Month: January 2018

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Death is a Lonely Business

By Ray Bradbury
ISBN 0-395-54702-0

Publication Year: 1985

Tags: Detective, Writer, Golden Gumshoes

Rating: ★★★★★

The year is 1949. A young writer of pulp fiction struggles with the feeling of death that surrounds him as the city tears down the great amusement pier in Venice, California. There will be no more rides, no more side shows, no more games of chance, no more fortune tellers and snake-oil salesmen. The huge movie marquee, where great names like Fairbanks, Chaney, Garbo, and Hepburn once lent their grace, reads only GOODBYE.

Death hits closer to home as well. Four bodies turn up – one trapped in a lion cage that lies submerged in the Venice canal, one in a cheerful flophouse, and two others in houses across town. The deaths could be natural, or they could be accidents, but our unnamed writer (Bradbury himself, at age 29, as he would have been in that year?) doesn’t think so. It just feels wrong. And although he claims to believe only in facts, Detective Elmo Crumley has to admit that he, too, doesn’t trust the appearances of innocence that surround the deaths. Unfortunately, it will take clues and facts to solve the crime – if there is one – and no one seems to have a motive of any kind. Continue reading “Death is a Lonely Business”

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FA:7 Collection

Fox Amoore (Iain Armour)

TRACKS: 1—Game of Lightning; 2—Dream Rider; 3—Stay As You Are; 4—Our Place of Being; 5—Winds of Change; 6—Hold Me Tight; 7—Edge of Valhalla; 8—Never Far Away (vocal); 9—The Triad; 10—Play for Your Heart; 11—Soothe the Beast; 12—Seasons of Kusac; 13—The Ninth Tale; 14—End Game

TAGS: Instrumental, Furry Artist

RELEASE DATE: November 6, 2015

RATING: ★★☆☆☆

I’ve not heard a great deal of Fox Amoore’s music, although all that I’ve heard seems well-represented by the works on this album. He’s a good craftsman, carefully composing solid work that, for the most part, sounds like something to back a video game or a movie that’s based on one. In itself, this is not a bad thing, but the range and effectiveness of the music is sometimes limited by this evident preference. Largely predictable in his musical construction, he can be counted upon to crash in with an overdose of electric guitar or percussion when he runs out of good ideas for taking the piece in a new and interesting direction. Continue reading “FA:7 Collection”