Month: March 2018

Book review: Powers of Darkness

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Powers of Darkness: The lost version of Dracula.Powers of Darkness: The lost version of Dracula by Bram Stoker and Valdimar Ásmundsson.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars.

This book serves as a re-translation of an early Icelandic translation of Bram Stoker’s bitey classic, Dracula. The Icelandic version of the Count’s tale dropped in 1900, only two years after the first translation (into Hungarian), and is notable because there’s evidence – lovingly detailed in forewords, afterwords and footnotes – that Stoker was in touch with the Icelandic translator of the work, Valdimar Ásmundsson, founder of the newspaper Fjallkonan, providing information from draft versions of the English text to work with.
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Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (2015)

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I spent some time back in London over the past week or so. It’s been 20 years since I’d been in the Great Wen, but I visited its 1860s facsimile to carry out a bit of neck-stabbing along with the sightseeing.

It’s been a reasonable break since I last visited the Assassin’s Creed universe. Last time I played an AC game, I was kind of underwhelmed with the experience. This time, though? A different story.

Well, mostly.  Continue reading “Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (2015)” →

Book review: Dracula in Istanbul

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Dracula in Istanbul.Dracula in Istanbul by Ali Rıza Seyfioğlu.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars.

I know what you’ve always wanted: a version of Dracula with cars in it, set in Istanbul. And where the head vein-drainer is a military coward instead of a great warlord. And where there’s lots of reference to God, and the steadfast nature of a good Turkish gent is the highest achievement one can have.

Right?

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Book review: Dracula

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Dracula.Dracula by Bram Stoker.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars.

So it seems I’m on another Gothic Lit jag. And where better to continue with the granddaddy of fanged fiction: Dracula?

You know this novel, though, right? It’s pretty much the ur-text for how we conceive of vampires, and throws a long shadow. (Though not, presumably, in a mirror.) It’s overwritten and can flip between boredom and action in a moment. I always find it a drag to read until about halfway – I am almost always of a mind to give it away – but then it snaps back in and I’m pulled through to the end.

giphy
My plan all along!

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Book review: Soviet Bus Stops

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Soviet Bus Stops.Soviet Bus Stops by Christopher Herwig.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars.

A great example of a book that does exactly what you’d expect, Soviet Bus Stops is the outcome of years spent travelling through the former Soviet Union by Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig.
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Going slow, now with added eldritch terrors and necromorph kerb-stomps

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So it’s been a bit quiet here for a while. A lull, you might say.

I guess it’s time to wake up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odKf7_sA5HQ

Awake? good.
Continue reading “Going slow, now with added eldritch terrors and necromorph kerb-stomps” →