately I think it's guilt m…

Bookburners: Anywhere But Here (Season 1, Episode 2) / Brian Francis Slattery, Margaret Dunlap, Max Gladstone, and Mur Lafferty

Episode 1 was an eerie bite-sized read filled with demonic books, magic, and possessions.  Episode 2 just goes into a whole other universe of creepy weird.  A demon reaching out through a book to possess your brother is horrific, and the aftermath brutal, but Sal Brooks is learning that's just the tip of the iceburg in her new line of work.

Things might have gotten much worse if not for the disappearance of two little girls alerting the neighbors to something wrong.  But still things had progressed to a point of no return and it's up to the Bookburners to perform triage.

Entrancing and weird, a great continuation of the story.

I still desperately want to LARP in this setting.

Episode 1 review here
Episode 3 review here

Advanced Reader Copy copy courtesy of Serial Box via Netgalley; differences may exist between uncorrected galley text and the final edi…