Author: terribleminds (page 35 of 454)

Once again I parachute into your life, carrying a box, and the box contains various words in the shape of a newsletter, and I dump them on your head. Also, ferrets. The box also contains ferrets. The ferrets are angry. The ferrets are hungry. Enjoy.

Saucy News Slatherings

The Goodreads Choice Awards has reached its final round, and somehow, by the grace of kind voters, The Book of Accidents is in! It remains there alongside some wonderful writers, so you have a veritable bounty of good books to pick from, should you so choose. Obviously, if you feel like clicking and voting for TBOA, I would be grateful, and would definitely owe you cupcakes, which are currently imaginary cupcakes but certainly that’s better than no cupcakes at all. But I also hold no illusions about the splendor of horror on display, and it I am honestly chuffed just to make it to the finals. Is chuffed a word? Is it a British word? I’m American, am I allowed to use it? It doesn’t mean ‘chafed,’ does it? Because I’m definitely not chafed. Well, you get the point. I’m a lucky human, is what I’m trying to say and that is in good part thanks to y’all.

Also, hey, look! The New York Public Library posted their top books of the year, and The Book of Accidents made that, too. How awesome is that? Again: very lucky human.

If you have not checked out The Book of Accidents, the library is a most excellent place to do so. Or you’re also able to nab a signed, personalized copy from Doylestown Bookshop, or Bookshop.org, or via Indiebound, or wherever books are sold. There’s also the audiobook at Audible or Libro.fm.

Also don’t forget, I’m chatting with the mysterious author duo known as “James S.A. Corey” this week at Brookline Booksmith (virtually) in support of Leviathan Falls, the final Expanse novel. Click here for deets.

And I got to do a cool chat with the fine folks behind the Tarkin’s Top Shelf podcast.

I may have a Wayward cover soon.

Finally, if you are a fan of mine and also a fan of awesome writer buds Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne, and you live in the Northeast, you might wanna keep an eye on this space — I’m not saying we’re definitely doing a short book tour together, but I’m just saying we might be trying very hard to do one. In person! Not virtual! Assuming Omicron doesn’t enter the chat…

Omicron

I remember in June, just as school was ending and my wife and I were vaccinated and doing more things, feeling like the pandemic was fading into the rearview, boom, Delta. And now, just as we’re boostered, and got our kid his second shot, boom, Omicron. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck off, virus. Fuck all the way off. Vaccine equity now. And get your ownselves vaxxed, willya?

The End of Nanowrimo

Many of you partook in the barely-controlled-chaos of National Novel Writing Month, and those who did, I salute you. If you finished, I salute you. If you didn’t finish, I salute you. If you wrote one word, I salute you. If you didn’t write a goddamn thing last month but wrote in October, or will write in December, or write on your own goddamn timeline, I salute you. Writing is hard. It’s hard to make the time, it’s hard to conjure the story, it’s hard to feel like the process makes any sense at all. Especially now, in these here Quarantimes. You’re good. Writers write. Real writers write. There is no one process that marks you as a True Writer versus False, Tricksy Writer. Keep on keeping on. That’s the whole of it, really. Just staying the course even when it seems like the absolutely most fuckshit thing to do is key. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt. And hang on even when the beast is desperately trying to fling you from its back.

This Charitable Day

It is Giving Tuesday, and these are some charities I like to give to: Sierra Club Foundation, Arbor Day Foundation, Southern Poverty Law Center, Girls Write Now, AbleGamers, Trevor Project, Audre Lorde Project, Trans Lifeline, Shanti Bhivan, RAICES. Certainly this is not an all-encompassing list, and if you have a charity you like to support or are connected with, please do drop a comment below.

I Have Batman Thoughts

That sounds weirdly sexual. I have Batman thoughts, wink wink.

I mean, it’s not, and I don’t mean it that way.

I just have regular thoughts. Normal, everyday thoughts about Batman.

… that’s not making it any better, is it? I’m protesting too much.

What I mean is, I’ve been enjoying various BATMAN OFFERINGS (still not better) lately across streaming services, and I also watched the new trailer, and it occurs to me I have strong feelings about Batman (nope, still sounding weird).

My feelings are this:

Tim Burton’s first Batman movie maybe captured the perfect balance of what I’d like to see in a Batman movie. Consider: the Batman of the 60s was a goddamn delight, but also just stupid as hell. Shark Repellent and Batlube (no, really) and Wham Biff Pow. Really fun. But way too campy for my own tastes. The Christian Bale Nolan-era Batman, however, went hard in the paint for a “realistic” Batman — he isn’t some goofball, he’s a real billionaire, damaged by the death of his parents, with access to a hidden R&D department in his own company, and he uses that to create a militarized version of the character. And his foils, the villains he meets, are arguably some form of “realistic” as well. The Joker is a homicidal chaos bomb. Two-Face is Harvey Dent, half his face burned off, and all of his sanity worn away. The first film is probably the silliest, what with there being a SECRET NINJA LEAGUE, and portraying a Gotham that is almost cartoonishly corrupt — though by the third movie, the city is cleaner, shinier, more Nolan-esque, and Bane, Catwoman and Talia are products (roughly) of the real world. There’s some reference to the League of Shadows, and their plan is still a little puzzling in its motivation and pace, but it still attempts to cobble something real-feeling out of all of it. A little sci-fi, maybe. But not comic-booky at all.

(I note here that Dark Knight Rises works better than I remembered it. Again, you have to look past the absurd villain plot — which is a failing of all three of the Nolan films. And you definitely need subtitles on because even still, Bane sometimes sounds like he’s saying WISH MUSH FRA WUSH BORN IN DARKNESSH, BATMANSH. But it was lot better than I had remembered it.)

The new Reeves trailer (The Batman), which looks great, also seems to continue this — splashing on even deeper layers of DARK DARKNESS, making it look like an heir to a Fincher film. The Batman version of Se7en or something.

(Here’s that trailer. Why, though, does it look so blurry? Is it me?)

That’s great and fine and I’m sure I’ll like it. I like most things Batman. Hell, I even liked Batfleck and wish we got more of ol’ Ben in the suit.

But I also kinda miss when a film leans into the absurd nature of the character.

Here’s the thing: one of the most common complaints about Batman as a character is that he’s a billionaire who could be saving the world with his money but instead he’s dressing like a giant bat and torturing people. Now, that’s a very reductive, mostly nonsense complaint, for three reasons:

a) It’s a comic book; if you start to dive into the ethical nature of any superhero, you get to a pretty fucked-up place pretty quickly, and that either results in some of the cynical retellings of the genre or it means you need to ignore it and race past it because, I dunno, superheroes are fun and not real?

b) Bruce Wayne is a damaged guy, and saying, “Why doesn’t he do the right thing” misunderstands that he’s a broken dude for whom the right thing involves the aforementioned weird bat costume

c) He often does spend his money to help the city, and most iterations of Bruce Wayne involve him helping the city that way, too, he just also likes to do the Batman thing because, well, see the last part

Now, the Nolan films actually complicate this even more, because as the films go on, they definitely lean into a sort of fascist police-state version of the character — the first film shows a police force that is clearly corrupt, but as the second and third films go on, they tend to lionize the police force and the law — there was an opportunity to do something interesting by hanging their hat on the corruptibility of Harvey Dent and laundering his reputation of his sudden monstrousness, but they whiffed it. And by the third film, the cops are straight-up heroes, no longer a lick of corruption to be found. Batman’s equipment becomes more militarized. He has equipment that is clearly way too powerful for one billionaire to have, but it’s viewed as Only A Good Thing.

Thing is, these criticisms have teeth specifically when you make Batman a figure in reality and not a comic book character. By cleaving to realism, it brings up questions we would ask in reality. But if you instead balance it out with the absurdity of Guy Dresses Like Bat To Punch Crime Clowns, you file down those teeth. It becomes less easy to ask the hard questions when his story clearly exists in something more resembling a comic book universe than, say, our own universe.

So, I’m looking forward to the Reeves film but… eenennnghhh, I’m getting a little tired of the DARK part of the DARK KNIGHT. And I think that first Burton film nailed the tone just right, even if it too is imperfect in many ways. (Don’t get me started on Batman Returns. I know that flick has a lot of fans, but my controversial assessment is that I absolutely can’t stand it. It bugs me on a number of levels that I’ll have to get into in a different post.)

Also, if I have to see the parents die in alley scene, gunshot, broken pearls bullshit one more time, I might batarang myself in the neck. While I am not the biggest fans of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies (short capsule criticism: Holland is maybe the best Spidey we’ve had, but the writing gives him too little to do and leaves him mostly as a Boy Wonder to Iron Man, not a NYC kid with his own story), one thing I do like is that it doesn’t routinely fetishize the Uncle Ben death scene. Hanging too much of a story on that single traumatic event again and again and again over the years and decades starts to feel terribly reductive, and is suggestive of a view of characters (and, potentially, people) that are frozen in time, never able to change.

In comics, I’ll say too that the Tom King run nails the Batman tone, usually. It is somehow both homage to all the Batman that has ever happened, while also treading its own course. It’s not overtly funny, it’s not entirely silly, but it still has the trappings of absurdity — super-powered clown villains and the giant penny and fun banter with Superman. (And Kite Man. Hell Yeah.)

ANYWAY, those are my current Batman thoughts.

(Ooh, one more: he should be more of a detective than a brutal pugilist.)

(Okay, I’m done now.)

(Do as them as thou wilt.)

Beatles Opinions, Also??

Been watching the Peter Jackson Beatles docuseries, Get Back — really loving it, and adoring the view into the creative process between these four very different personalities. I love that Paul seems to be the reluctant leader, and John as the not-so-reluctant visionary, and to see the push-and-pull between those two polar forces. I think there’s something to that push-and-pull inside most of us, and writers definitely feel that — that urge to go deep visionary, but also to wrangle those visions into some kind of shape that makes sense.

I will say I wish that Jackson had also done the two-plus hour film version, just because the docuseries itself is a little leggy. Fascinating if you’re a Beatles fan or curious to witness that process, but if you wanted something that distilled it, seeing a two-hour cut wouldn’t be terrible, either. As it stands, the work is definitely for people who care very deeply about the Beatles.

Still, it’s fucking great. It’s like watching a fishbowl except, instead of having fish in it, you have the actual goddamn Beatles swimming around, being the Beatles. It’s a wild, raw glimpse at a band in transition and, ultimately, gentle self-destruction.

What else have I been watching? Arcane on Netflix remains one of the prettiest and most exciting animation projects I’ve seen. Don’t know the game very much, but damn, it’s good. Every scene, a painting. Reminds me of Spider-Verse that way. Also finally tried out Hulu’s The Great, and it is, well, as the name says. Content warning for a lot of animal death, though, oof. And some pretty grisly shit that is often unexpected. But it really is wonderful stuff. There’s a season two now, yeah?

Catching up on Billions, too, which I love, but has started to have the wheels come off it a little. (The Requiem for a Dream “smart drug” episode feels very jump the sharky.) Still, great performances and I’m fascinated to watch these ego-fed powerful people beat the shit out of each other. It’s weird that I can dig this show, but not Succession. I generally care a about the characters in Billions more, I think, which feels important.

Anyway! There’s probably more. But for now —

I’m out.

Hope your Thanksgiving was good.

Hope your holidays are continuing apace.

Stay safe. Get vaxxed. Wear a mask. Be good to each other.

*dissolves into ants*

Wait Hold On, Did I Tell You About The Pie?

I talked about this on THE SOCIALS, as the kids say (or don’t say, what the hell do I know) — but for Turkey Day, I made dinner, right? Roast chicken. Brussels sprouts. Mashed red potatoes. Cranberry-apple chutney. So, I chose to delegate dessert to a local place, which I won’t name here, because they’ve always been really, really good. We ordered an apple pie from them.

I did not realize, however, that their pastry chef had departed in March.

And had, I guess, been replaced by some kind, I dunno, sentient mass of brain-damaged chickadees.

Because this was the pie that we opened on our holiday:

Oh, what’s that? You wanted to get CLOSER? Done.

That is not modified in any way.

No filter. No Photoshop.

It is the pie we received.

In all its dog barf lasagna glory.

It is a pie that looks like green bean casserole. It looks like a tray of birdseed. It is covered in boogers and sadness. (AKA, pumpkin seeds and quinoa what the actual fucking fuck.) It contains not apples but rather, the restless, tormented ghosts of apples: wrathful fruit specters drained of life with acid as juice. It is a wet, gravemold pie, made of clay and broken teeth. And you might think, “Well, it looks bad, but how did it taste?” Ha ha, you fool, I thought the same thing, and then I put a bite in my mouth and my entire mouth rejected it. It was tart, but not at all sweet. It was somehow also dry. It was chewy, like in the bad way, in the way cardboard is chewy, or an old toe might be chewy. It’s like the crawling gray pudding in Better Off Dead. My family hated it. It was fucking bad.

I called the place, and the woman on the phone seemed surprised when I said, “pumpkin seeds and quinoa,” and she suggested we may have gotten some kind of gluten-free, vegan edition of their apple pie. So, eager and excited, we took it in and tried to get a replacement, but that time a different lady greeted us and, upon hearing our complaint, looked at us like we had just shat on the counter. Incredulous, she said, “Yeah, that’s our apple pie.” Like, she was proud of it! Proud! Why would you be proud of that! Why would you give that to people on a special holiday! Do you hate holidays? Do you hate apples? Do you hate people? They gave us our money back, thankfully, though I think they were reluctant to do so. I hope some very nice birds got to eat it. And did not die from it.

Otherwise, I fear this pie is still out there.

Watching.

Waiting.

Lurking about like some kind of pie goblin.

Beware.

Beware.

Once more I return with a newsletter-flavored blog-post of various updates and notions and herbs and spices. Behold my thought spiders as they skitter upon your scalp, delivering the good word! And the good word is sesqupedalian. Anyway. Let’s do this.

Where Waits Wayward In The Wake Of Wanderers?

Hey, guess what? Not only did I turn in the first draft of the Wanderers sequel, Wayward, I also got my edit letter back and apparently it’s… not terrible? I dunno! I confess that writing this strange post-pandemic book during an actual pandemic was super-weird, and looking back over the book, I realize a not-insignificant portion of it was written in a fugue state. Like, I somehow wrote 280,000 words, but it feels like a dream?

So, to discover that the book apparently was not a dream and that works is… well, that’s good fucking news. Especially since it is so huge, so to find out that I’d actually written 1100 pages of ALL WAYWARD AND NO WANDERERS MAKES CHUCK A SAD BOY would have been, uh, bad.

There is no cover yet, but it is in-process. That said, there is a publisher landing page for the book now where you can go and read the book’s synopsis (note: contains some Wanderers spoilers, obvs), and at that link you can also pre-order the book, hint hint. The book releases, good lord willing and the creek don’t rise, this summer, on August 2nd, 2022. I’m excited for people to read it. I didn’t plan to do a sequel for the first book, but I always said, well hey, if I come up with something and the sales from the first book justify it, fine, okay, I’ll do a sequel. I had an idea on tour for the first book that set the path, and sales (thank you, all!) were really good.

So: book. Sequel. Soon. Yes.

Poly Ticks

There existed some political shit last week, what with the Tuesday elections swinging weirdly and wildly toward Republicans in a lot of places — I know here, locally, we had some schoolboard races go firmly into the column of some Q-Anon or Q-adjacent, militia-backed batshit motherfuckers, which is, uhh, not ideal? We’re a fairly well-to-do county, purple in parts, and blue at its heart, but its more rural environs are deeply red. Growing up I had viewed the GOP presence here as bad, but like, regular bad. You know, capitalist big-business bad. Not gonna rock the boat too much because, well, that’s not good for profits. But it wasn’t really culture war crazy, or so I thought. Maybe it was, maybe I was sheltered or naive. Whatever the case, it’s culture-war-crazy now, and it’s bold-facedly, unashamedly so. The GOP these days increasingly rises, falls, and from its rotten mulch emerges a new pillar of slime and fungus, this one stenchier and weirder than the last. And now it’s all anti-vax, anti-mask, Trump-is-Jesus, celebrities are coming back from the dead, Satan is in your medicine, whackadoo bullshit.

I know too that from Tuesday’s results, we’re going to see a lot of talk of WHAT DEMOCRATS SHOULD DO, and most of that is going to be wrong-headed, and I know everyone is going to give into the fallacy of the single cause, but of course, this is a many-headed hydra we’re dealing with: a Democratic Party always pushed back on its heels in an awkward, defensive posture; a media glad to carry water for the GOP in the false religion of Both-Sidesism; a GOP willing to embrace truthiness and bigotry and offer a host of lies that Democrats counter logically but rarely emotionally; Democratic gridlock nationally, because we have the narrowest of majority margins, with our arteries blocked by the human cholesterol blobs called Manchin and Sinema; and most notably, a roughly-irrefutable pattern of voter behavior dating back 50 years where the things that are happening are sadly to be expected. The VA GOV always swings back to the opposing party of the president and has for decades. Hell, the fact a Democrat governor won re-election in New Jersey hasn’t happened since what, 1977? (And despite the narrative that Youngkin’s win was decisive and Murphy’s win was narrow, it’s important to realize Murphy’s win at this point is the bigger of the two. Once again, media carrying water, yadda yadda.)

I dunno. I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, honestly, but it seems to me we already have a lot of people saying, WELL, IT’S BECAUSE THE DEMS ARE TOO WOKE NOW, TOO PROGRESSIVE, THEY NEED TO BE MORE CENTRIST, except hear me now that this is the worst thing you can do. You can only go more progressive. You cannot go the other way, because then you’re just GOP-adjacent, and if someone wants to vote GOP, they’ll vote GOP, not someone gussied up like the GOP. We want bold action that brings us in line with the rest of the first-world nations. Here, our “progressive” is their centrism. We’re way behind. Democrats just need to do work better messaging. All the progressive policies are designed to be popular. They are popular when you actually explain them. People want jobs and child-care and not to be buried by health care debt and student loans. Help people, and then say, “Here, look, we helped you.” Oliver Willis on Twitter talks about how we need that Trumpy bluster, and he’s not wrong. As he notes, can you imagine a Democrat using Trump rhetorical tactics except they actually have truth and justice on their side?

Do good things, offer good things, say they’re good, and own them. Dems always feel like they have this not in the face, not in the face factor, like they’re ashamed of wanting to enact all these programs and policies. It’s weak and they really have a huge branding and messaging problem and uggh gods, this is boring, let’s talk about something else now.

Process Talk

For writers, I think it’s important to note: your process can change. I feel like a lot of writing advice, even from me, sometimes acts like your writing process is a thing carved in bedrock, a signpost on a mountain that will forever point the way, but it is vital to be aware that your process is a series of teleporting bullseyes. For a very long time I identified myself as a ‘pantser by heart, a plotter by necessity,’ meaning outlining was a vital part of my process. But I didn’t outline Wanderers, and I haven’t outlined since. That’s not a decision that has a value to it — it’s not good that I changed, and it’s not bad. I think we can get caught up in making moral judgments about writing processes, ours and others (which is pretty inane), often based on, “Well, if I do it, and it’s successful, then it is the correct way.” (Survivorship bias is a helluva drug.)

For me, I think it’s just important to note that you’re allowed to change, and often, different books demand different things. And we are different writers at different periods of our lives. And the world around us affects who we are as writers, too. The pandemic stopped me from writing much early on, but then also began to change how I interface with my writing, why I do it, what kinds of stories I want to tell. I don’t think that’s strange, really — you plonk a big-ass boulder in the middle of a river, the river waters will change direction, they’ll push up the shores, they might even form a new tributary. Life changes with age, experience, existence. It’s not odd that your writing process changes, too. I feel like a different writer when I finish a book, and then when I start a new book, I feel again like a whole new writer — both in the sense of being refreshed and also, uhh, well, completely unsure what the fuck I’m even doing. And I’ve taken that to be normal.

Either way, remember the cardinal rule:

Writing advice is bullshit.

But bullshit fertilizes.

My Nanowrimo Pep Talk 2021

Ooh, I sometimes do one of those and I haven’t this year. Do you want one? Are they helpful? Well you were too slow to answer because HERE GOES:

Go wild. Throw yourself into the work like a rabid chimp against a sliding glass door. Run pantsess through Wal-Mart. Any of the safety mechanisms and limitations you might usually place on your work, smash ’em with the heel of a boot and see what happens. Like, if we are to view this month as an opportunity to not fall into the trap of but what does the market want, what are the trends, what will an audience think, and we further view it as a chance to use our writing as an explosive testing chamber, then you can do anything you want. It’s a sandbox on fire. A heart gushing aerated blood. The empty page is a chance to write the most wonderful thing, or the most fucked up thing, or the most wonderfully fucked up fucked-upedly wonderful thing. Like, sometimes, it’s good to stop and look at that blank page and realize fully, I can do whatever the hell I want here. Really. Anything. And I think looking around us, seeing the pandemic, seeing the world changing, seeing the chaos, maybe that’s a sign to embrace this outlook, even if only for this month. We are not guaranteed more time or more chances, but you have this time, you have this opportunity, so why not materialize every want and fear and idea and anxiety you have roiling around your skull? Bring the monsters out to play. See what happens. Throw all the fucks out of the fuck basket, and the fuck basket is now a boat, and you’re going over the waterfall. See you on the other side. Try not to die!

The Birdsite Is Bad, Actually

Read this from Fonda Lee: Twitter is the Worst Reader.

It is very, very good.

I’ve seen Fonda get put at the bottom of some of Twitter’s harassment funnels for some pretty innocuous stuff (as she points out), and having been someone who’s been there himself, well. Yeah. I used to love Twitter a whole lot, and it has done me a world of good. It’s also, obviously, done me the opposite, and sometimes it’s just corrosive, having to deal with like, people literally talking about killing you because they think you insulted J.R.R. Tolkien when really all you said was, you didn’t finish the book. (And honestly, to think that Tolkien somehow needs defenders is already quite puzzling. First, he’s dead. Second, I think he’s doing okay in the cultural importance realm, okay? Nobody’s demanding that we tear down his statues. He’s a treasure, it’s all good.) Other times, you get a right-wing bot-army to get you blacklisted from writing Star Wars, ahem.

I am wont to say that Twitter started out as a watercooler around which to gather, then without warning it became a stage where everyone is performer and no one is audience. Then, it shifted again, and now it’s a fight club. And you have to fight. Some of that fight is just and righteous, but not always, and that’s the problem. It becomes very hard to tell when what you’re seeing there or even participating in is justice, or performative justice, or disinformation, or simply, someone else’s revenge. It gets rather muddy, and mis/disinformation takes off at a rather aggressive gallop. And nobody has time to fact check, and even when they do, the fact checks lay discarded on the ground while the air above is filled with the rabid bats. Twitter has become a live-action, 24/7 scroll of people’s collective thoughts, and we’re all plugged into it, and that’s pretty fucked. You get any attention over there and next thing you know, it’s all sewer clowns and biting flies. I’m already using it a lot less than I used to, and I anticipate that trend will continue into the new year.

Next, I’ll hop to Tik-Tok, where I will embarrass myself doing various out-of-trend dances while trying to awkwardly hawk my books. It’ll be great. My journey to CRINGE LORD will be complete. I will be the Colin Robinson of Tik-Tok, just psychically draining you all of your will to live.

BUY MY BOOKS, HUSKS. MY AWKWARD GALLUMPHING DANCE IS TOO PAINFULLY ALLURING TO IGNORE.

Anyway. Read Fonda’s post. It’s right on.

Media In My Brain

Reading: Alex Segura’s Secret Identity, which is damn fine reading. Comic book noir about the comic book industry. Yes, please. Did I mention I finished Kiersten White’s Hide? Goddamn that was good. It’s a horror-fed American fable, a thrilling rendition of the nightmare of the prosperity gospel set in a ruined amusement park. Really good.

Watching: Nothing too exciting right now? Bob’s Burgers and Archer because apparently I needed my H. Jon Benjamin fix. Oh we saw Nightbooks too, if you need a good family-friendly scare-fest. Today, gonna carve out time to watch The Harder They Fall. Oh! You know what we liked? Cruella. I thought it was going to be awful and unnecessary but… it was really, really well-made? I wanted to hate it a whole lot but came away totally in love with it. Still not sure how they move forward with that character since in the cartoon she’s a puppy-murdering psychopath, sooooo. OH and duh I mentioned Colin Robinson — as always, What We Do In The Shadows is fucking sublime.

Playing: Sorry, still Mass Effect 3: Legendary. Almost through it.

How about you? What have you been digging lately? RECOMMEND.

Where’s Waldig

The Wall Street Journal reviewed The Book of Accidents:

Dust & Grim got a starred review from Shelf Awareness:

‘Dust and Grim, the middle-grade debut from Chuck Wendig (The Hunt), is a spooky, heartfelt, darkly funny adventure. Wendig’s renderings of various fantastical beings are vivid and unexpected, as are Jensine Eckwall’s spot illustrations. The monsters Molly assumes will be terrifying–such as Dave the Vampire–turn out to be harmless and very funny. Instead, the danger often comes from creatures of which Molly has never heard. The importance of relationships, regardless of blood relation, runs deep and gives an endearing core to this perfect Halloween read’

Oh also, Fangoria posted an excerpt of Dust & Grim right here.

Finally, I get to chat with the two-in-one author of James S.A. Corey regarding their final Expanse novel, and I’ll be talking to them (virtually) at the Brookline Booksmith on 12/2!

And Now, Photos

As always, we end with oooh pretty pictures.