shrouded skeleton statue

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 The Extraordinaries

    The Extraordinaries

    Nick Bell is far from an ordinary teen. He experiences attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and is required to take daily medication. Two years ago, his mother was killed in a bank robbery, leaving him and his father to reconstruct their lives together. He met his best friend, Seth Gray...
  • Cover image for In Five Years: A Novel

    In Five Years: A Novel

    • By: Serle, Rebecca
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    “Where do you see yourself in five years?” This is a question that almost everyone has been asked at some point in their life. It may give us pause. We may think we know. But the answer we give is always a guess because no one really knows what the...
  • Cover image for Out of Character

    Out of Character

    • By: Albert, Annabeth
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In last year’s Conventionally Yours, Annabeth Albert took readers on a virtual roadtrip, while the country was in lockdown, so that they could join tabletop gamers Alden, Conrad, and Jasper as they made their way from New England to Las Vegas for Massive Odyssey Con West, the annual national gathering...
  • Cover image for The Final Girl Support Group

    The Final Girl Support Group

    • By: Hendrix, Grady
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Any fan of horror movies knows what the term “final girl” means. A final girl is the person left standing at the end of a horror movie. During the course of the film, she evades the threat, usually losing several friends and family members in the process, long enough to...
  • Cover image for Razorblade Tears

    Razorblade Tears

    • By: Cosby, S. A.
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Two young men, who are deeply in love, married, and fathers to a young girl. Two fathers, who cannot accept their sons as they are nor the life they are creating. Two senseless murders that remove any possibility of reconciliation or the chance to say what should have been said...
  • Cover image for A Psalm for the Wild-Built

    A Psalm for the Wild-Built

    • By: Chambers, Becky
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Centuries ago, on the moon of Panga, the robot workers, who filled the factories and other industrial pursuits of the human civilization, gained consciousness. Rather than be integrated into Pangan culture, as they were offered, the robots chose to leave, en-masse, into the surrounding wilderness. They were never heard from...
  • Cover image for The Album of Dr. Moreau

    The Album of Dr. Moreau

    • By: Gregory, Daryl
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    The Island of Dr. Moreau was H.G. Wells’ third novel and was first published in 1896. It recounts the experiences of a shipwreck victim who finds himself on an island populated by animals that have been modified by the titular Dr. Moreau, using scientific means, to become human/animal hybrids who...
  • Cover image for Mother May I

    Mother May I

    • By: Jackson, Joshilyn
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    It happens in an instant. While Bree Cabbat watches her eldest daughter rehearse a school production of Grease, her infant son, Robert, sleeps in the seat next to her in the balcony of the school’s theatre. One moment he is there, the next he is gone. In his place is...