A medieval story of witchcraft and torture, a historical murder mystery written by a descendant of the family featured in the book — I have to admit I was interested. I don’t usually like to buy into hype, but the price was right. Well, sometimes you get what you pay for.

First things first: if this book even looks remotely appealing to you, read Oryx and Crake first. The Year of the Flood is less of a follow-up to the post-viral-apocalypse than a parallel of the first book. You could read it independently, but there are a few references that would be lost on you had you not read Oryx and Crake first, and let’s face it, O&C was a better book.

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer had all the ingredients, seemingly, to make a fun off-kilter story that would have you chuckling in mirth and turning the pages, but overall this whole entire story was a ginormous let down.

Overall, this is a fun book to read with some extreme gore in parts and a few eye-roll moments. If you’re a fan of this genre, you will definitely enjoy it, but if not, this probably isn’t the book you want to pick up next.

Anyone who has read my reviews in the past knows that I profess not to be a huge fan of the vampire trend going round, yet I’ve read quite a few books lately in that genre. Ms. Stein’s books seem to be the true exception as far as my personal enjoyment goes. The Anna Strong series is my favorite to date.

I really wanted to love this book. For the first half I did, then it was just “OK, I like this, but is it over yet?” Now, this could just be me and my attention span for fantasy, but as far as fantasy goes, this has a lot going for it.

Moon Town has amazing art coupled with a story that is immediately interesting to any fan of science fiction. If you start reading one webcomic this year, this should be it. Check out what creator Steve Ogden had to tell me about Moon Town, his style, the things he’s a fan of, and more.

Recently, the Academy included Twilight in its horror film tribute montage at the Oscars. Here, Kelly argues that, despite its vampire- and werewolf-themed subject matter, Twilight is not horror; it’s fantasy.

I had high hopes for The Swan Thieves. I wanted so much to like it, because art and history are two subjects I genuinely enjoy. It seemed that even though it was quite lengthy that it would prove to be a breath of fresh air amidst all of the fantasy I had been reading lately, and on all counts it fell short.

Oh dear sweet baby Jesus in the golden fleece diapers, I HATE Hofi and McBride… I really, really, really do. I can’t even explain it anymore, I’m almost tired of saying it, but somehow I can’t stop. As I’ve said, I do like the story, I just hate those characters.