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As a Bookshop affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose, the first book in a trilogy set in an alternate historical version of our world with dragons, was one of my favorite books published in 2023. Since I wanted to refresh my memory before reading To Ride a Rising Storm, the second book in the Nampeshiweisit trilogy that was released earlier this year, I decided to reread it and write a lengthier review […]

The post Review of To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

I overslept, and my day started with an outraged cat.

Over the past few days, a road crew has been working on the street next to our house. They are repaving it. The road is closed, and Gordon observed the workers having heated words with a driver of a delivery truck this morning. We might be trapped today.

Because of the road crew, we are keeping Tuna inside. Tuna started life as a stray who wandered randomly around an apartment complex, and breaking him of wanting to go outside is impossible. He has two acres here, and he is very much the lord of his domain. Today His Majesty was refused access to the outside. The inability to inspect his lands didn’t sit well, so he made himself into a nuisance.

Tuna: Pet me! Pet me! Pet me! Look, I meow by the door. Open door. OPEN DOOR.

Me, trying to clean up: No.

The allergies have been terrible, and neither of us is sleeping that well. I was shopping for some Halls cough drops and saw that instead of puny bags, they now come in full scale large jars. Of course, I bought a jar. It was delivered yesterday with saline spray and Flonase, and being too tired, I plopped all of that on my writing tray in the office. I need the tray to write.

Me, gathering items to take to the medicine cabinet.

Tuna: TREATS.

Me: No, you fool. These are not Temptation treats.

Tuna: TREATS.

Me: It’s cough drops!

Tuna: If not treats, why treat shaped? TREATS.

Tuna Vision

I gave him treats. The vet will fuss at me again over his weight, but there are limits to human patience.

I come to you with a mission this morning. The book is now 185K. It is very clear that there is no room left for anything else in our lives. I still have not unpacked. Or sent things out. Mod R will have strong words with me here soon if I keep failing.

We need assistance, or we will never get the shop back off the ground, and our time is better spent writing. To that end, we hired a designer to help us turn the treasure trove of art into merch. Here is some of her work.

These bookmarks will be included in the media package. We have secured a printer for the vellum, so we will be bringing to you a media pack with vellum, stickers, and bookmarks.

Do you have any favorite quotes or moments you want reflected in This Kingdom merch? Please leave us a comment below. If you are dying for something from the other series, you can throw it in there too, but we are focusing on This Kingdom as it is the latest release.

The comment section to this post contains SPOILERS. Read at your own risk.

The post Cats and Bookmarks first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

This post is a chapter from my book, The Write Attitude, which is now in a second edition. I’m posting it here to entice you to head over to Storybundle  to pick up a copy, along with ebooks by Darcy Pattison, Douglas Smith, Ron Collins, Tracy Cooper-Posey and others.

Everything in this Storybundle is exclusive, including The Write Attitude. So if you want to read it now, pick it up from Storybundle. The bundle will end in 9 days, so hurry on over. If you don’t want a deal on the ebook or if you only read print, then you can always preorder the book on various retailer sites starting next month. The new edition will release in July.

The second edition of The Write Attitude is quite different from the first edition, which originally appeared in 2016. I kept some parts of the original book, but much of the material is newer. The new material comes from my Patreon page. Not every post from my Patreon page shows up here, although several do. If you want to see everything, though, head to Patreon and sign up. 

This post appeared on my Patreon page in November of 2025, and is one of the early chapters in the book.

SOUNDING LIKE YOURSELF

From 2025

In a Billboard article about Addison Rae, I came across a useful Miles Davis quote. (Billboard, August 13, 2025.) She cited the quote this way:

Sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.

Wow. That hit home. But before I used it to base a blog post on, I looked it up. I was worried that it really wasn’t a Miles Davis quote or that it was a misquote (although it didn’t sound like one). What I found was that there are two versions of this quote, which leads me to believe that the jazz great remarked on this a lot.

The other version of the quote says:

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

And I think I like that one better, although both quotes are useful. For those of you who don’t know who Miles Davis was, he was one of the most influential musicians of the mid-twentieth century. He is definitely one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time.

If you are not familiar with him or his work, start at his website, milesdavis.com, and scan outward. You are probably familiar with a lot of his music, particularly if you’re a jazz fan.

The reason I like both quotes is that they have at least two different meanings, three if you think of them from the point of view of a prose writer.

The first quote: It takes a long time to sound like yourself.

That’s all about voice. Yes, Miles Davis, Addison Rae, and vocal coach Eric Vetro (who first showed Rae the quote) were talking about a musical voice—about sounding like no one else by channeling your own inner vision.

Which is what the best writers do. (That’s why the worst copy editors aren’t the ones who introduce mistakes; they’re the ones who put some writer’s manuscript into “perfect” grammar, ruining their voice.) If you listen to Stephen King reading his own work, his inflections and pauses are not surprising because he knows how to write them into the prose. (His accent or the tone of his voice might surprise you, but nothing more than that.)

Stephen King, former English teacher, found his own voice as a young boy and then learned how to transmit that voice, via the tool of a manuscript, into the brain of a reader. What he does is an extremely difficult skill, and one I aspire to. That’s why I typed Mick Herron’s work into my computer a while back (see the previous chapter), so that I could learn how someone else did things.

The more tools you have in the toolbox, the better writer you will be.

If you don’t read much fiction or you don’t read much fiction anymore, as so many writers say, then you’ve stopped accumulating tools. As long as I breathe, I will be reading. And the fascinating part to me is that I see writers do things that I thought were impossible or things I’ve never thought of. Or, Mick Herron’s case, he does things that someone, somewhere, decades ago, had warned me away from. (The opening to each Slough House book is an astonishing exercise in setting the stage as well as the characters and the themes of each book.)

Here’s the tough part. Once you sound like yourself, your writing will seem bland to you. Because you live with that voice in your head each and every day.

So that’s the voice part.

That’s the first part of sounding like yourself.

The second part is this: You must defend your voice, your “sound.” Sure, it might be “wrong” to use a dozen semi-colons in a single paragraph, but Herron does it to such great effect (sometimes in a single sentence) that the reader doesn’t notice them.

I didn’t realize the man uses a million semi-colons until I typed in his work. I’m semi-colon lite, dash heavy, which, I thought, made me a much more breathless writer than he is, but his work continually proves me wrong.

I’m sure some silly copy editor somewhere tried, once upon a time, to edit out all of his semi-colons and to make his honkin’ long single-sentence paragraphs into many sentences, and from what I can tell, the man slapped them down.

There’s another component to voice, though, and it has nothing to do with words and grammar and punctuation. It’s subject matter. It’s characterization. It’s something I discussed after the Herron piece. It’s the ability to “go there,” wherever there is. (See chapter 10.) To write the stuff that frightens us, that makes us original, that might get us in trouble with the readers or in some cases, the government.

It’s the stuff that doesn’t fall into genre lines.

I was having a discussion a few weeks back with someone I was considering working with on a future project. That person insisted we use trope charts, like so many writers have started to do in Kickstarters.

Tropes are well and good, if used sparingly. As a romance reader, I want to see—either from the sales copy or from a trope listing—that the book in my hand uses the enemies-to-lovers trope or is a small-town romance. I want to avoid a guardian-ward historical trope because…yucky!

So a one-line description or acknowledgement of the trope is a good thing, especially in books where the ending is prescribed, like a romance (happily ever after) or a cozy mystery (amateur solves a stakes-free murder).

But other than that—a tropes chart? You might as well put two gigantic signs on your work. The first sign says, Read something else because this book is on rails. The second sign says, This book is mediocre. There are no surprises here. There’s a third sign, but only if someone dares to crack open a book based on a tropes chart. And that sign says This writer has no idea what tropes are. The ones listed here are not in the book.

Whoops.

Writers who sound like themselves can’t write books that can be boiled down into a tropes chart. Sure, the overall trope might work because that might form the heart of the book. (I’m thinking of enemies to lovers here in a romance trope.) But going beyond that would harm the reading experience if the writer is writing from their heart.

That’s why writers who are really good at sounding like themselves often have trouble selling their fiction to set markets, particularly traditional markets. Those markets want something they can sell, and a book that’s on rails is easier to market to a consumer than a book that is, at its core, like nothing a reader has ever seen before.

That’s why this quote comes from Miles Davis. His website has this sentence on the home page:

Miles Davis made music that grew from an uncanny talent to hear the future and a headstrong desire to play it.

Note the phrases here. “Uncanny talent.” In other words, he did things no one else dared. “Hear the future.” I might disagree with that one on some level, because on that level, Davis invented the future that his website claimed he heard. And, the most important phrase, “a headstrong desire to play it.”

Later this little biographical snippet points out that Davis never stopped fighting for his art. That’s my memory of him. He wasn’t as respected in his lifetime as he became later, even though no one dared argue with the impact he was having. I worked in listener-sponsored radio in Wisconsin and was immersed in jazz. We could play all kinds of jazz for our listeners and they supported the programming with their dollars.

The other local jazz station was much more conservative. They played traditional melodic jazz, things we call standards now, and would go to modern jazz after 10 p.m. when most Midwesterners went to bed. Even then, you wouldn’t find a lot of Miles Davis on that station. The powers that be loathed his work.

I think that’s the other side of this. You have to become good enough to force people to have opinions about your work. “Having opinions” means they’ll love it or they’ll hate it. What is most important, though, is that they won’t forget it.

These mediocre, “properly written” works? The ones with the voice edited out of them, with the vision troped to death? Those will be forgotten the moment that the reader closes the book.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t ever want to be accused of being mediocre. Love or hate my work, that’s up to the reader. But finding it dull or predictable…well, then, I’ve done something wrong.

The second quote from Miles Davis is my favorite. I think it might more accurately reflect what he’s getting at, especially if you’re familiar with his music.

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

Yeah, I know. He’s talking about playing music, often onstage. He was the master of improvisation, but even in the improvisation, the listener knew they were listening to Miles Davis. His perspective was that original.

But what I love here is the word “play.” I love watching jazz musicians in particular improvise. Somewhere in the middle of what they’re doing, they’ll grin at each other. They’re having fun. They’re creating something new, something unexpected, and it gives them joy.

This type of musicianship is why I don’t miss a Keith Urban residency when he’s in Las Vegas. He performs intensely and playfully, goofing around much more than other residency performers I’ve seen. I wasn’t a big fan (or much of a fan at all) when I first saw him perform, and now I go to watch the playful musicianship.

Writers need to play as well. We need to experiment. We need to risk failure. We need to jangle some chords, try a different instrument, and go far, far, far off the beaten path.

That means we’ll miss sometimes, but it also means that when we hit, the work will be powerful.

When I talk about play, I’m not saying that writers should only write something light and “fun.” Instead, I’m talking about experimentation, about risking everything, about free-floating ideas from our own subconscious even if those ideas make us feel uncomfortable.

We should also go for different formats and different genres, different lengths and different ideas than we’ve explored before. We might not be onstage riffing with our friends, but we should write in that same spirit of improvisational play.

We need to be uniquely ourselves as writers. And as Miles Davis said (and yes, he wrote his own stuff), it takes a long time to achieve that.

But finding yourself as a writer? That’s worth the time spent.

“Sounding Like Yourself” from The Write Attitude

Copyright © Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Published by WMG Publishing

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This ebook, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Any use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) technologies is expressly prohibited. The author and publisher reserve all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

 

Check out this all new Dresden Files Novella today!

Alex, our darling older daughter, would have turned 31 today. This is our third year without her, and often the grief feels as fresh as it did the day we lost her. At other times, though — and this is, of course, a sign of healing, of acceptance — the pain recedes and we are left with wonderful memories that warm us and offer solace.

Today, I find myself thinking back to her twenty-third birthday. She had recently graduated from NYU and was building a life for herself in Brooklyn, surrounded by friends, totally acclimated to city life. Her college years had not been easy on our relationship. Throughout her first eighteen years, she and I had been remarkably close, and it was only natural that as she moved on to college and her adult life, she would need to distance herself some from Nancy and me both. Nancy handled that better than I did (no surprise there) and I was, at times, more controlling and overbearing than I should have been.

But in the winter of 2018, soon after New Year’s, Alex approached me about taking a trip together, just the two of us. I was touched, delighted, thrilled, and of course I leapt at the opportunity. We wound up deciding on a trip to the Escalante Wilderness in Utah that would correspond with her birthday. We started the trip in Kodachrome Basin State Park, spent a couple of gorgeous days in Bryce Canyon National Park, and then went to Petrified Forest State Park, before flying to our separate homes. A week together in some of the most spectacular scenery either of us had ever seen.

We spent Alex’s birthday in several spots. We got up early to hike Calf Creek Falls trail, through beautiful desert scrub amid dramatic stone cliffs. The falls themselves, a cascading white ribbon falling against mineral-stained stone walls, were amazing. From there, we went down a dirt road — Burr Trail — that was filled with small slot canyons to explore. And we finished the day in an area called the Devil’s Garden, a collection of stunning rock formations about 25 miles down another bumpy track called Hole in the Rock Road. We finished the day with instant pad Thai at our campsite, and a magnificent night sky.

The next day, we packed up and headed to Vegas for a sushi dinner and flights the following morning.

Our week together meant the world to me. I wasn’t sure if Alex felt the same way, but we certainly had tons of fun and got along beautifully. I don’t remember specific conversations, but in a way I think that speaks to the naturalness of our interactions, the ease of our time together. And years later, when we were in Brooklyn with her during her final weeks, I saw that she had the hiking map from Calf Creek Falls on the wall beside her bed, and the rock we had found for her at a rock shop outside of Bryce, sitting on a shelf above her pillow.

Small gifts that made clear to me that she valued the memories of that journey together as much as I did.

I would give anything to travel with her again, to hike with her again, to hear her laughter, to see her light up at the mention of some new music she’d discovered or the latest novel she’d read. I miss her all the time, every day.

But the memories help. I still have that trail map, as well as that little polished stone. I still have literally hundreds of photos that I snapped during our week together. We were both obsessed with capturing images of the scenery around us. Now, I wish I’d taken more photos of Alex and fewer of the Escalante. But that’s a small matter.

Happy birthday, Sweetie. Thank you for that wondrous week, and all the other incredible times we shared. We love you to the moon and back.

Here are this week’s 7 Author Shoutouts. Find your favorite author or discover an author…

The post 7 Author Shoutouts | Authors We Love To Recommend appeared first on LitStack.

 

Do You Ship It?by Beth Reekles
What is it about:When Cerys’ secret crush Jake moves to a new college, she realises she’s running out of time to take their relationship from platonic to romantic. She’ll do anything to get out of Jake’s friendzone, even if that means finally diving into the huge fantasy fandom he loves so much. Though she absolutely can’t see the appeal in Of Wrath and Rune, if Jake loves it, then Cerys will too.
But when Jake introduces Cerys to his shiny new friend Max, who goes to all the fandom conventions (and loves a costume or three), Cerys realises she’ll need to do a lot more to grab Jake’s attention than just read a few fanfics.
Can Cerys convince Jake they should become the new couple to ship? Or will he see straight through her cosplay?
What did I think of it:This was a fun read!
For me as a reader there were a lot of things I could see coming, but that's what makes books like this fun: the clear hints of what's going on, and guessing when Cerys will come to certain realizations. 
I really liked Cerys and rooted for her to overcome the many struggles she faces with both her friendship with Jake, and with school friendships. This book is as much about finding yourself and being brave enough to not give in to peer pressure as it is about Cerys trying to get Jake to notice her.
All in all a very enjoyable read.
Why should you read it:It's a fun Contemporary YA read.

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 139 pages
Publisher: Tordotcom
Release Date: May 5, 2026
ASIN: B0FMSCH3V2
Stand Alone or Series: 7th book in The Singing Hills Cycle
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 5/5 stars

“On the banks of the Ya-lé River, the town of Luntien gathers to celebrate the start of the rainy season, but the celebration is marred by the arrival of refugees from the sea. Everyone has a story about the foreigners newly in their midst―lazy, violent, unwanted―while the refugees themselves grieve the loss of the home they loved.

Cleric Chih, very recently still Novice Chih, is a stranger in Luntien. A moment of carelessness and bad luck leaves them waiting tables as they struggle to establish themself as a real cleric. A cleric’s job is to listen and record, but the stories emerging in Luntien are ugly and violent, as hard to predict as the river itself. With their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant by their side, Chih must help the refugees while also unraveling a mystery that may have roots in their own faraway home in the abbey of Singing Hills.”

Series Info/Source: This is the 7th book in The Singing Hills Cycle. I got a copy of this on ebook for review from NetGalley.

Thoughts: I enjoyed this volume in The Singing Hills Cycle a lot more than the sixth book in this series. I continue to love the theme of the value of stories and a clerical order that makes it their mission to make sure stories are told and recorded.

In this volume, Cleric Chih (no longer a novice but out on their own) journeys to the town of Luntien where they find themselves waiting tables while they await their next disbursement of money (after they were unfortunately robbed). While this is in progress, they stumble upon a mystery that may link back to their own history and also try to help with an influx of refugees. Of course, the whole time they are determined to record the stories of, not only the village, but of the refugees who seek shelter there.

I really continue to enjoy this book series about the importance of story. Chih has grown throughout their travels, and it was fun to see them on their first solo mission as a full cleric. I think everyone can relate to Chih’s internal struggles. As they take on this new responsibility, Chih wonders if they are good enough to be a full cleric and if they are helping things or just making them worse.

We meet some entertaining new characters in this town. Of course, I continue to enjoy Almost Brilliant and her cutting humor and remarks. Almost Brilliant and Chih work together beautifully.

This book was very engaging, well done, and a breath of fresh air after the last couple of mediocre books I have read.

My Summary (5/5): Overall I really enjoyed this next volume in The Singing Hills Cycle. The stories behind the town are intriguing. I enjoyed watching Chih strike out on their own as a cleric and watching them work through the types of feelings and concerns you have when you strike out on your own in your field. I also enjoyed learning more about both Chih’s history and about the history behind The Singing Hills clerics. The discussion around refugees and their struggles was thoughtfully done as well. If you are a fan of this series, I think you will love this book. If you enjoy stories about the importance of stories, I think you will enjoy this whole series.

Archangel's Eternity Published by Penguin Group on May 5, 2026

Elena and Raphael return for the hauntingly poignant conclusion to New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh’s genre-defining Guild Hunter series.

A thousand years.

It’s been a millennium since Elena’s fateful first meeting with Archangel Raphael. She has survived war and loss, experienced beauty and cruelty. But no matter what, she has always held on to her mortal heart, as she and Raphael have held on to each other. Passionate and vibrant, they’ve built a life that has stood the test of time, growing ever stronger with each turn of the sun.

But change is coming—of a magnitude they could have never imagined—and it will forever alter the trajectory of their existence.

Even as they grapple with the cataclysmic shift in their personal lives, the Cadre of Ten, which has maintained a hard-won peace for centuries, begins to simmer with dangerous fault lines. The specter of madness looms in one archangel, the promise of war burns between two others, and in darkness far from mortal and immortal eyes stirs an ancient, slumbering power.

Suddenly, the future is terrifyingly uncertain . . . at the very moment that Elena and her archangel need to protect a treasure infinitely more precious than eternity.

Pages: 448 GoodreadsGenres: Fiction / Fantasy / Paranormal, Fiction / Fantasy / Urban, Fiction / Romance / Paranormal / Vampires
Format: eARC, eBook ISBN: 9780593550052
By: Nalini Singh
Source: NetGalleyAlso by this author: Shards of Hope, Archangel's Shadows (Guild Hunter, #7), Archangel's Enigma (Guild Hunter, #8), Rock Redemption, Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling, #15), Rock Wedding (Rock Kiss, #4), Secrets at Midnight (Psy-Changeling #12.5)

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This final chapter of the Guild Hunter series answers long-standing questions—and a few you didn’t even realize you had. It takes readers on an emotional roller coaster, bringing the journey to a powerful close. Even so, there’s hope we might return to this world someday, perhaps through future novellas that let us check in on these beloved characters.

Robin Hood (Universal Pictures, 2010) Robin Hood (Unrated Director’s Cut) (156 minutes; 2010)

Written by Brian Helgeland. Directed by Ridley Scott.

What is it?

What it is, is a criminally underrated film.

Maybe it would’ve been more successful if they had titled it Robin Hood Begins.

Another option, though it probably wouldn’t have helped at the box office, is Kingdom of Heaven II.

Because it is both of those things, and more.

Robin in action

It’s a backdoor sequel to Kingdom of Heaven. That movie ended with Richard the Lionheart stopping by Orlando Bloom’s village in France, on his way to Crusade in the Holy Land. This film begins with Richard on his way back home.

And it maintains the primary theme of that film, which is that what makes a man a man is not what organization he is affiliated with or what title he bears, but what he chooses to do every day.

It’s also an origin story for Robin Hood. Essentially, it’s a prequel to every other Robin Hood movie. It begins with him serving in Richard’s army, and follows him right up to the very moment he’s declared an outlaw by King John.

Cate Blanchett as Marion Loxley

The cast is spectacularly good. Mark Strong is ideal for a medieval English villain. Galadriel is a beautiful Maid Marian who is also strong and smart and tough. Lea Seydoux, of the last two James Bond films, is a radiant French princess. Oscar Isaac is always good in everything but is enjoyably evil here as Prince John. The main Merry Men are cool but never get anywhere near enough to do. A young Matthew McFadyen makes a fine, evil sheriff of Nottingham – though he, too, barely appears in the film.

William Hurt plays a completely useless character who takes up precious run time that could’ve been given to Little John or the Sheriff. He spends a lot of time looking on in disappointment at Prince John’s missteps, but does nothing.

Russell Crowe in Robin Hood

Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood here is hard as nails, incredibly competent and confident, a natural leader and a charismatic force.

I love that this version of Robin Hood is an impostor. He’s not Robin of Loxley. He’s a guy who finds Robin of Loxley being ambushed in the French forest and takes his place. And his identity.

Mark Strong as Sir Godfrey

Yes, Robin of Loxley becomes the first victim of identity theft.

It’s a fine movie overall, as long as you understand what you’re getting and what you’re not getting. There should’ve been a sequel that actually showed the adventures of Robin Hood and the Merry Men now that they’re established as outlaws. One was planned, anyway, but never filmed. Lacking that, the film fails to deliver what audiences could reasonably expect. In addition, the ending is something of a downer, though it does leave the door wide open for further adventures by Robin Hood, as well as establishing a need for those adventures to happen.

Kevin Durand as Little John in Robin Hood Noteworthy

This movie did not do well among critics or at the box office.

It brought in just under $322 million worldwide – not a disaster, but not a big hit, either.

Its Rotten Tomatoes score is just 43%. Critics praised its production values and acting, but simply didn’t find it very much fun.

Ridley Scott directs Robin Hood

A good comparison might be found in the Western genre, and particularly in Wyatt Earp movies. Tombstone is bold and colorful and fun, while Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp is probably more true to actual history, but is also more somber, serious and flat.

Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood has more in common with Costner’s Earp movie than with Tombstone.

I suspect audiences were disappointed because they expected some version of Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves movie (1991), which was silly and cartoonish but also more fun.

Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin Hood (Warner Bros. Pictures, May 14, 1938)

Or perhaps Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) raised the bar (and set audience expectations) too high, decades ago.

If you’re looking for Robin and his Merry Men chasing the Sheriff of Nottingham through Sherwood Forest while robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, well, I have to tell you – this is not that movie. Not at all.

This is a movie about commoners with uncommon valor rising up and taking the place of noblemen at first by pretending to be them, and then through their deeds and their actions.

Robin and his Merry Men

And it’s about one extremely arrogant and stubborn jerk who happens to inherit the crown of England.

In 2026, Russell Crowe noted that the original plan was to make three films, continuing into the better-known Robin Hood material. Unfortunately, this one didn’t meet the financial number necessary to trigger the sequels.

Russell Crowe in Robin Hood Quick and Dirty Summary

Russell Crowe and his pals are archers fighting their way across France alongside King Richard the Lionheart, on their way back to England from the Crusades.

Crowe and Company get fed up with Richard’s vanity and his endless battles. They decide to desert and go home. At the same moment, Richard is killed in battle.

When Robin of Loxley is killed in an ambush while trying to bring Richard’s crown home, Crowe and his men take up the task, impersonating noblemen in the process.

Robin and Marion

Once back in England, they get caught up in the brewing civil war surrounding Prince John. Meanwhile, Crowe’s character, pretending to be Robin, meets and becomes involved with Maid Marian.

There are also a number of very good moments in which the scenery-chewing Oscar Isaac preens about while ignoring his wife and mother and sleeping with a beautiful French princess (Seydoux).

Léa Seydoux and Oscar Isaac in Robin Hood

This all sounds very Robin Hood-ish. But then we are served up an entirely separate plot involving Sir Godfrey (Strong), a traitor who’s helping the French king invade England.

Eventually Crowe’s character – I honestly don’t know what to call him; he’s not really Robin of Loxley and he’s not “Robin Hood” yet, instead going by “Robin Longstride” — reconciles with King John long enough to repulse the French invasion. But John being John, the situation reverts quickly afterward. The movie ends right where we expect the Robin Hood story to begin. Indeed, the last words we see on the screen before the credits roll are, “And so the legend begins.”

Russell Crowe in Robin Hood Fantasy/SF/Sword & Sorcery Elements

As one might expect, the weapons that feature in this film are bows and arrows.

A crossbow bolt through the neck kills Richard in much the same way it killed the big German Crusader early in Kingdom of Heaven.

Robin Whateverhisnameis gets a few opportunities to show off his archery skills – but not many. Not nearly enough for a film about allegedly one of the greatest archers to ever string a bow.

Robin and his bow High Point

The best portion of the film is probably when Robin decides to impersonate the slain Loxley. Suddenly he and the handful of Merry-Men-to-be traveling with him morph into “heist film” characters. Robin’s Eleven.

And speaking of stealing, of course Isaac as the deluded King John steals every scene he’s in, often just with his facial expressions.

Max von Sydow as Sir Walter Loxley Low Point

There’s a long segment in the middle of the film where Robin and company have settled into Marian’s farm, and then not a lot happens that’s very exciting. We do get some fun appearances here by the great Max von Sydow as Sir Walter Loxley, the father of the man Crowe is impersonating. What’s a Medieval action film without von Sydow??

But beyond him, it’s a pretty dry middle of the movie, and it’s easy for audiences to tune out during this section.

Oscar Isaac as the ridiculously evil Prince John Standout Performance

There are several good performances, but I’d argue that Oscar Isaac as the ridiculously evil and treacherous Prince/King John takes the cake. He’s the “Hans Gruber” of this movie. Yippee-ki-yay, Robin Hooder!

Matthew Macfadyen as the Sheriff of Nottingham Overall Evaluation as a Movie and as Fantasy/SF/Sword & Sorcery

It’s not precisely a Sword & Sorcery movie per se, but it is S&S-adjacent, featuring a mythical main character who is essentially a Fantasy hero.

It’s a very creditable unofficial sequel to Kingdom of Heaven, by the same director and featuring some of the same supporting actors.

And while it has its slow sections and doesn’t really give us the Robin Hood we probably went into it looking for, it does give us a very fine Medieval warfare and intrigue movie, as well as the prequel to the actual Robin Hood story we never knew we needed.

Put that in yer Magna Carta, ya bastards!

Van Allen Plexico once edited an anthology of tales set in a Thundarr-style post-apocalyptic future of super-science and sorcery, called Blackthorne: Thunder on Mars. He is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a Grand Master of Pulp Literature (2025 class) and a multiple-award-winning author of more than two dozen novels and anthologies, ranging from space opera to Kaiju to crime fiction to superheroes to military SF. Find his works on Amazon and at www dot Plexico dot net.

I’ve been doing a lot of experimentation with short video. Sometimes I add audio, but every now and then I do something that’s imagery and text. I’ve done that here, with the video I did for Dean Wesley Smith’s current Kickstarter campaign.  There was simply too much information to cram into a talky video, so I didn’t. I let images do the work.

If you like what you see here, head over to the campaign. You’ll find it here.

You know what? Even if you don’t like the video, head over to the campaign. There’s lots to love in it.

Enjoy!

https://kriswrites.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Five-Science-Fiction-Collections-high-quality.mp4

I did not get much sleep last night. I am relying on tea and sheer will, so let’s hope I make sense. We have an art print roundup for you this morning, with several options from the artists who worked on This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me.

A note about shipping: a lot of the artists we work with are outside the US. The shipping costs have risen sharply, in large part due to the tariffs. If you want a signed print and you are in the US, you might have to pay more.

Because of this, all of the artists on this list offer INPRNT art. These prints are not signed museum quality but are still beautiful. They are more reasonably priced and have US domestic shipping rates.

So: INPRNT = unsigned print, local shipping for US.

Luisa Preissler

Fine art prints and collectible character cards featuring illustrations by Luisa Preissler, created for the world of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews.

The prints are museum-quality giclée prints. Each one is hand-signed by the artist and available exclusively during a limited pre-order window.

Also available is a set of collectible character cards featuring Maggie & Everard, finished with gold details. The cards include foil stamping on both sides and rounded corners — designed to be displayed rather than stored away.

Pre-order period: May 1st – May 15th, 2026 (closes 8 PM CEST / Berlin time). All items are produced after the pre-order closes and are expected to begin shipping May 29th.

You can shop the signed fine art prints and character cards here:
https://luisapreissler.de/collections/all

Please note for US customers: due to current customs regulations, shipping is only available via DHL Express, which is significantly more expensive, and import duties may apply on arrival.

For a more budget-friendly option, the unsigned prints are available via INPRNT:
https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/luisapreissler/. This option does not include the custom character cards, however.

Helena Elias

Helena’s shop offers high quality collector prints in two sizes. They are giclée printing quality on matte museum paper.

She is located in Australia, so all prices are in Australian dollars (AUD); however, the prints are fulfilled through an international distributor. So while you are paying in AUD, your shipping will be domestic if you are in US and you won’t have to wait for your prints to clear customs.

Candice Slater

Candice Slater offers the landmarks of Kair Toren and Inheritance art through INPRNT.

The prints are unsigned, with domestic US shipping, and some are also available as posters, minis, framed prints, and stickers.

Leesha Hannigan

Leesha also offers art prints through INPRNT. While I do not see Sushi there right now, I am pretty sure she was going to add her. However, you can shop all of the other amazing art she has. The doggie. Look at the doggie!

Don’t forget to enter the vellum giveaway by signing up for our newsletter.

A reminder that our Merch Store will not offer art prints. We are doing vellum hardback inserts and the usual merch items like T-shirts, cups etc. If you want art prints, please order directly from the artists.

PS Mod R:

Ilona wrote this blog post for us, but she has a lot on her plate, so I’ve set myself as the author to ensure the comments come only to me and don’t flood her inbox. There is no deep conspiracy here, I’m certain we would all prefer House Andrews to focus on what they do best!

The post Art Print Roundup first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Thanks for the article! It made the image of Stephen becoming a Sigl manufactor, similar to a jewelry designer, pop up in my head. It would be interesting to see Stephen develop more in that area, especially now that he hopefully will get more access to information, what with his position as a liaison.

Book links: Amazon, Goodreads

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cameron Johnston is a Scottish writer of fantasy and lives in the city of Glasgow in Scotland. He is a member of the Glasgow Science Fiction Writers' Circle, loves archaeology and mythology, enjoys exploring ancient sites and camping out under the stars.

Publisher: Angry Robot (April 14, 2026) Page count: 328 pages Formats: audiobook, ebook, paperback

There are many ways to start a fantasy novel. A prophecy. A battle. A mysterious stranger in a tavern.

First Mage on the Moon starts with a hanging. 

From there, the book rewinds to show readers how did a bunch of overworked, underpaid mages end up committing what is apparently the greatest heresy imaginable - touching the moon?
The answer, as it turns out, involves paperwork, bad management decisions, and one very unfortunate lightning strike.
Ella Pickering is tired and stuck in a system that chews people up. She's basically trying to get through the day without losing more than she already has. Her sections revolve around the repetitive work, the debt, the physical strain. And perhaps the author is trying too much to make the point. There’s a stretch in the middle where you’ve fully grasped how miserable and repetitive her job is and then you keep watching it happen anyway. It felt overextended to me.
Whitlaw Goddard is another highlight. He has spent years doing things properly and has finally decided to do something wildly improper instead. Which, in this world, means trying to advance knowledge without asking permission. His arc is excellent. You know where it’s going, but it still lands.
The setting is industrial, and often unpleasant. Things are built, tested, broken, and occasionally launched into the sky by accident. The "moon project" itself is handled like engineering. There are calculations, adjustments, and a lot of trial and error. It’s refreshing, even if it sometimes slows the story down.
There are downsides, too. The antagonists (priests, hierarchs, powerful figures in general) are clear enough, but they don’t evolve much. They exist to block progress, and they do that job efficiently. You just don’t get much beyond that.
And while the ideas are strong, the pacing isn’t always helping them. Some sections feel tight and engaging; others move way too slowly. 
The ending is exactly what the book promises from the start. No last-minute twists. No clever escapes.The characters pay the price for what they chose to do. Of course, there's more to it, but you'll have to learn it on your own.
In the end, First Mage on the Moon is a good idea told well,  just not always tightly. There’s a lot here to like: the grounded approach to magic, the working-class perspective, the central concept itself. But it doesn’t quite hit as hard as it could have with sharper pacing and a bit more depth on the opposing side.

Santa Cruz right after the 1989 earthquake. Broken concrete, broken dreams. One woman uses time slips to escape that moment only to find herself in a tangle of family. She needs a solution that will survive…long after she does.

“Perennials” is free on this website for one week only. You can get your own copy in ebook on every e-retailer or go to WMGbooks.com.

 

Perennials Kristine Kathryn Rusch

1989

IN REAL TIME the destruction looks different. I stand at the edge of the Pacific Garden Mall and see flat concrete, large holes surrounded by wire fences, a few shored-up buildings, and innumerable parking lots.

Last summer, eucalyptus trees covered the mall. Buildings—a few that had survived the ’06 quake—lined the streets. Street musicians hung out on corners; bicyclists and pedestrians filled the sidewalks. The place had the kind of life that too few cities experience.

I had always loved that life. To me, it was the heart of Santa Cruz.

I don’t like real time. As I stand here, hands in the pockets of my windbreaker, staring at the remains of the destruction, I see the city as a newcomer would see it: a broken, deserted downtown, like so many other downtowns in so many other places. Newcomers would think that Santa Cruz has charm anyway. The Boardwalk, with its famous roller coaster and sea view, still stands. Shops dominate the pier. Funky older houses line tree-covered, winding streets. There are only a few of us who know, a few of us who remember, and we will never forget.

When I was a little girl, my grandmother’s house smelled of peppermint. I loved the kitchen. Light streamed in from two windows and the screen door. Grandma’s collection of saltshakers lined one window like a curtain. On the counter, chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting cooled. The cookie jar waited on top of the refrigerator for that special moment during the day when Grandma would reward us for being ourselves.

In her bedroom the portraits hung: Grandma’s mother in 1886, at twenty-six a foreboding woman with dark eyes; Grandma’s entire family around 1910, arranged from tallest to shortest, Great-aunt Ruth (always the gregarious one) with a bow the size of a Stetson hat tied in her hair; Grandma, Grandpa, my father, and Aunt Mary in her forties—Grandma looking the same, shoulders back, gaze straightforward and proud; Grandpa smiling, his hair nearly gone, hand holding his only daughter’s; Aunt Mary looking young and happy; and my father, wearing black-rimmed glasses, his body still young-man trim, and his hairline receding like his father’s, with an impish grin that I had seen only when he played cards. I used to lie on Grandma’s bed and stare at the pictures as I tried to conjure the family ghosts. No haunting ever came—no shaking chains, no eerie voices. But some of the pictures seemed alive. On those nights when I slept on the cot at the foot of Grandma’s bed, I would wake to whisperings that I attributed to my great-grandmother and my grandfather, both of whom died shortly before I was born. The whisperings were always too faint to hear, but I felt the love in them, just as I felt the love in my grandmother’s gaze.

***

I take my car from the mall to the Boardwalk. The drive is familiar, except for the cracked windows, the fallen signs. The road itself has lost its smoothness, and the car rocks in the ruts. I keep the radio off, listening instead to the whoosh of other cars as they pass, the honking horns, the occasional shouts of pedestrians as they walk down the twisting streets.

The morning looks no different than any other, even though it should. I know that if I turn down the right street, I’ll find my tiny one-room apartment, filled with books and newspapers, an overlarge stereo, and a sofa bed; a place that’s less of a haven than somewhere to sleep. I clerk at the local grocery store and put most of my money into a savings account that I never touch. My grandmother and I share a social life with each other—made up of each other—which she said is normal for a woman of ninety-five, but not for a woman of thirty. She would tell me I need to live in my present and work for my future, and I would always laugh and tell her life is easier in the past.

The Boardwalk looms, a barrier against the sea. The view is both dated and modern: the old wooden roller coaster dominates the skyline, making the newer flume ride and the Giant Dipper seem cheap and brassy. I park my car in the empty parking lot and walk to the gate. Someone has locked it and placed a CLOSED sign against the metal bars. Through the doors past the concession stands and shored-up rides, the ocean whispers against the beach. The air smells of sea salt and fresh wind instead of cotton candy and corn dogs. My hands sink deeper into my pockets, and the nylon strains against my knuckles.

On hot summer days, the parking lot was full, and cars circled the street like hungry cats. I walk back to my car, alone in a place that I never believed could be lonely. I pull the car door open and stand for a moment before crawling inside. Across the street a cyclone fence surrounds an empty field. Scraggles of winter grass cover the choppy earth. Something sat there, something I should remember. My mind yields up no images, no pictures of the spot, though I had once gone by it daily. I get into the car, close the door, and huddle against the steering wheel. One tiny fragment gone—dispersed by the sands of time.

***

On the day my Aunt Esther died, I arrived home from school to find my mother scrubbing the kitchen floor. Dirt streaked her face, except for the places where hours-dried tears had cleaned the skin. I touched her shoulder, and she shook me away.

“Get off my floor.” Her voice was harsh and raw. I had never heard its peculiar edge before.

I stood for a moment, wanting to ask details—the school counselor had told me only that my aunt, my mother’s favorite sister, was dead—wanting to hold my mother, to comfort her, to share the pain. Instead, I walked across the clean linoleum into the living room and sat on a transplanted kitchen chair in the growing twilight until my father came home.

He made us dinner on the well-scrubbed stove, and then he put my mother to bed. I huddled under one of my grandmother’s afghans on the couch and listened to my father’s voice drone as he made the arrangements by phone. When he finally came into the living room, looking smaller than I had ever seen him, his balding head shining in the lamplight, I asked, “What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to remember her,” he said. “That’s all we can do.”

***

The empty field mocks me. I can see nothing but the diamond wires of the cyclone fence, the clumps of dirt, the shades of ancient footprints. If I go back six months, I will see it. I will know.

I reach for a time slip, feel its power hum against my fingertips, but as I try to grasp the rim, the slip scuttles away, and I remain in real time, clutching the steering wheel of a twenty-year-old car, a car I’ve owned for only half a day.

Somewhere I will find a place that hasn’t changed, a place where the past, present, and future have fused, a place that is safe.

I turn the key in the ignition, and the car hums into life. As I pull out of the parking lot, a dozen other cars appear from nowhere. Perhaps we all are searching for the same thing.

***

Four days after my aunt’s funeral, I found my first time slip. I lay on my bed in the upstairs of the creaky old Victorian house my mother had just cleaned top to bottom. I was almost asleep, when a light-filled slit like that of a half-opened door appeared in the air before me. I had seen those slits before, several dozen times in my young life. When I was four, the night my sister (who was my mother surrogate) married, hundreds of light slits appeared in my room. I cowered against the wall and screamed for help. No help came. My parents, too drunk from the wedding, slept through all my cries. Finally the lights faded, and I thought the lights were dream visions that passed into my waking hours.

That night, though, I knew I wasn’t asleep. Another slit appeared, and another, until they surrounded me, and their light felt like a hug. No one had hugged me since my aunt died. No one had said more than three sentences to me in all that time—except my grandmother, who tried to comfort me by phone from her home six hundred miles away.

I reached out, perhaps to hug back, perhaps just to touch, when I felt something hum against my fingertips. I stuck my hand inside the nearest light, and felt a solid edge. I grabbed the edge, pulled a little—

And found myself in my Aunt Esther’s dining room. The room smelled of cigarettes, roast beef, and fresh bread. Bottles of alcohol covered the bureau, and half a dozen people sat around the table. The chandelier sent a crystal light across the room. It took a moment to recognize the man at the head of the table as my uncle. He was too slim, his hair too dark. My parents sat on one side, my mother’s hair long and black and coiled around her scalp, my father looking like the picture in Grandma’s bedroom. Aunt Esther came out of the kitchen, carrying one of her good serving bowls filled with broccoli in cheese sauce. She was beautiful: her face unlined, her eyes wide and dark. Her hair, cut in its usual marcel, didn’t seem dated, but looked appropriate somehow. She set the bowl down, and the woman across the table—not my mother, but someone else I vaguely recognized—stubbed out a cigarette. My uncle carved the roast beef, while my father picked up the bowl filled with mashed potatoes and plopped a spoonful on his plate. My mother took the bowl from him and looked at Aunt Esther.

I walked to the table and took a little piece of meat. It was good and hot. I hadn’t had Esther’s cooking since my uncle died.

“All this food,” Mother said. “We should say grace.”

“Father would have said grace.” Aunt Esther’s voice was smoother, less rough than I remembered it, as if the years of cigarettes and alcohol hadn’t touched it yet. “But I figure we earned it—why should we eat it after it gets cold?”

“Esther.” My uncle placed a slab of roast beef on his own plate. He didn’t look up, but I could hear the caution in his tone. I touched his shoulder, hoping he would pull his chair back, but he didn’t notice me.

Esther took a sip from the drink beside her ashtray. “I don’t have to do everything my father taught me. He’s been dead for twenty years. And if he were here, he wouldn’t be thankful for the food. He would yell at me for all the paint I wear, the booze I drink, and the things I say.”

“You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” my mother said softly.

“See what I mean?” Esther said. “She was only four when he died, and she can mimic his voice perfectly. Some people always haunt you.”

The scene faded. I reached for my uncle, but found myself grabbing my own bedspread, the smell of roast beef and cigarettes still lingering in my nostrils. I hugged my pillow and waited until dawn for the lights to return. They didn’t, and I fell into an uneasy sleep.

***

I have driven along the ocean for over an hour. Finally I pull into an empty turnout at the edge of a cliff and get out of my car. The wind is cold here, the ocean rough and gray. Waves break against the rocks below me. Off in the distance, heavy, dark clouds threaten a major winter storm.

The ocean is here, ever present, ever changing, never reassuring. I reach for a time slip, and can’t even find one, shivering as a chill runs up my back. Used to be I could slip anywhere, anytime. I would close my eyes and reach until I felt the hum. Then I would grab a corner and pull myself into another world.

My grandmother would say it was as if I had disappeared from my eyes. She never knew where I went, and I would never know where I was going, only that I would find somewhere better than I was. She hated it when I was gone. But the time slips never lasted long. I would get a brief glimpse and then come back to the present. I saw bits of my parents’ lives, bits of wars, bits of places I would never see again. When I went through high school, the lights faded, but the hums remained. I learned to control the slips, to go anywhere I wanted. And often I would end up in Santa Cruz, on the Boardwalk or in the mall, places where time had a special essence, an added dimension of warmth.

Sea droplets splash my face. I draw my windbreaker closer. This is a place I would have visited in a slip, but it feels wrong in real time. Less powerful, less potent. If I were able to slip now, I would return to my grandmother’s house, steal a fingerful of marshmallow frosting, and lie on her bed, staring at the photos. I would listen to the whispers, the haunting, and if I heard my grandmother’s step, slow and sure across her linoleum, I would run to the kitchen, hug her, and never let her go.

Some of the water drops running down my face are warm. I wipe my cheeks, irritated at the moisture, and turn my back on the sea. It is not home, it is not safe, and it has no warmth.

***

Last week the phone woke me out of a sound sleep. Grandma was in the emergency room, bleeding from countless ulcers in her ninety-five-year-old stomach. She was screaming for me, they said. Even if she hadn’t been, I still would have rushed to the hospital.

The hospital had a Sunday-morning quiet. The walls were painted forest green, and the plush carpet absorbed all sound. I hurried to the emergency wing, and they ushered me to a back room. My grandmother lay on a bed, held down by a doctor and three nurses. Her gray hair was matted around her face; her watery blue eyes were wide with fright. When she saw me, she murmured, “Thank God. Thank God.”

“You’re her granddaughter?” the doctor asked. He was my age, but his frustration made him seem younger. “We need to put some tubes down her to pump the blood from her stomach. But she won’t let us.”

The tubes went through the nostrils. I remembered my mother hooked up like that in the years before the alcohol finally killed her.

Grandma grabbed my hand. She squeezed so tight that I knew I would bruise. “They’re hurting me,” she said.

“They have to hurt you to help you,” I said.

“Will you stay while we try again?” the doctor asked. “Maybe she’ll be calmer around you.”

I nodded. They brought the tubes to her nose, and Grandma screamed and thrashed. I put my hands on her shoulders, held her head in place, and she stopped moving. All the while they worked, she watched me, staring into my eyes as if my presence gave her strength. Finally everything was in place, the suction began working, and the tubes turned black with her blood.

The doctor thanked me and took the nurses outside. Grandma closed her eyes and sighed once. I reached for a time slip, a short moment somewhere better, when her grip tightened on my hand.

“Stay.” Her voice was wispy, a little girl’s.

“I’m right here,” I said.

“No.” She shook her head once. I brushed the hair from her forehead. “Stay in your eyes. You aren’t living when you’re running away.”

I pulled over a chair and sat down, never letting go of her hand. For that entire week, I stayed. But she didn’t.

This morning she left.

***

I’m back on the mall, staring at the empty spots, the holes, the missing pieces. I can’t slip away anymore, can’t run to some better spot in someone else’s life. In my week’s stay, the ability to slip left me. I ramble through this broken place, where pieces of the past have shattered like concrete against the force of the earth, and I know that parts have already left my memory—perhaps to form other time slips that other children can run away to.

I guess, Grandma would say, it is time to start living in the present and planning for the future.

I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

Beside me on the cyclone fence, a work permit flutters in the breeze. Across the street, enterprising merchants have set up large tents filled with heat and light and merchandise. I walk over there, away from the demolished Cooper House, the shored-up western facades, the buildings of handmade brick that had survived the ’06 quake and had died in this one. A little bit of history passed on. A life spanning nearly a century, punctuated by two quakes and, in the end, some lingering pain.

A woman sells plants outside the nearest tent. She sits next to the tent wall, clutching a steaming paper cup, and watches me. I glance at the plants, little shoots in green plastic pots, and I know that she is here, hoping that people will plant for spring.

“I want some flowers.” My voice cracks as if I never use it. “Perennials.”

She shows me more shoots in more green plastic pots. I buy six that bloom in different light and temperature. Flowers for my grandmother’s grave, always and forever. Always changing, always there. One small way—my only way—to control a bit of time…

And to keep it warm.

 

Copyright Information

Perennials

Copyright © by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © by WMG Publishing Cover design by WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © blinkblink/Depositphotos

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Any use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) technologies is expressly prohibited. The author and publisher reserve all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

Special Bonus Edition

TuxeDO

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Attention, Dallas-area Horde, I have a special announcement.

On Friday, May 15th, at 6:30 pm, Ilona and Gordon are emerging from the writing cave (trademark pending) and heading to Half Price Books in Dallas to moderate one of Veronica Roth’s signing tour appearances for her new book, Seek the Traitor’s Son.

And what a book to talk about!

Seek The Traitor’s Son

An epic, romantic dystopian fantasy begins in Seek the Traitor’s Son, from #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Divergent series, Veronica Roth. Available on May 12th from Tor Books, in deluxe hardcover edition with sprayed edges.

Elegy Ahn did not ask for destiny to find her.

She is happy with her life as a soldier, defending her small country from the Talusar, a powerful nation who worships a deadly Fever. A fever that blesses half of its victims with mysterious gifts.

But then she’s summoned to hear a prophecy–her, and the most ruthless of Talusar generals, Rava Vidar. Brought face to face, they learn that one of them will lead their people to victory over the other…but they don’t know which. And at the center of both of their fates: a man. A man that, Elegy is told, she will fall in love with. In just one day, Elegy’s old life–her job, her purpose, and her future–is over.

She and Rava are destined to collide, with the fate of their nations hanging in the balance. And when they do, only one will be left standing.

Elegy intends to make sure it’s her.

Destiny, prophecies, enemy generals, romance, warfare, mysterious gifts, and the fate of nations hanging in the balance? Yes, please! I know Ilona and Gordon are extremely excited to see Veronica and hear all about it.

House Andrews will be there in a supporting role as moderators, making sure the evening is a true celebration of Veronica and her incredible new book. Think of this as a “chatting shop” night, a chance to see them in conversation with another fantastic writer!

If you are in the Dallas area and would like to attend, tickets for the event are available for purchase here.

If you would like to attend a signing and you can’t make it to Dallas, Veronica’s tour will have multiple stops in both the US and the UK – for full details of all appearances, moderating authors and dates, check out her website here.

Happy preordering and May the 4th be with you!

The post Veronica Roth with House Andrews in Dallas! first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Other LitStack Spots We’ve spotted a few other titles we’re adding to our TBR stack,…

The post Spotlight on “The Double Dutch Fuss” by Phill Branch appeared first on LitStack.

What’s a martini? I hear they’re good?

This.

I like martinis.

I demand martinis.

I demand martinis and all yer gold too, arrr!

You guys realize cats don’t drink, right? Right?

It’s been over a month since I shared a Ten Things? Heavens to Murgatroyd (any Snagglepuss fans out there?).

I talked here about how fed I up I was with all the streaming apps which I needed to watch different things. Including sports. So, except for Prime (the family orders a lot of stuff from Amazon), I cut the cord on all of them. I’m missing Daredevil, and didn’t watch a single Pittsburgh Penguins playoff game (I did listen to all of them). But it’s going fine.

PlutoTV, and RokuTV, have lots of shows and movies for free. But Tubi (also free) has really been filling the gap. Last week I wrote about the Coen Brothers’ classic, The Hudsucker Proxy. That was a Tubi viewing. I just watched the 1988 Blake Edwards Western, Sunset. Bruce Willis is cowboy actor Tom Mix, and James Garner is Wyatt Earp, in a Hollywood Western murder mystery. It was okay, but I’ll always watch Garner when I can. Tubi has TV shows too (that will be another post), including some fun cartoons, like Pinky and the Brain.

But here are ten movies you should check out for free on Tubi. Of course, there are well-known flicks like Rain Man, Legally Blonde, The Untouchables, The Graduate, Bull Durham, etc. But I wanted to talk about some that maybe you haven’t thought of in a while.

1 – SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF

I mentioned James Garner already, right? This is Galaxy Quest for Westerns. There was a non-sequel followup, with several of the same actors, in a similar story, but Support Your Local Gunfighter has different characters (granted, doing the same things).

This is one of my five favorite Westerns, and I’ve watched it many times. Garner is a mix of Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford in this 1969 movie. I’d install the Tubi app just to watch this one. If you like it, you should definitely watch Gunfighter as well.

2 – A SHOT IN THE DARK

Peter Sellers introduced us to Inspector Clouseau in 1963. The Return of the Pink Panther didn’t come out until 1975 (Alan Arkin played the role in a 1968 movie). Seems people forget that in 1964, A Shot in the Dark hit theaters only six months after The Pink Panther.

This is my favorite Pink Panther movie, and I developed a lifelong crush on Elke Sommer from this one. Tubi has all the Sellers ones, the two ‘official ones’ without him, the two Steve Martin reboots, and a couple of the cartoon series’. Everything but the Alan Arkin one. Clouseau is a supporting character in the first movie. I much prefer A Shot in the Dark.

3 – GET SHORTY

This is a superb book by Elmore Leonard. And the 1995 adaptation starring John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Renee Russo, Danny Devito (and the always underappreciated Dennis Farina) nailed it. It’s one of the best book/movie adaptations around. The sequel – Be Cool – is good, though not great. Both are worth watching.

Prime did a streaming series in 2017 with Chris O’Dowd (The IT Crowd) and Ray Romano. It ran for three seasons and I think it’s terrific. It sets up with the basic premise of the novel, but is basically an original story after that. Which is fine with me. I loved every episode. I talked about it here. So, book, movie, and series: you should check out Get Shorty.

4 – EIGHT MEN OUT

Baseball snobs like to immediately attack the inaccuracies of Eliot Asinof’s book. Whatever. I’m a fan of the book. And this is a top five baseball movie. The cast is deep, and visually it’s got that baseball nostalgia factor. And I think it conveys the almost slave-like conditions under the reserve clause (I’m pro-management, not pro-union; though both sides are greedy twits that may ruin the game again. But the options were to take what owners offered, or quit. That was it).

I recommend reading the book, but this is a movie absolutely worth watching.

5 – ARMED AND DANGEROUS

There are several John Candy movies. While he was pretty much always good for a laugh, his movies are hit and miss. It’s fine if you liked Canadian Bacon, Who’s Harry Crumb?, and Hostage for a Day. But as with Humphrey Bogart, he did make some stinkers.

But Candy and Eugene Levy do make Armed and Dangerous a good one. Meg Ryan, Robert Loggia, and Brion Jones join in this Harold Ramis scripted flick. A fired cop (Candy) and an inept lawyer (Levy) are forced to join a corrupt union when they get jobs as security guards. Co-written by Stacy Keach’s brother James, their father makes an appearance.

I always thought this was underappreciated John Candy. I’ve never seen It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, but I’m going to check it out. On Tubi.

6 – DEAD RECKONING

And speaking of my favorite actor of all time…Dead Reckoning is a ‘good but not great’ hardboiled Noir starring Bogie. WW II parachutist Rip Murdock’s (Bogart) buddy goes AWOL rather than receive the Medal of Honor. Bogie looks for him and murder and mayhem follow. Lizabeth Scott is a femme fatale, and Morris Carnovsky is the bad guy club owner.

Bogie made a slew of good movies in the forties, and this is one of them. It’s not on a par with The Maltese Falcon, This Gun for Hire, or Murder My Sweet, but it’s still a good example of the hardboiled genre. Like Johnny O’Clock, or Nocturne.

7 – SOLOMON KANE

I commented that Dark Winds was a good 70s cop show, but not good Tony Hillerman. I feel similarly about Solomon Kane. I like it as a sword and sorcery movie, but it’s a long way from Robert E. Howard’s Puritan avenger of wrongs. And that’s fine. They could have made a bad Solomon Kane movie, and then it would be a total loss.

James Purefoy is good, and he wanted to do a followup. But since the movie didn’t even get an American release (it eventually found it’s way over here with limited showing, but it was well over, and the International take didn’t make back even half of the budget).

Solomon Kane could have been truer to Howard’s character and stories. Noting the distinction between sword and sorcery, and fantasy, this is an S&S movie definitely worth watching.

8 -PRESUMED INNOCENT

There were others who did legal thrillers, before John Grisham (I’m a big fan of Richard North Patterson), but he clearly ‘took things to another level’ with his books, and the movies from them. Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent was a successful film, with Harrison Ford. Tom Cruise’s The Firm followed a year later.

This is a very good legal thriller. Turow continued to write best-selling books (check out The Burden of Proof, featuring the defense attorney from Presumed Innocent). The movie has a real twist at the end. Good book, good film. And it’s free on Tubi.

9 – HOLLYWOOD KNIGHTS

I don’t think there’s ever been another movie like Animal House. It’s a unique classic. But if I had to name one movie to join it in that solo club, it would be Hollywood Knights. Set around the hijinks of a car club in Beverly Hills on Halloween night.

It was Robert Wuhl’s first movie, and he was SO terrific that a band named themselves after his character, Newbomb Turk. With several now-familiar faces, it’s got more of an Animal House vibe than any other movie I’ve seen. Since it’s free on Tubi, you REALLY should catch this if you’re a fan of that kind of humor.

10 – CADENCE

The number 165 US box office movie of 1991 may be the best little flick you’ve not seen. Charlie Sheen is put in a US military prison in West Germany, run by martin Sheen. Lawrence Fishburne is the leader of the other prisoners – all black. I only just now realized Charlie’s brother Ramon is also in it.

Martin is a miserable SOB and Charlie has to deal with the other prisoners, as well as the commander. This gets bad reviews, but I really like it. And Harry Stewart (‘Cornbread’ in the movie) sings a song called End of My Journey. It’s absolutely gorgeous. I often cite That Thing You Do! as a terrific little movie many people overlook. But it’s still got the Tom Hanks name on it. Cadence is one even fans of the Sheen family may not know of. And you absolutely should check it out on Tubi.

BONUS FLICK

11 – AWAKENINGS

I saw this movie at the theater, back in 1990. I haven’t watched it since. But I remember that I teared up at the end. One year after Dead Poets Society – and three years before Mrs. Doubtfire – Robin Williams is a neurosurgeon, trying to break through to victims of Parkinson’s Disease. Robert DeNiro is one of his patients. There’s a bit of humor in this movie, but it’s a medical drama. And damn, it hits HARD. My mom told me this past weekend that she’s remembering less and less. Parkinson’s fucking sucks.

John Heard, Anne Meara, and Penelope Ann Miller fill in a solid cast. But this movie is a tour de force for DeNiro, with Williams showing his acting chops. If you want a powerful drama, give this a watch. And maybe have some tissues handy.

MORE

I could list a couple dozen more movies – good and maybe not so good – you can sit down and watch: Deal of the Century, The Big Store, The Boondock Saints, Point Break, Mulholland Falls, The Majestic, The Thee Amigos, The In-Laws, Meatballs, Clerks II, Crossroads, Krull, Runaway: Just scroll and you’ll find things from every genre.

I loved the twist at the end, of No Way Out. I have it on VCR in a box somewhere. I think I’m gonna watch it on Tubi. And maybe The Getaway, and China Moon. And as I mentioned, you can deep dive into a plethora of TV shows. I just added Hardcastle and McCormick to my ever-growing list.

I do watch stuff from RokuTV, and PlutoTV. But I have really leaned into Tubi since canceling my streaming apps. And I’m quite happy with the decision.

Some previous entries on things to watch:

The Hudsucker Proxy
Let’s Go to the Movies:1996
Firefly – The Animated Reboot
What I’ve Been Watching – February 2026 (The Night Manager, SS-GB, Best Medicine)
What I’ve Been Watching – October 2026 (Return to Paradise, Lynley, Expend4bles, and more)
What I’ve Been Watching – August 2025 (Ballard, Resident Alien, Twisted Metal, and more)
What I’ve Been Watching – May 2025 (County Line, The Bondsman, Bosch: Legacy)
What I’ve Been Watching – October 2024 (What We Do in the Shadows, The Bay, Murder in a Small Town)
What I’m Watching – November 2023 (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, A Haunting in Venice)
What I’m Watching – April 2023 (Florida Man, Picard – season three, The Mandalorian)
The Pale Blue Eye, and The Glass Onion: Knives Out
Tony Hillerman’s Dark Winds
The Rings of Power (Series I wrote on this show – all links at this one post)
What I’m Watching – December 2022 (Frontier, Leverage: Redemption)
What I’m Watching – November 2022 (Tulsa King, Andor, Fire Country, and more)
What I’m Watching – September 2022 (Galavant, Firefly, She-Hulk, and more)
What I’m Watching- April 2022 (Outer Range, Halo, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans, and more)
When USA Network was Kicking Major Butt (Monk, Psych, Burn Notice)
You Should be Streaming These Shows (Corba Kai, The Expanse, Bosch, and more)
What I’m BritBoxing – December 2021 (Death in Paradise, Shakespeare & Hathaway, The Blake Mysteries, and more)
To Boldly Go – Star Treking – (Various Star Trek incarnations)
What I’ve Been Watching – August 2021 (Monk, The Tomorrow War, In Plain Sight, and more)
What I’m Watching – June 2021 (Get Shorty, Con Man, Thunder in Paradise, and more)
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
What I’ve Been Watching – June 2021 (Relic Hunter, Burn Notice, Space Force, and more)
Appaloosa
Psych of the Dead
The Mandalorian
What I’m Watching: 2020 – Part Two (My Name is Bruce, Sword of Sherwood Forest, Isle of Fury, and more)
What I’m Watching 2020: Part One (The Adventures of Brisco County Jr, Poirot, Burn Notice, and more)
Philip Marlowe: Private Eye
Leverage
Nero Wolfe – The Lost Pilot
David Suchet’s ‘Poirot’
Sherlock Holmes (over two dozen TV shows and movies)

Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, and founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.