Musings In The Third Dimension | by Amira K Makansi
As a writer, I care deeply about plot, pacing, and character development. It’s all critical to my suspension of disbelief, not to mention that watching a master at work is both educational and validating. Good stories have power. Watching the six seasons of Game of Thrones taught me so much about how to write complex characters with long, thoughtful story arcs, how to make bad characters tun good, and good characters turn bad. How to build a world that feels as real as our own.
Read MoreIt has recently come to my attention that I really like fantasy books. Last summer, I demolished Deborah Harkness’ entire ALL SOULS TRILOGY and Nnedi Okorafor’s WHO FEARS DEATH in three months. Some people might not think that’s a lot of books, but for me, that’s a lot of books. I devoured the first two…
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Learn what to pour when you open A SCANNER DARKLY by Philip K. Dick
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My friends, I have a special treat for you today. I am here to introduce you to the inestimable majesty that is Amor Towles’ newest novel, A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW. I have written before that life often hands you the book you most need at exactly the time you most need it, and I find it…
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A dystopian future where genetically-modified food is ever-present. Where the rising tides of climate change have permanently altered human landscapes and agriculture. Where corporations and governments use biological warfare to enslave and oppress. Where political webs are woven and unwoven every day, with millions of lives hanging in the balance. Am I describing the Seeds…
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Have you read Deborah Harkness’s A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES yet? If not, why not? It’s okay if you haven’t. I’m late to the party, too. The first book was published almost six years ago and I didn’t know about it until last year. You could have asked me that question a little over a year…
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It must have been an act of supreme universal goodness that delivered each of these books into my hands at differently similar times when I needed them for differently similar reasons. The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen I half-borrowed, half-stole from my sister almost two years ago when I was re-embarking on a journey I began almost…
Read MoreIn 2013, I met a friend. His name was Daryl. We met at a writing conference, and he told me he was (unsurprisingly) writing a book. Several, actually. He was editing one, a young adult fantasy novel, and was pitching that, along with an adult literary fiction novel, at the conference. He seemed cool. We traded…
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“H is for Hawk” is currently causing an uproar in the British literary world, achieving mountains of acclaim from critics and fellow writers on both sides of the pond. I first found out about it through BrainPickings, a weekly digest of assembled blog posts that thematically explores famous thinkers and works through the use of quotes, relevant…
Read MoreA few months ago I wrote a blog post called “The First And Last Time I’ll Talk About Veganism”. In the post I vaguely promised that I would not be expounding frequently (or ever again) about veganism, at least not on this blog. This book review is a narrow dodge of that promise: I’m not…
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The Z-Axis 