The Phantom Library

This review has been a long time coming: the 2009 indie film Angel of Music, which people have been yelling at me about from the second it debuted. I hope you enjoy the experience of reading it more than I enjoyed the experience of watching it, which I may or may not still be undergoing. It's difficult to tell at this point.

Next up will be Cecilia Dominic's steampunk fantasy romance Clockwork Phantom, and I'm looking forward to a brand new book after all this time!

It feels like it's been a thousand years in the wilderness, but however long it felt for you, trust me, it felt even longer for me. But there's finally a new review up, and it's time to breathe deeply, shake it off, and move on to the next thing!

 
After your votes on the poll, I'll be watching the 2009 indie film Angel of Music next, so bring your popcorn and get ready to watch me try to remember how to review a film after years of print and games!

It's been a long, long journey, but all book reviews from the old Phantom Project site have been officially edited, brushed up, and finally rehosted here at the library! If you're one of the people who has been emailing me about why some of the links to reviews weren't working yet, they all should be now. Head on over to the Book Reviews page if you feel like hearing some thoughts on things.

Now that the book reviews have successfully moved, the only remaining outstanding reviews to come over are those for short stories. Some of them will require complete rewrites, but I'm hoping that since they're shorter, they will overall take a lot less time to port over. Here's hoping!

Yes, I have COVID-19 (I’m all right, y’all... miserable, but all right) and I am under quarantine, where my lovely husband and I are busy coughing, eating pie filling directly out of cans, and panickedly obsessing over the idea that our cats need several layers of first responders to come rescue them if we both pass out and can no longer cater to their every whim. And since I finally have nothing but time, I’m catching up on all of the Library projects I can during the periods when my fever feels like dropping below 102 and I stop hallucinating people who definitely don’t live here being in my kitchen.

I’m focusing on things I already have in digital format because lifting physical objects feels like some sort of Everest-climbing achievement at the moment so if you’d like some input into the incoming reviews, now’s your moment. I have a survey and that survey will tell me what to do, and you, personally, can be the boss of me.

This survey will stay open indefinitely and I will look at...

I'm still working on plowing through Syberia, but here's a teeny-tiny little review anyway. Sadly, it's not a good one, but at least I was right about it being something quick I could snap out while I play through the game.

Today's question from the mailbag:

"Tell us more: Are you ever going to review books again?"

You bet I am!

If you just found the Phantom Library recently, or you've been around since the dawn of time but you missed the announcements (which is both possible and reasonable since there was that whole bounce from different platforms in the middle), you might be looking at the site and wondering why there have been only video game reviews since... um... 2015. Which is a long time, so this is a reasonable thing to wonder about.

For a long time, I was stalled on reviews. Part of it was that I had to move everything from the old Blogger and PBWorks platforms over here to the new site, as well as adding on the 'zines project and revamping everything. Part of it was that, realizing that it had been a decade (a decade y'all) since I started the original project, some of it was in desperate need of updating and editing. And part of it was personal stuff; I have a severe chr...

Well, that was quick!

After updating several reviews and grades, the combined Hall of Fame & Shame got too unwieldy to update and navigate very quickly! So it's now been split into two: the Hall of Fame gives you quick links to the highest-rated materials that have been reviewed, and the Hall of Shame gives you an easy way to find the reviews where I most needed a drink.

That'll teach me to be lazy and think one section will do when it ought to be two.

Today's question from the mailbag:

"Tell us more: Are you going to review Leroux's book?"

I don't know if I actually have a clear answer to that!

Way back when I first started what would eventually become the Phantom Library, all the way back in 2007, I did review Leroux's book. It was the first thing I did, so I could make sure I had a recent reading of it under my belt and it would be fresh in my mind as I went on to review things based on it. It was Leonard Wolf's translation, which is no longer considered one of the better ones, but I had a good time with it.

But at this point, there have been zillions (or some slightly less extensively exaggerated number) of reviews of Leroux's novel by folks in the community who are better qualified than I am - scholars of period French literature, people who have spent time researching and working with the original text, linguists who speak better French than I do (which isn't hard, considering most of my French is from o...

Just a short and sweet review this time for The Phantom of the Opera Pinball from FarSight Studios!  For those of you who have seen the pictures floating around of the vintage Phantom-based pinball game, this is a video game version of it with all the art and gameplay faithfully recreated.  It's a lot of fun, whether you're good at it or just shooting the manager's in the face over and over for fun! It's a new Hall of Famer and worth a try if you're into arcade games at all.

Next up is Syberia, a 2002 adventure game that people have been asking me questions about for approximately five million years.  The day has finally come.  Until then!

After a few requests, I've got a new section under the Phantom Reviews tab: the Hall of Fame (and Shame), where the best and worst reviewed materials are linked for those looking for a great adaptation or the chance to read about me making agonized noises at the worst ones.

The rules are pretty simple for the moment: if I gave a piece of media an A, it made the Hall of Fame, and if I gave it a D or an F, it made the Hall of Shame.  You might notice that the Hall of Shame is a little sparse at the moment; that's because I'm still (!) working on porting over old reviews (mostly novels and short stories) from the old site, so some of the real catastrophes haven't yet made it over to the new one to be linked.  They'll appear there as they get added in.

Thank you to everyone who wrote in requesting a simple and easy way to watch me suffer.  <3