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Daryl M.

Librarian


Posts by Daryl M.

  • Collage of favorite books

    Daryl's Favorite Books of 2025

    Season’s Readings everyone! As is generally true, there have been some marvelous books published in 2025, and I’m thrilled to share my favorites with you. I’ve listed these books in alphabetical order…

  • Author Travis Baldree and his latest novel, Brigands & Breadknives

    Interview With an Author: Travis Baldree

    Travis Baldree is a full-time audiobook narrator who has lent his voice to hundreds of stories. Before that, he spent decades designing and building video games like Torchlight, Rebel Galaxy, and Fate…

  • Author D.J. Waldie and his latest book, Elements of Los Angeles: Earth, Water, Air, Fire

    Interview With an Author: D.J. Waldie

    D.J. Waldie is a historian of Los Angeles, a memoirist, and a translator. He is the author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir (1995), Where Are We Now: Notes from Los Angeles (2005), Becoming Los Angeles…

  • Author Eric Heisserer and his debut novel, Simultaneous

    Interview With an Author: Eric Heisserer

    Eric Heisserer is the Academy Award–nominated screenwriter of Arrival and the creator of the Netflix series Shadow and Bone. He lives in Los Angeles. His debut novel is Simultaneous and he recently…

  • Author Deston Munden and his latest book, Recipes for an Unexpected Afterlife

    Interview With an Author: Deston J. Munden

    Deston Munden is the author of several books, including Tavern, also set in Dargath. Born and raised near the Outer Banks, he can be found writing, cooking, playing World of Warcraft, and cosplaying…

  • Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods! book edited by Richard Wolinsky

    Interview With an Author: Richard Wolinsky

    Richard Wolinsky co-hosted and produced Probabilities, a half-hour radio program devoted to science fiction, mystery, and mainstream fiction, from 1977 to 1995 on KPFA-FM. He took the program solo in…

  • Author Oliver Wang and his latest book, Cruising J-Town

    Interview With an Author: Oliver Wang

    Oliver Wang is a professor of sociology at CSU-Long Beach and the author of Legions of Boom: Filipino American Mobile DJ Crews of the San Francisco Bay Area (Duke Univ. Press, 2015). Oliver is a…

  • Author Jim C. Hines and his latest book, Slayers of Old

    Interview With an Author: Jim C. Hines

    Jim C. Hines is the author of 20 published SF/F novels, including the Goblin Quest trilogy, the Magic ex Libris series, the Princess series of fairy tale retellings, the Janitors of the Post…

  • Author Josh Rountree and his latest book, The Unkillable Frank Lightning

    Interview With an Author: Josh Rountree

    Josh Rountree is a novelist and short story writer who writes across multiple genres, and focuses mostly on horror and dark fantasy. His novel The Legend of Charlie Fish, released by Tachyon…


Reviews by Daryl M.

  • Cover image for Brokeula

    Brokeula

    • By: Seidlinger, Michael J.
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.

    James  Sugre is a vampire. He has lived for centuries, but has made some questionable choices. Bad choices, when it comes to investments. Now, he is broke. He has no money and is deep in debt. He can’t even afford his own reflection (they are available for a fee from Vampire Nation, an international conglomerate that both governs and provides for the world’s vampire population).

  • Cover image for Mazywood

    Mazywood

    • By: Due, Tananarive
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.

    Wishes. We all make them, either silently to ourselves or possibly as a breathless whisper as we drop a coin in a fountain. The reason behind them can range from whimsical to deadly serious. And, in the "real world," they are, to quote Douglas Adams, "mostly harmless." In the world of fiction, however, wishes are entirely different. 

  • Cover image for Another Fine Mess

    Another Fine Mess

    The Evans Funeral Parlor has existed for almost as long as the Southeastern Texas town in which it's located. It is a generational business, overseen and passed down through the Evans women. There's Ducy, the family's current matriarch, who is the daughter of Pie, who mysteriously disappeared eighteen years ago...
  • Cover image for Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

    Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

    • By: Schwab, Victoria
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In 2020, V.E. Schwab introduced readers to Addie LaRue, a young woman who makes a Faustian bargain to avoid an unwanted marriage in early 18th-century France. In The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Schwab follows Addie through the centuries as Addie, through her own cunning and strength of will, molds...
  • Cover image for Good Dirt

    Good Dirt

    • By: Wilkerson, Charmaine
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    When Ebony "Ebby" Freeman was ten years old, she was the sole witness of a botched home invasion robbery that resulted in the shooting death of her fifteen-year-old brother, Baz, and the destruction of a priceless family heirloom. The fact that Ebby is the daughter of a prominent Black family...
  • Cover image for But Not Too Bold

    But Not Too Bold

    Dália's life changed the morning the maid found the typewritten note that said: "HIRE A NEW KEEPER OF THE KEYS; URGENT; BEFORE DAWN" Everyone in Capricious House knew what the note meant and who had written it. Its author was the Lady of Capricious House, Lady Anatema, a gargantuan spider/human...
  • Cover image for The Murder of Mr. Ma

    The Murder of Mr. Ma

    • By: Nee, John Shen Yen, Rozan, SJ
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In 1924 London, Lao She, a shy young academic, is summoned to the home of mathematician Bertrand Russell. When he arrives, Russell explains that a friend and colleague, Judge Dee Ren Jie, has been mistakenly arrested with a group of Chinese agitators. Russell is afraid that if Dee’s identity is...