Month: June 2012

Book Review: City of the Lost

City of the Lost by Stephen Blackmoore (Fantasy/Noir, 2012, 224 pages)

City of the Lost might be summed up thusly: funny, dark, sexy, fast.

It’s urban fantasy, I suppose, but with a low-level criminal turned zombie turned unwilling gumshoe as the antihero lead.  There’s witches and demons and mysterious, possibly immortal, love interests.  There’s heart-munching undead maniacs, powerful sorceresses who really just want to do social work, and a frantic search for one very special talisman.  Plus, it’s all set against a gritty, underbelly-ish, crime-ridden L.A. that could be a movie set for the best Noir thriller ever.

There was a lot I loved about this book.  First, as the above description suggests, it blends sub-genres very effectively.  Second, despite the protagonist, Joe Sunday, being a rather unremarkable thug who turns into a zombie and starts eating dead hookers, he’s likable — very likable.  Just try not to root for him, I dare you.  Third, City of the Lost tears right along, leaving little time to catch your breath…but just enough that you don’t cast the book aside in a fit of action-sequence-fatigue.  Blackmoore’s nailed the tone and is liberal with his twists and turns.

Though it may seem a little dark for your summer beach read, I bet if you give it a chance you won’t be disappointed.

Stranger than fiction: shaman’s burial

Plenty of us write about magic and witches, but nothing can be cooler than this 12,000 year old shaman’s burial from the site of Hilazon Tachtit, Israel.

Walled away inside a cave high on a cliff face, this elderly, disabled woman was buried with an incredible array of grave goods, including 50 complete tortoise shells and select body-parts of a wild boar, an eagle, a cow, a leopard, and two martens, as well as a complete human foot (not her own).  Many of these animals were either extremely rare or locally unavailable at the time, suggesting a great deal of planning and effort went into this woman’s interment.  Plus, a human foot!

Thus far, this is one of the oldest known graves of a potential shaman.

Read more about it here.