This post was originally published on Tor.com. I’ve always thought cats are the perfect companion for the bookish. You never have to put down your book to take a cat for a walk. Instead, our feline friends will curl up on our laps while we dive into our latest fantasy obsessions, as though they’re tiny,…
This article originally appeared on Tor.com. Places have power. In science fiction and fantasy, they have actual, magical power more often than not. SFF settings are often big by necessity. Locales need to hold entire casts of characters, sweeping civilizations, the flora and fauna flourishing in myriad biomes. Most settings function as they’re meant to,…
Continue reading ➞ Five SFF Settings That Feel Like Characters
This year, our cadre of Quill To Live writers decided to do individual posts in a “Media That Moved Us” series. The only rule: no books! We have plenty of those! Instead, we want to ruminate on the things we watched, played, and experienced that made an impact on us. When I thought about the…
Continue reading ➞ Media That Moved Me: Stories Within Stories
What an odyssey this has been. I ventured into the Dreaming months ago, aiming to finish the Sandman saga before the Netflix adaptation came out. Now, here I am, 11 volumes deep. This will be the last of my Sandman reviews. Though I do intend to read The Dream Hunters and Overture at some point,…
Continue reading ➞ Sandman Volume Eleven: Endless Nights – And Now I Slumber
The Kindly Ones was the epic climax, tying together myriad Sandman storylines into a delightful culmination of the series. The Wake, then, takes the loose ends left by those threads and elegantly offers endings for characters whose stories still go on after the universe-changing events of the previous volume. Hefty spoilers follow for Volume 9:…
Continue reading ➞ Sandman Volume Ten: The Wake – Loose Ends
Points in my Sandman readthrough have sparked questions of a fatigued reader: where is this going? What does this mean? I was struggling by the time I reached The Kindly Ones, and I looked at the volume—by far the longest in the series by page length—only to double down on my exhaustion. Before I slipped…
Continue reading ➞ Sandman Volume Nine: The Kindly Ones – Nice
Welcome to the inn between realms, where travelers shelter from reality storms and share stories to pass the time. Sandman Volume 8: Worlds’ End is my favorite sort of Sandman collection. Namely, the sort that features one-off tales in service of a grander theme and only tangentially related to the ongoing saga of Dream and…
Continue reading ➞ Sandman Volume Eight: Worlds’ End – Stories Within Stories
Welcome back once again to the Dreaming, where we continue our jaunt through Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. The Netflix adaptation looms, lighting a fire under my ass to plow through the remainder of the series so I know all there is to know about Morpheus and his entourage of mystical friends and enemies. What started as…
Continue reading ➞ Sandman Volume Seven: Brief Lives – Delirious Road Trip
The Netflix adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novel series finally has a release date—August 5, 2022—and the announcement renewed my drive to finish the series. Thus my Sandman readthrough continues, this time taking me to Fables & Reflections, a mixed bag of tales. Fables & Reflections collects nine stories. Each narrative focuses on a…
Continue reading ➞ Sandman Volume Six: Fables & Reflections – Mixed Bag
I’m quickly approaching the halfway point in my Sandman journey, and what a ride it’s been. Neil Gaiman's graphic novel series delights as often as it makes me go “Huh?” This particular installment, A Game of You, is distinctly the latter. I enjoyed the experience of reading A Game of You, though I can’t pinpoint whether…
Continue reading ➞ Sandman Volume Five: A Game Of You – Macabre Obscurity
