Tag: books

The Between — coming April 27, 2021

Ryan LeslieLeave a comment

I’m not sure yet whether there will be an in-person launch at an Austin bookstore (which I would love) or something virtual. I’ll update this space when that gets figured out.

That cover is brilliant, isn’t it? It’s the work of Shayne Leighton. I was hoping for something that would stand out and grab prospective readers’ attention. If it caught yours, check out the summary below:

While landscaping his backyard, ever-conscientious Paul Prentice discovers an iron door buried in the soil. His childhood friend and perpetual source of mischief, Jay Lightsey, pushes them to explore what’s beneath.

When the door slams shut above them, Paul and Jay are trapped in a between-worlds place of Escher-like rooms and horror story monsters, all with a mysterious connection to a command-line, dungeon explorer computer game from the early ’80s called The Between.

Paul and Jay find themselves filling roles in a story that seems to play out over and over again. But in this world, where their roles warp their minds, the biggest threat to survival may not be the Koŝmaro, risen from the Between’s depths to hunt them; the biggest danger may be each other.

Here it is on GoodReads and Amazon.

Lifetime Maximum Radiohead

Ryan LeslieLeave a comment

Sometimes too much of a good thing is, uh, well too much.

If you ask me what the best album from the 90s was, I’ll probably say Radiohead’s OK Computer (or, depending on my mood, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel). I haven’t listened to OK Computer in at least 5 years, maybe 10. And I don’t plan to anytime soon. You see, I hit what I call Lifetime Maximum Radiohead while about 10 minutes into a Radiohead concert. Like a switch had flipped, I suddenly had had enough Radiohead. For life. I still think just as highly of the band. I just don’t need/want to hear their music anymore.

I hit something similar with high fantasy novels based on pseudo European history. You know, the swords and sorcery stuff. Knights, dragons, etc. I loved that stuff growing up and read series after series. At some point I my hit lifetime maximum, and I struggle to get into these stories now.

I increasingly like fantasy that connects a familiar world with something very unfamiliar. The unfamiliar could be a made-up alternate world (think Jeffrey Ford’s brilliant The Well-Built City Trilogy) or it could take place with a real culture and history that’s foreign to me. For example, I recently really enjoyed The Devourers by Indra Das. It’s a werewolf/shapeshifter story, but it takes place in current and seventeenth century India. The writing is as beautiful as the cover art. Check it out.