Smorgasbord Fantasia

So the first big movie for 2019 for the MCU, Captain Marvel dropped last week on Friday - and I managed to catch it, first day. The International Woman's Day datelines aren't a coincidence. The first big Marvel act headlined by a woman (also co-directed by another: Anna Boden. Go girl power!), Brie Larson dons the big fiery gloves of the super-saver of the Universe. She strives her best to bring in the big-bangs (literally, photon blasts of pure fury shot from bare hands) while juggling the flawed, human act ( amnesiac, prone to a temper with an ego to spare) and is tons of fun to watch. But is the movie good? The numbers do the talking. I think, as I write, this one's going to be become one of the top-grossing Marvel movies of all times.



But is this my favorite Marvel movie? Nope. That honor still goes to...Black Panther? Captain America: Civil War? Infinity Wars? Sigh. Tough one, but getting back to Carol 'Vers' Denvers.

The movie opens onto a hazy battle-field …

"Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme that first originated at Breaking the Spine but has since linked up with “Can’t Wait Wednesday” at Wishful Endings now that the original creator is unable to host it anymore. Either way, this fun feature is a chance to showcase the upcoming releases that we can’t wait to get our hands on!
This week, it is The Red-Stained Wings by Elizabeth Bear. (Unfortunately, one of the few really "good" authors out there, whose books I haven't yet started on!) 


Set in the world of Elizabeth Bear’s Eternal Sky trilogy, book two of The Lotus Kingdoms takes the Gage into desert lands under a deadly sky to answer the riddle of the Stone in the Skull…

The Gage and the Dead Man brought a message from the greatest wizard of Messaline to the ruling queen of Sarathai, one of the Lotus Kingdoms. But the message was a riddle, and the Lotus Kingdoms are at war.

Comes out, from TOR books in May 2019.

I frankly cannot wait, to plunge into this lush, rav…

It was in 2013 that the movie, Annayum Rasoolum released. A decisively dark take on the Shakespearean tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, set in the busy alley-ways of Fort Kochi, it was a doomed love-story between this Muslim taxi-driver who falls hard, for a Christian girl working as a retail staff for a saree shop. The movie itself. while not really a big commercial hit, was one of those early signs of the greatness that Fahadh Fazil, the method actor in Kerala, was poised to break out for.



A lot of you would probably have noticed this lanky youth prone to violence and angst who plays the younger brother to Andrea Jeremiah's character of Anna in that movie. An overprotective, irascible younger brother who lights the fuse for the explosion later on in the movie. That youngster - Shane Nigam, disarmingly handsome with his dimpled smile and those twinkling dark eyes that can turn at will into liquid pools of expression of pain or despair, went on to be launched as a hero, by the same di…

Something about that haunting title, that draws you in. Don't judge a book by its cover but how about it's title then? Well, if this book were to be judged on that dimension, then it comes across every bit as intriguing and engaging as that evocative title. Danielle Cain's first outing is a high energy, razor-sharp no-nonsense post-anarchist surreal novella that is soaring high on ideals and posing uncomfortable questions.



Danielle is a traveller, in the truest sense of that word. A nomad who hitchhikes her way through decrepit American heartlands. She is making her way to this place, off the grid and google maps - called Freedom, Iowa that her best friend claimed, is the ideal hipster nomad paradise: As the name suggests, a place free of the yoke of any authorities or rules, governed simply by the good will of its free-hearted citizens. But as Danielle enters the town, she is greeted by this unreal red demoniacal deer with three antlers, whom the townsfolk refer to as Ul…

"Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme that first originated at Breaking the Spine but has since linked up with “Can’t Wait Wednesday” at Wishful Endings now that the original creator is unable to host it anymore. Either way, this fun feature is a chance to showcase the upcoming releases that we can’t wait to get our hands on!


The fourth book in The Song of Shattered Sands series—an epic fantasy with a desert setting, filled with rich worldbuilding and pulse-pounding action.
When a battle to eradicate the Thirteenth Tribe goes awry, the kingdoms bordering the desert metropolis of Sharakhai see the city as weak and ripe for conquest. Çeda, now leader of the Shieldwives, a band of skilled desert swordswomen, hopes to use the growing chaos to gain freedom for Sehid-Alaz, the ancient, undying king of her people. Freeing him is only the beginning, however. Like all the people of her tribe on that fateful night four centuries earlier, Sehid-Alaz was cursed, turned into an asir, a twist…

Ben Galley came into my notice a few years back when I got this book on improving my craft, called Shelf Help I had also bought the first two books of his series, the scarlet star trilogy (Bloodrush) but never got around to reading him. And then, two weeks back, his tweets on Grim Solace, the new book in this series stormed the twitter world and I felt I had to check this one out. Grim, dark and a world-building that reminds you of Michael Moorcock's Elric series, hell count me in!

Chasing Graves, the first of a trilogy is set in the fascinating city of Araxes, the capital of the rift-laden Arctian empire. Also known as the City of Countless Souls where your status and richness is measured in terms of the 'shades' you own and not just the weight of silver. In Ben's beautiful prose, this bustling metropolis comes alive - beset on one side by a brutal desert, bordered by poor slum-regions known as the outsprawls which slowly lead into the city through the countless market…