Resisting Little Boxes: The Soul of Walter Mosley

In 2007’s Blonde Faith, Los Angeles PI Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins drove off a cliff, like Sherlock Holmes plunging down Reichenbach Falls, and for much the same reason. “I wasn’t interested in where we were going,” admits Walter Mosley, author of the Easy Rawlins mysteries. “It didn’t feel to me like I was being creative. I wasn’t happy with [Easy’s] future. I didn’t think I could do this to him.”

So six years passed, leaving Easy’s fate unknown, and the writer moved on to other projects. But just as Holmes returned for more adventures ...

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Driving Down the Highway to Hell (or Christmasland)

Victoria McQueen has the ability to find lost objects by riding her bicycle on a covered bridge that no longer exists—a magical construct known as an inscape. A rebellious teen, Victoria uses her bridge to find trouble, and succeeds beyond her wildest nightmares when her power leads her to Charlie Manx, who kidnaps children and drives them in his evil Rolls-Royce Wraith to his own inscape, Christmasland, a magical theme park which promises an eternity of snowy fun…in exchange for their souls. Victoria just barely manages to escape Manx; afterward, her power lies fallow for years of troubled ...

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Re-entry Song: The Return of Inspector Rebus

With the publication of Exit Music four years ago, Edinburgh’s Inspector John Rebus went reluctantly, cantankerously into retirement. At that time, his publishers proclaimed that we would see no more of Rebus. Best-selling series author Ian Rankin was certain that there would be no more Rebus novels. And yet, here is Standing in Another Man’s Grave, a brand-new Rebus novel. What happened?

Various things happened, says Rankin. The first is that 2012 marked 25 years since the publication of the first Rebus novel, Knots and Crosses. The second is that Rankin “got an idea for a story that ...

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Threat & Counterterrorism: 'Law & Order's Dick Wolf Branches Out

Dick Wolf’s tight, twisty debut thriller, The Intercept, offers some globetrotting as well as some implications that are global in scope. But ultimately, The Intercept is a fiercely New York work, following Detective Jeremy Fisk of the NYPD Intelligence Division through the streets of the city as he investigates a failed hijacking and discovers it’s only the start of a more complex terrorist threat in progress.

The location will be no surprise to fans of Wolf’s most famous creation, the long-running TV series Law & Order and its several spinoffs. The novel is, Wolf says, “as reflective of ...

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Forgive Us Our Telepathic Trespasses

Gritty noir mixes violently with the paranormal in Adam Connell’s Lay Saints, a tale of two rival crews of telepaths seeking mental control of the New York City’s Council Speaker to ensure his vote on a key issue. Kirkus spoke with Connell about religion, crossing genres, the City and the self-publishing process.

Why title the book Lay Saints?

Late in the novel one of the characters says of the Church, “They have faith in miracles, and we perform little ones, don’t we?”

In Roman Catholicism, the anointment of sainthood is predicated in part on proof of miracles ...

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Bechdel Hatches Another Memoir

Alison Bechdel first gained a fan following with her serial comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. That strip made an indelible mark on pop culture when it introduced what’s now known as the Bechdel Test for films—to pass the test, the movie must include two women holding a conversation that isn’t about a man.

Browse more of the top 25 nonfiction books of 2012.

Her critically acclaimed graphic memoir, Fun Home, explored her complex relationship with her father, a funeral director, English teacher, house restorer and closeted homosexual. She’s now published a companion volume ...

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The Bloggess: Taxidermy, 10th-Anniversary Toilets and Hating Ice Cream

From her home in rural Texas, Jenny Lawson runs a PR firm and writes parenting advice and satirical articles about sex. But she is best known as The Bloggess, author of a screamingly funny, surprisingly inspiring blog that chronicles her daily adventures and wacky discussions with her husband, and showcases her growing collection of unusually posed and dressed taxidermied animals.

Like funny people? Check out Michael Ian Black's latest memoir, You're Not Doing It Right.

The Bloggess counts Neil Gaiman, Penn Jillette, Wil Wheaton, and Matthew Broderick among her many fans—she has more than 220,000 followers ...

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The Quest Continues: Lev Grossman

We all know the truth—geeks run the world. As a senior writer for TIME magazine, Lev Grossman has profiled some of the world’s most influential geeks, including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. The protagonists of his novels The Magicians and now The Magician King are powerful geeks, too, but instead of utilizing technology, their tool is magic.

Here, Grossman tells us about the geek personality, his literary inspirations and the pitfalls inherent in seeking knowledge and power.

Read more of the best fiction of 2011. 

Narnia—The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Magician’s Nephew, in ...

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Lisa Unger: ‘Darkness, My Old Friend’

In her latest, Darkness My Old Friend, Lisa Unger returns to The Hollows, the small town hiding dark secrets that she introduced in Fragile. Former police detective Jones Cooper, restive and unhappy in his retirement, initially discounts psychic Eloise Montgomery’s warning that he will endanger his life in an attempt to save someone. But as he helps a woman search for her controlling husband’s mysteriously vanished first wife and revisits a long-cold case that he investigated as a young cop, his skepticism begins to crumble.

Read more new and notable books for August.  

The Hollows books play out ...

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True Blood Season Four: A Bloody Great Reboot

In her Kirkus interview a few months ago, Sookie Stackhouse author Charlaine Harris said, “While the fourth season [of True Blood] will generally follow the fourth book, the differences may well outweigh the similarities.” Hoo boy, she sure wasn’t kidding. While the plotlines of Dead to the World will no doubt influence the new season, episode one is chock full of plot elements drawn either from later books or from the fertile minds of show writers. (Spoilers ahoy!)

Check out our great list of Charlaine Harris books at Kirkus.

Seasons Two and Three opened moments after the prior season ...

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Welcome Back, Bordertown

In the mid-1980s, writer/editor/artist Terri Windling founded Bordertown, a series of shared-universe books in which the faerie Realm collided with our World on the site of a major city. The result was a place where magic and technology worked sporadically or in tandem. Elves rode motorcycles in the streets. Music, art and poetry flourished.  And misfits, runaways and the lost found a place where they could be themselves. Not a safe place for many, but a haven to a chosen and resourceful few.

Read more books by Bordertown contributors at Kirkus.

The Bordertown series was seminal in developing ...

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Sookie’s Back in ‘Dead Reckoning’

Charlaine Harris’ Dead Reckoning marks the 11th novel-length appearance of telepathic barmaid Sookie Stackhouse, star of the bestselling series that inspired the popular HBO show True Blood. As the book opens, an old enemy returns, threatening Sookie’s life and livelihood by firebombing Merlotte’s. Meanwhile, Sookie’s boyfriend Eric is chafing under the rule of Louisiana’s vampire regent, Victor, who’s seeking to provoke the Viking vampire into a fatal confrontation. And the apparently prosaic task of cleaning out the Stackhouse attic leads to some startling discoveries about Sookie’s fairy heritage and an unexpected legacy.

Read more ...

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HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’: An Epic Viewing Experience

When A Game of Thrones: Book One, A Song of Ice and Fire was published in 1996, its multistranded and extraordinarily gritty political fantasy gained George R. R. Martin a devoted following and inspired a host of imitators.

Want to learn more about getting into sci-fi and fantasy? Read all about it at SF Signal.

Fifteen years later, his disciples have grown somewhat impatient, as Martin has taken longer and longer to produce subsequent volumes in the series. Book five, A Dance With Dragons, has finally been scheduled for July; in the meantime, readers will be more than satisfied with ...

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10 Can't-Miss Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2011

2011 offers a bumper crop of fantasy and science fiction—even Stephen King is in on the action with a recently announced time-travel epic about a teacher’s attempt to stop the JFK assassination that’s scheduled for this fall from Scribner.

Additionally, the year also promises the usual healthy dose of witches, vampires, werewolves, zombies and steampunk. For those looking for a change from the usual fare, here are some titles to keep in mind.

Read reviews of some of the other best sci-fi books that have emerged so far in 2011.

Among Others by Jo Walton
Jo Walton ...

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