Celebrating 20 years: The top 10 posts and SPFBO thanks

The year was 1997, and I had just logged on to the internet. After a few months of cruising around and checking things out, I came up with some big plans. I'd always wanted to be an entertainment writer and own a bookstore, and the internet put those possibilities in front of me.

On the World Wide Web, I could reach an audience that would appreciate my reviews of heavy metal music and fantasy books like the readers of the newspaper that I was writing for at the time never would. Associates programs gave me the opportunity to have a book and music store without a lot of the hassle of actually running a book and music store. It was the perfect storm, so I thought.

That led to the launch of two sites on the old members.aol.com servers, The Hall of the Mountain King (viewable via the Internet Archive), which served as landing page and music site, and The Bookwyrm (also viewable via the Internet Archive), which housed my book content. In my mind, these two sites would eventually become go-to hubs for content on fantasy fiction and heavy metal. As you can see, that didn't work out quite as I'd planned.

Review: "Sorcerer to the Crown" by Zen Cho

Often, when I see a book I haven’t read on a whole bunch of year-end lists, I’ll add it to my stack. Sometimes I’m happy I did, other times, I discover it’s just not for me. That’s what happened with Zen Cho’s “Sorcerer to the Crown” ($26.95, Deckle Edge).

Zacharias Wythe, the adopted son of Royal Sorcerer Stephen Wythe, is already out of place in London’s magical circles because of the color of his skin. It’s a bit of an old boys club, where they believe people of color are not capable of magic and women’s frail bodies can’t withstand its effects.

The problem becomes amplified when Stephen dies mysteriously, and Zacharias inherits the staff of Royal Sorcerer. Though those in the magical community can’t deny that the staff chose Zacharias, they can certainly doubt his abilities and leadership. He’s blamed for the declining amount of magic in England, even though the problem has existed for years before he assumed the role, and some of his rivals even whisper that he murdered his adopted father and mentor to obtain the staff.