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November reviews at MonsterLibrarian.com

In our mid-November update we have:

In the adult Horror Anthologies section:

Benjamin Franz reviews Decayed Etchings by Brandon Ford.

In the adult Supernatural Horror section:

Benjamin Franz reviews Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs and Cuckoo by Richard Wright.

Colleen Wanglund reviews Carnival of Fear by J.G. Faherty and The White Faced Bear by R. Scott McCoy.

In the Horror Adventure/Urban Fantasy section:

Sarah Renish-Ratelis reviews a book from the TV show Supernatural,  Bobby Singers Guide To Hunting by David Reed.

Lucy Lockley reviews Ghost Story:A Novel of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.

In the adult Thrillers section:

David Simms reviews Half Past Dawn by Richard Doetsch.

Benjamin Franz reviews The Paradise Prophecy by Robert Browne

In the adult Cthulhu Mythos section:

Colleen Wanglund reviews That What Should Not Be by Bret J. Talley.

The MonsterLibrarian reviews The Creeping Kelp by William Meikle

 

In the Books Based on Video Games section:

Benjamin Franz reviews Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects by Christie Golden.

In the young adult Vampires section:

Shelia Shedd reviews Lost in Time: A Blue Bloods Novel by Melissa de la Cruz.

In the young adult Werewolf section

Kirsten Kowalewski reviews Red by Kait Nolan.

In the Scary Books for Kids section:

Kirsten Kowalewski reviews Island of the Skog by Steven Kellogg.

 

Keep reading!

The Monster Librarian

Back to the main page

 

Posted on November 17, 2011 by , Reply

Not The Apocalypse?

I have to admit that the announcement and grand opening of Amazon’s new Kindle Lending Library made me a little cranky at first. This monopolistic corporation that refused until recently to release any Kindle ebooks to libraries suddenly decides to take over the function of a library, but with a gigantic inventory of titles, and announce it like they invented the model on their own? Grr.

First impressions are just that, though- and a closer look at what Amazon is offering shows that really, it’s not that great. There’s a great analysis of it  by Andy Woodworth at Agnostic, Maybe, where he assures us that the Kindle Lending Library is NOT the apocalypse. Whew. You’ll have to forgive me if I seem to be repeating some of what he said, but it seems like we noticed some of the same things.

Here’s the thing. Not everyone has a Kindle or can afford one, or even wants to read ebooks. The big six publishers aren’t happy about it- some of them don’t even sell ebooks to libraries. And the Kindle Lending Library is not available to just anyone. You have to be a Prime customer- meaning you shell out $79 a year to borrow one book a month. That’s more than I pay for my PLAC card(that’s a public access library card), which allows me to check many, many books (including ebooks) out of any library in the state. They might not be Kindle books, but at the rate I read, they’re in and out of the house pretty quickly (well, unless I lose them).

At a time when people are claiming it’s too costly to fund libraries with their tax dollars (and many libraries in this state are in danger of closing their doors) how many of them are going to happily shell out the money for an ereader and a Prime membership for the privilege of “checking out” one relatively obscure book a month? If you already have those two things, and the program expands a little, I guess it could be a nice perk, but I don’t see Amazon driving libraries out of business with this. As alarming as it seems at first, the Kindle Lending Library is not the end of the world as we know it. Yet.

Stay tuned.

Posted on November 12, 2011 by , Reply

Publishers Weekly 2011 Top Ten Picks in SF, fantasy, and horror

Rose Fox at Genreville has posted Publishers Weekly’s 2011 list of their top ten picks in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. We haven’t reviewed any of them here (although from the descriptions I wish we had) but here’s a link to her post. In addition to bringing our attention to these books, Rose gave a shout out to a number of small press publishers. Many librarians are unfamiliar with small presses, as most can’t afford to list their titles with wholesalers, so it’s great to bring attention to them. Go check it out- you’re sure to find some intriguing choices. I’m totally going to be seeking out Unpossible.

Posted on November 11, 2011 by , Reply
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