Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi

My review of Agent to the Stars is available over at Bookspot Central where I'm an associate reviewer (US, UK, Canada). I enjoyed it - it's pretty much like other Scalzi books with a bit of the first-book syndrome going on.

With the basic premise of the novel being that an alien race has hired a Hollywood agent for representation and to properly introduce them to humanity, a suspension of disbelief is immediately necessary. One could easily nit-pick this novel and its details to death, but when you become tempted to do this, see the first line of this paragraph. This will certainly turn off more than a few readers, so if it sounds dumb and not at all like a proper ‘sci-fi’ novel, then this book isn’t for you. However, if the audacity of the potential stupidity makes you smile, this is definitely a book for you.

Tasteless Article

There is a new article up over at BookSpot Central that examines the ‘best looking women on fantasy and science fiction book covers’. I am literally at a loss of words to describe how tasteless and offensive I find this article. Doesn’t the world exploit women enough without this kind of help? Shame on BookSpot Central.

Disclosure: I am an Associate Reviewer at BookSpot Central and I know the author of this article in that capacity. We’ve had countless exchanges over about 3 years now and I generally like him.

Update: BookSpot Central has pulled the article in question.

The House of the Stag by Kage Baker

My review of The House of the Stag by Kage Baker (US, UK, Canada) is up over at BookSpotCentral, where I'm an Associate Reviewer (I review 4 or 5 books a year over there). While flawed, it is a fun deconstruction of Dark Lord fantasy trope.