169 — Hannibal

  We’re off the dang map here, folks, because we don’t know where we are, but we do know that here? there be monsters! Just in time for spooky season, we’re taking on one of the giants of the bad-book genre, Hannibal by Thomas Harris. This book is a big, corrosive bummer, with lots and […]

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123 — Slow Bullets

In the far-flung future, faster-than-light “skipships” carry soldiers in “hibo capsules” and our hero “Scur” needs to save what human knowledge she can in everybody’s titular … Slow Bullets, and even if you’re not already overloaded on made-up words and silly names, you’d be forgiven for muttering “hooo booooy” when you get to the part […]

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121 — Nights at Rodanthe

Long nights, impossible odds, keeping your eye to the keyhole, that’s what it’s like to spend your nights within Nights at Rodanthe. Our first encounter with the redoubtable Nicholas Sparks has our home fires burning bright, with our tightest, least-digressive episode ever!* An oft-told tale, this, in which a nice woman snaps her daughter out […]

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118 — Vampire$

John Steakley’s Vampire$ stakes out territory we have seen before, but nobody would dare bite this book’s remarkable style. Pitting vampires against the Catholic church might have been done before, but never with belt buckles quite this big, nor blues guitar quite so searing! We’re heading to Texas, to clean out vampire nests one hometown […]

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115 — Make Me

It took a while, but the world finally made us go back to Lee Child, so here we are: Make Me. Yes, down these manicured streets a man must go who is not himself manicured, who is neither wearing cologne nor designer clothes. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. […]

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