The new issue of Bookslut is up -as many of you already know - but I'd like to point out my contributions in case you missed them.

The column this month is all about adventure stories and includes some really great ones. I've been high on Here There Be Dragons from the beginning, so I was happy to give it a proper review. Secret Under My Skin is really an excellent Sci Fi story - the sort I remember reading when I was young and I mean that not in a "dated" kind of way, but just that it relies on decent storytelling set in the future and not a bunch of silly bells and whistles. I also have Tanglewreck in there which I thought was quite well done by Jeanette Winterson and I hope she returns to the YA genre, and the lovely lovely Corbenic which I think is one of my favorite books this year and everyone writing a YA adventure novel or fantasy should read it - it has a spin like no other and would be useful to writers as well as very enjoyable for readers.

I finished off with Endymion Spring and my Cool Read was The Illustrator's Notebook - a gorgeous book and a must have for wanna be artists and all creative types (and if you have any interest in Egypt then jump on this).

I've been calling my October column "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and it has a lot of adventure books as well but they are of a darker sort - or at least they seemed that way to me. Several of the Sept titles had a certain amount of menace or danger but the Oct books are just creepier - better reading for an October night. Bloodline by Kate Carey in particular freaked me out. It's a great update on the Dracula story and really dark and bloody and most unsentimental when it comes to vamps. Plus it starts on the battlefields of WWI - don't you think vampires would have loved to be there? So my books next month are kinda like that - major adventures but just a bit more on the deadly side.

This month I also have my full review of Cailtin Kiernan's Alabaster and loved this one a lot. If you are a fan then it's a no-brainer but readers of gothic horror in particular will enjoy this one. And if you like your creepy with a southern flavor, well, it just doesn't get any better.

Finally I interviewed Jeff Goodell and Erik Reece about their two books on the coal industry and I do hope that folks will read my piece. Part of me didn't want to read these books let alone write about them because I knew they would depress the hell out of me. But that's just shoving your head in the sand and we really can't do that anymore. This is not cheap energy though - I can't stress that enough - coal is actually incredibly expensive and it is time that we all grew up, saw through the industry bullshit and accepted the full cost of what we are doing to Kentucky and W. Virginia and everywhere else. And please, don't shake your head at what seems to be tree hugger talk here. People die in Kentucky every year so places like Tampa, FL can have cheap electricity. It isn't right and it needs to stop and we all need to pay the full value of what we're getting.

Go read what Reece and Goodell have to say, and then turn off some lights and get serious about it. And the next time you hear a politician refer to coal as cheap send them an email and call them a liar. And then tell them to buy one of these books.