When I am reviewing a book, it is almost always after the fact. I don’t sit down to review a book, and I don’t review every book I read. I just read and sometimes write a review. Somehow this time I knew when I picked this one up, within the first 50 pages, that I was going to be reviewing it. Maybe because I sat down with my editor’s hat on too soon after other writing-related work, but I could see the forest through the trees on Rise of Mages, and well... I just don’t care.   Pick up Rise...

You are going to have a last flower. You are going to walk into your garden one day, and that day will be the last day something new blooms before winter overtakes you (at least where I live!). It will be stark, beautiful, and a reminder of the things that have bloomed before.   My Last Flower Then you will walk through your garden and see the flowers that didn’t finish. They almost bloomed, but in the lateness of the season they were halted and they will be only that: buds that never came to...

I cannot recall what I was listening to, or if it was reading that discussed the asteroid conundrum. Here is the question at hand: You are an artist of some kind, a painter, sculptor, writer, musician, and you have been working for years of your life to become gifted at what you do. You learn that the world is going to end in 30 days, and all human life and everything we have ever created is going to be destroyed. Humanity will never rise again, and all works of humanity will be lost,...