A Mudlarking Year

Lara Maiklem. Bloomsbury. (368p) ISBN: 9781526660756
A Mudlarking Year

A Mudlarking Year

I really enjoyed Lara’s first book, Mudlarking and was so pleased when I heard we were getting another from her.

Once again this is written about Lara’s exploration of the Thames foreshore, plus a few adventures further afield.

Lara’s writing as previously is warm and open with a very relaxed conversational feel to it, it was a warm hug that I really needed at this point in time. Getting to see more of her biographically as well was so nice and this mixture made reading this book so pleasurable.

The core of the book though is still about the various areas of the Thames which Lara explores but this time written as a diary showing the trials and tribulations of mudlarking through the various seasons as the year progresses.

It’s also nice to read about all the other people Lara has made connections with through this pursuit and the lives that other people live around the Thames or their personal collections.

Broken down into the four seasons we see which are the best times and weather systems for mudlarking and it is always fascinating waiting to read what finds there were on a particular day, and it scratches an itch for collecting by reading about someone else’s itch as all collectors understand that drive to get out there and find what it is we are collecting.

It’s also fascinating finding out about another discarded/destroyed printing type as this was one of the more fascinating parts of the previous books for me.

As I said I loved the first book so much I bought this one before it had even had a chance to hit the shop floor and I’m waiting for the next with great anticipation.


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Vampires Never Get Old

edited by Zoraida Córdova, Natalie C Parker. Titan Books. (304p) ISBN: 9781789096958
Vampires Never Get Old

Vampires Never Get Old

I’ve had this collection sitting on the shelves for quite a while now waiting for the right time to read it.

and it was well worth the wait as I shot through it in two sittings instead of in nice bite-sized sessions that short stories sometimes demand.

The really good news is that not one of the stories sucked…

Though they were all good there were two or three that really stood out for me, the main one which was ‘The House of Black Sapphires’ by Dhonielle Clayton which reimagined the lore of vampires and added in a slaving and colonial angle which put a different twist to the Antebellum, the world of the Eternals is so rich with hints of fae and voodoo all thrown in, but with a spice of forbidden love.

Another that really worked for me was ‘The Boys from Black River’ by Rebecca Roanhorse, a twist on the Bloody Mary myth, vampires will come to you when you sing their song. Embracing loss and otherness with a wish fulfilment of power this story works on so many levels.

and ‘A Guidebook for the Newly Sired Desi Vampire’ by Samira Ahmed was a good laugh, but again with the spectre of colonialism hanging over a well crafted tale.

A great read that takes us on a nice tour about various aspects of vampiric lore and updates it in such a good way.


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Cult of the Lamb

Alex Paknadel, Troy Little. Oni Press. (104p) ISBN: 9781637155226
Cult of the Lamb

Cult of the Lamb

If you’ve never played the game that this graphic novel comes from, firstly why not? secondly you still can!

Cute and gory in equal measures the game is such fun and this has been wonderfully adapted into a graphic novel of the gameplay story line.

Lamb is the last of his kind and the Bishops of The Old Faith to stop a prophesy from coming true and ending their reign of terror and bloodshed.

Lamb doesn’t stay as dead as the Bishops would have liked and is returned to life by the One Who Waits chained for all eternity to create a cult that will bring back… well we aren’t quite sure as there is duplicity and shadowed meaning throughout their meeting.

Lamb then returns and whilst getting bloody revenge for their own death they start building a following from the innocents that they saved from the Bishops. Thus the Cult of the Lamb begins.

This was a fun read, with an artwork that really brought the game to mind throughout, popping with colour and gore this was a non-stop read for me!

I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


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Where the Daybreak Ends

Brennan LaFaro. Brigids Gate Press. (200p) ISBN: 9781963355192
Where the Daybreak Ends

Where the Daybreak Ends

Instantly fell in love with the cover of this collection of short stories in the world of Buzzards Edge.

As soon as I started reading this collection of short stories I was hooked, especially with the way they were narrated as though campfire tales but more of a mythos especially considering the two unlikely narrators.

They built up a past/present/future history of this place set in the blazing desert and just recently been found by (revealed to?) Josiah Dennis after trekking for a while with no food or water, just a bloody hatchet for company…

The collection is woven around the story of Josiah Dennis and his bloody hatchet, each as goos as the next and nothing really letting the collection down. Full of monsters both supernatural and human, they weave a bloody tale of life and death on this frontier between night and day.

I think two of my favourites were ‘Trade Secrets’ and ‘Holes’, both dealing with lawmen and their ways, and the darkness that they hold.

Eventually going to have to find the rest of Brennan’s works that are set in Buzzard’s Edge.

I received this through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


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The History of Cinema

Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. Oxford University Press. (144p) ISBN: 9780198701774
The History of Cinema

The History of Cinema

I’ve read quite a few of these ‘A Very Short Introduction…’ books and though I’ve found them informative and useful, I’ve never found them that engaging or particularly enjoyable.

This one though I’ve shot through, not just because it is a small book but Geoffrey Nowell-Smith has made the subject enjoyable and, to a certain extent, exciting.

Taking us on a tour through cinema he initially sets out to come to a definition of the terms cinema and history in the context of each other and explains how both terms are quite fluid and we will look at that fluidity at the same time as the various aspects of cinema.

We then get taken on a tour of various aspects of what makes cinema cinema, and exploring various aspects of its development including, technology, cinema as art, and cinema as business plus more.

Each of these short sections gives enough information to stand alone in explaining the nub of these aspects of cinema history, but also gives a great launchpad and basis for further exploration.

This was a great read though a bit short…


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Cemetery Kids Don’t Die

Zac Thompson, Daniel Irizarri. Oni Press. (112p) ISBN: 9781637155202
Cemetery Kids Don't Die

Cemetery Kids Don’t Die

I’m loving the output from Oni Press this year, and this latest keeps that streak going for me.

It’s still a shitty 21st century, and kids are taking on a new gaming craze called The Dreamwave, a system where they play the game ‘Nightmare Cemetery’ in their sleep.

Very Cronenberg and the ‘console’ has a very organic look to it, really reminded me of eXistenZ and the organic nature of the console in that film.

The game people are playing is a rock solid fantasy sci-fi where a group has to delve through various poisonous and horrific levels to beat ‘The King of Sleep’

This would be brutal enough but the game and real life start to blend and eventually the mind of one of the players is trapped in the game.

Follow the group as they delve through personal problems and loss to save their brother/friend.

Loved the art style, very energetic and brought to mind a console game when you were deep into it.

Looking forward to returning to this world, watch out carefully on the last few panels.

I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


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