On E.K. Johnston's Queen's Peril, the second novel in a YA trilogy that recovers the story of Padmé for a feminist-minded audience and retells portions of The Phantom Menace from the Queen's perspective.
Category: Genre Fantasies
Ballantine Adult Fantasy: Reading “The Silver Stallion” by James Branch Cabell (Biography of the Life of Manuel)
The fifteenth essay in my Ballantine Adult Fantasy reading series, about James Branch Cabell's The Silver Stallion (1926), a satirical take on the medieval romance that goes to some truly wild places and deconstructs the ideological work of how (and why) men are made into myths.
Star Wars: Reading “Queen’s Shadow” by E.K. Johnston (Queen Trilogy 1)
On E.K. Johnston's Queen's Shadow, the first novel in a YA trilogy that recovers the story of Padmé for a feminist-minded audience and wrestles with the state of democracy.
Dungeons & Dragons: Reading “The Halfling’s Gem” by R.A. Salvatore (Icewind Dale 3)
The third essay in my D&D reading series, which looks at R.A. Salvatore's The Halfling's Gem (1990), a novel about friendship, racial prejudice, and saving your halfling buddy from his own past.
Dungeons & Dragons: Reading “Streams of Silver” by R.A. Salvatore (Icewind Dale 2)
The second essay in my D&D reading series, which looks at R.A. Salvatore's Streams of Silver (1989), a novel about the quest for Mithril Hall and the limits of liberal values of tolerance.
Dungeons & Dragons: Reading “The Crystal Shard” by R.A. Salvatore (Icewind Dale 1)
The first essay in my D&D reading series, which looks at R.A. Salvatore's The Crystal Shard (1988), the groundbreaking novel that introduced nerds everywhere to the drow ranger Drizzt Do'Urden.
Dungeons & Dragons: A Reading Series
This is the landing page for my Dungeons & Dragons essay series, a lengthy quest to read an ungodly amount of D&D novels.
Who Cares about Dungeons & Dragons Novels Anyway?
A manifesto or sorts for why scholars of literary, cultural, and genre history should care about D&D novels.
Ballantine Adult Fantasy: Reading “The Wood Beyond the World” by William Morris
The fourteenth essay in my Ballantine Adult Fantasy reading series, which looks at William Morris's The Wood Beyond the World (1894), a winding, strange romance about Golden Walter and his (mis)adventure into the Wood and beyond.
Reading “Where Is the Bird of Fire?” by Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann’s Where Is the Bird of Fire? (1970) is the author's second (and final) story collection, bringing together three works of short fiction from 1962–1970, including the Hugo-nominated title story.
Genre Fantasies 