Categories
Reblogs

Reblog: Black Speculative Fiction Month

From The State of Black Science Fiction Facebook Group

As the month of October winds down, I want to talk about Black Speculative Fiction Month. It was born in 2013, when indie authors Milton Davis and Balogun Ojetade were discussing the Alien Encounters event with the Program Coordinator at the Auburn Avenue Research Library. The concept blossomed into reality the next day…” Read more here: A Small Gang of Authors: Black Speculative Fiction Month by Ruth de Jauregui.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

Categories
Books

The Cephalopod Coffeehouse #Review: Monstress 1 #fantasy #graphicnovel

The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you’ve finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same. In this way, we’ll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers. Please join us below.

“I’m late, I’m late. Late for a very important date.” (or something like that.) ~The White Rabbit

So, all month-long I’ve been reminding myself not to miss this post, and sure enough, that’s exactly what I did. Oh well, I tried. I’ve been doing a self-assigned graphic novel read-a-thon this month and I’m down to wire trying to squeeze in as many books as I can before nightfall on Wednesday. Of course, this would also be the month that my creative juices would start to flow, but I just don’t have enough time in the day. In any case, I’ll tell you what has been my favorite read so far, but I don’t have a full review for you yet. So sorry for that….

Below I’ve listed its stats, blurb, and my overall rating; however, I will say that the artwork in this book is so beautiful that even if the story wasn’t that great, I probably would have given it a 4.5 stars with an asterisk.

Title: Montress, Vol. 1: Awakening
Series: Montress #1
Author: Marjorie M. Liu & others
Artist: Sana Takeda
Genre: Fantasy, Graphic Novel
Pages: 192
Reading Level: Teen-Adult
Content: R (strong language, violence, brutality, crime, war, adult and mature situations, brief partial nudity, oppression)

Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900’s Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steampunk, MONSTRESS tells the story of a teenage girl who is struggling to survive the trauma of war, and who shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that will transform them both.

Collects MONSTRESS #1-6

I give this book a 5.

Please stop by and see what others have read. 😀

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

Categories
Movies

The Shape of Water #TheToiBoxOfWords #film #review

moviereview

It’s been a while since I’ve done a movie review so I didn’t even bother trying to write it down. I simply went straight to YouTube.

Wikipedia
Wikipedia

So, here’s a movie that people will either get or not. For that matter, some people probably won’t even give it a try, but I can’t blame them. This is a weird movie. Still, I enjoyed it; after getting over the initial shock of what was happening in front of me…

I don’t think I’m doing a good job of expressing how I really feel about this movie. It’s best you watch the review. If you want to skip a semi-spoiler I provide, watch the video in the YouTube browser so you can access the skip link.

In any case, I gave this movie a 4 ½ of 5 stars (bumping up to five because I’ve never really done halves before).

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords