Welcome to Night Vale

The popular podcast Welcome to Night Vale has ventured into the literary world with its first novel.  Authors Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor present a story that follows two of Night Vale’s residents – Diane, an unassuming office worker with a shape-shifter for a son, and Jackie, a 19 year old pawn shop owner.  As…

A Christmas Carol

Aside from It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol – and all its variations – is my go to holiday movie.  This goes for anything from the straight up Alastair Sim adaptation to the Bill Murray classic Scrooged – most, if not all, are welcome.  But despite this being one of my all time favourites,…

The Cartel

Picking up after the events of The Power of the Dog, Adan Barrera is sitting pretty in a Mexican jail.  With corruption at its highest, Adan’s cell looks more like a luxury condo as he orchestrates the actions of his cartel outside the prison walls, waiting for the right time to escape. Art Keller is…

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Lately I’d been going through a bit of a reading slump.  I picked up and put down a number of novels before deciding on King’s latest short story collection, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams.  While I skipped Uncle Stevie’s most recent release, “Finder’s Keepers” – I wasn’t big on its predecessor Mr. Mercedes – I…

Number Two

Picking up where he left off with 2013’s Anchorboy, Onrait brings us the aptly titled Number Two, a book with more essays about bathroom misadventures, travelling to an Olympics host city and the wonders of being a Canadian ex-pat living in the U.S. Did anyone ask to hear about Jay’s masturbation stories (the very first…

Made To Kill

Following a failed government-funded program that involved rolling out a fleet of robots to do dangerous jobs, Raymond Electronica is the last metal man standing.  Fronting as a private detective, Raymond keeps himself busy working as a hitman.  Up to now, all of his jobs have come through his companion computer Ada, a large boxy…

The Prophet

I’ve always been a fan of football movies.  Which is strange considering I don’t particularly care much for the sport itself.  Watching it live, I find it slow, boring and I only vaguely understand the rules enough to get by.  However, if told right and paced correctly in a story, there’s a special sort of…