Over the last couple of years, the fear of catching a deadly disease has brought about a long-overdue shift to remote working for many jobs, and along with that has come a migration away from many big cities. If all you need to communicate with your colleagues is a decent internet signal, why pay forContinue reading “‘Home By Now’ Paints a Tempting Picture of Remote Living”
Author Archives: Elisabeth Ring
‘Waves’ Combines History, Grief
It’s true that cancer’s a bit of a shortcut to tragedy, as swift and unrelenting as it often is. If AJ Dungo’s In Waves were a graphic novel, I’d probably assume this was yet another The Fault In Our Stars wannabe. But this is a graphic memoir, not a graphic novel, and I would haveContinue reading “‘Waves’ Combines History, Grief”
‘Exploding Teeth’ Nothing Short of En(gross)ing
The Wall Street Journal‘s book reviewer called The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Medical Curiosities from the History of Medicine “a delightful romp,” according to the blurb on the back of the book. While I definitely enjoyed this compendium of bizarre medical cases from a time before germs were a thing anyone knewContinue reading “‘Exploding Teeth’ Nothing Short of En(gross)ing”
‘Elder Race’ is the Best of Sci-Fi and Fantasy
Little-known fact: Arthur C. Clarke came up with his third law after reading Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Elder Race. Okay, maybe Clarke predated Elder Race by a few decades, but the idea that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic has never been truer than it is in this slim little story that is at once aContinue reading “‘Elder Race’ is the Best of Sci-Fi and Fantasy”
‘Echo Wife’ Delivers Chills and Food for Thought
There’s no such thing as the perfect spouse, though many people have tried to mold a person into that elusive flawless companion. When science gets involved, creating that perfect spouse becomes a far more literal task. That question is explored, more than once, in Sarah Gailey’s chilling The Echo Wife, which sunk its claws deepContinue reading “‘Echo Wife’ Delivers Chills and Food for Thought”
‘Light’ has a ‘Touch’ of Magic
Picking up an epic fantasy can be daunting, because they tend to be, well, epic. Lots of people, places and things. A lot of new names to try to pronounce and magic systems to learn. How an epic fantasy chooses to introduce all of these new things can make the difference between something being dazzlingContinue reading “‘Light’ has a ‘Touch’ of Magic”
‘Violent’ Doesn’t Quite ‘Delight’
The premise of These Violent Delights is absolute catnip for me: Romeo and Juliet, retold in 1920s Shanghai as rival gangs. So, Shakespeare influence, check; decadence of the Roaring Twenties, check; political intrigue and organized crime in pre-Revolution China—just download it straight into my brain! So the charitable analysis of how I ended up feelingContinue reading “‘Violent’ Doesn’t Quite ‘Delight’”
Sharp Memory Cuts in ‘Grass’
“War is hard on women,” says a character near the end of Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls, ruminating on the costs the main character has endured the whole novel and will yet endure. The line ran through my head again and again as I read Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s Grass, a graphic novel thatContinue reading “Sharp Memory Cuts in ‘Grass’”
‘Venomous’ is Science Writing at its Sharpest
I’m from a farming family and I’m from the Western U.S., which means I’ve had more than one run-in with rattlesnakes. Along with ticks, they are the reason for always wearing calf-high boots, even in the summer. Growing up, the family policy was simply to shoot on sight and rid the farm of that kindContinue reading “‘Venomous’ is Science Writing at its Sharpest”
‘This Thing’ Brings Shivers
The first time I brought home a—uh, we’ll call it a “home assistant,” my partner scoffed and said we didn’t need anything like that and we’d never use it. The next morning, he told it to play Gregorian chants, and then interrupted the Gregorian chants to ask about the weather. Now, she’s so engrained inContinue reading “‘This Thing’ Brings Shivers”
Ring Reads 