Category: Books

Fantasy book reviews, etc

Amazing Sci-Fi and Fantasy stories

On Kindle and Smashbooks: two other short stories:
Centaurus: A single short story about a miner trapped on a planet of the Alpha Centauri star system.
An Implementation of Magic: A single short story. If magic turned out to really work, the reality would probably prove to be extremely unpleasant and world-changing.
Currently these two titles are free on Smashbooks.

Please note that the Amazon e-book site features “look inside” so that you can sample the first pages of an e-book without effort or obligation.

There is also:
Lurch coverNigel Lurch: Anarchist by Jeff Bain
A British comic novel set in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s. Student Nigel Lurch has radical sympathies. He is impulsive, imaginative and not particularly well-behaved. Nigel’s association with radical anarchist student Dave Swivel is certain to get Nigel into trouble. Following a pub brawl, Nigel makes a hasty trip to London, where he gets involved with squatters and free festivals as well as Swivel’s schemes.
Length approx. 60,000 words.

Hiroshima Manga

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms by Fumiyo Kouno (hardback, 104pp, $14.95)
Cover of: Town of Evening CalmThis manga book contains three interlinked stories about the survivors of an ordinary Japanese Hiroshima family, from 1945 to the present day. The stories cover three generations. The hibakusha, or bomb survivors, suffered both from radiation sickness and prejudice from those not exposed. I remember that when I was young, the Hiroshima victims were much discussed, but with the passage of time and mortality (the youngest first-generation hibakusha now being at least 66 years old) they have been forgotten.
This book, a charming if bitter-sweet approach to its subject, is a timely reminder. In the first story, in 1955 a dying hibakusha says “I wonder if the people who dropped the bomb are pleased with themselves – ‘Yes! Got another one!’ ”
The text is thought-provoking, while the art charmingly brings to life its homely characters.
If you want the military historian view of what led to this, you could do worse than read “Sealing Their Fate- Twenty-two days that decided the Second World War” by David Downing.

Lancaster bomber

Lancaster by Leo McKinstry, 592pp
a long book which has enough space to get into everything to do with the Lancaster bomber, from its manufacture, to the heroics of the aircrew, to the still-controversial area bombing of German cities. Certainly Arthur Harris was determined to area bomb all German cities as thoroughly as he could manage, but at the time almost everybody agreed with him. Continue reading “Lancaster bomber”

Really Old Anime – Books

I forgot about printed sources when writing the previous post.
If you are interested in anime movies and OVAs from 1983-1995 then “The Anime Movie Guide” by Helen McCarthy (Titan,1996) is just what you need. There’s also “500 Essential Anime Movies – The Ultimate Guide” by Helen McCarthy [2008] (not seen).

The Anime Encyclopedia by Clements & McCarthy is a larger work (pub.2001, 550pp) which claims to cover Japanese animation since 1917.  Hovever its coverage of prewar anime is slight; of the first 30 titles in the AniDB list, it namechecks six and gives detail on none.  It does review the famous propoganda movie “Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors” (1945) and its 1943 prequel, but almost all other reviews are post-1960.  There’s a later edition (2006, 896pp) (not seen) which reportedly has “added quite a bit of material on prewar and wartime anime.”