Halloread: Robert E. Howard’s Pigeons from Hell

December 23, 2021 Bushi 0

Howard’s one of those authors who gets me pumped, excited to read. That excitement is key these days, as I’ve tended to pick up a book, get 20-30 pages in, and lose interest. As time becomes a more valuable commodity, one necessarily becomes a lot choosier in these things. As […]

Clark Ashton Smith and D&D: It’s a Trap!

August 6, 2021 Bushi 5

It’s always a little bit of a pot-stir to grouse about a particular author having been wrongfully omitted from Appendix N. I know, because I’ve gotten into it over C. L. Moore in the past! Of course Appendix N can’t be wrong. I like how Michael Curtis put it at the […]

Getting Gor’ed

July 22, 2021 Bushi 2

Gor is one of those series/settings you hear mixed things about, if you hear of it.   So far the story strikes a lot of Burroughsian chords, with a particularly Barsoomian beat. The writing isn’t quite as good and some of the ideas don’t seem as well thought-out to me, […]

It’s Been a Year?

July 15, 2021 Bushi 0

Egad and by the Power of Grayskull! I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I last posted. I’d like to recount some of my amazing exploits and accomplishments since our last touch-in, but I’ve got a serious case of Dad Brain these days. Like, I don’t even remember […]

Micro-SFF: The Anome

June 29, 2020 Bushi 0

After a couple of disappointing SFF pickups (which I may talk about at a later time), I recently started grazing on another Jack Vance book. It’s been a great little diversion while I pop back and forth between the endless toil of life and a couple non-fiction reads. The Anome […]

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mountain_pine_forest.jpg

Bloody Fruit

June 25, 2020 Bushi 0

I was born in the mountains, in a small village amid pine and snow. My baptism was conducted in the river Sho, and my mother said that I was born under an auspicious star. For several years I lived in relative happiness high up on Mount Haku. During my fifth […]

Something Witchy about Netflix’s the Witcher

March 16, 2020 Bushi 6

Thanks to the virulence sweeping through the world, I’m working from home this week and perhaps more to come. The half-boiled Bushi thoughts are percolating. I’ve been trying to reclaim a little bit of recreation time after the little guy goes to bed, and over the past few weeks I […]

The Decent Dickson

December 5, 2019 Bushi 2

I made an important announcement on Twitter the other day: I don’t have much time these days, but I did trade a few hours of sleep recently to read this bad boy. The last time I read any SFF was several months ago, when I unceremoniously blitzed through the last […]

Jack Vance, Big Planet, and the Spirit of D&D

August 7, 2019 Bushi 1

The withdrawal symptoms were getting to me. The mind-tendrils prod and poke whenever I pass the bookshelf and my eye is drawn to the as of yet unread volumes of Vancian delight. So I’ve been reading Big Planet. In some ways I feel like I’ve been to this party before. Big […]

Micro-SFF: The Book of Three

July 30, 2019 Bushi 0

It only took me a couple months of vacillating between reading a few pages before bed and staring at the cover for a few moments and deciding I didn’t have the energy to read before bed, but I’ve finally finished Lloyd Alexander’s The Book of Three. It’s a nice young adult […]