History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Book Recommendation: Rites & Desires

| March 21, 2018

If you’re looking for a book with a slightly wicked protagonist, check out Amanda Cherry’s debut novel, Rites & Desires, which is out as of yesterday from DefCon One Publishing! I won’t be reviewing this book, because I’m the book’s editor, but I can definitely say that I was so delighted when I got to read […]

Review of The Marauder’s Island by Tristan J. Tarwater at MSJ

| March 7, 2018

My latest book review is up at Mad Scientist Journal, this one for The Marauder’s Island by Tristan J. Tarwater of Back That Elf Up. This was a book that Jeremy picked up for me at Geek Girl Con, and it was all that I had hoped it would be and more, filled with heart, action, adventure, […]

Show Recommendation: Altered Carbon

| February 21, 2018

If you love cyberpunk and noir, the new Netflix series Altered Carbon will definitely scratch that itch! We had heard a few of our friends saying good things about it, so we sat down to watch the first episode and were hooked. We haven’t binge watched the whole series yet, preferring to savor it a little […]

Review of Legacy by Jesikah Sundin

| February 14, 2018

My latest book review is up at Mad Scientist Journal, this one for a young adult ecopunk novel that combines cyberpunk, quasi-medieval recreation in the form of live-action roleplaying (LARPing), and not-quite apocalyptic fiction. You can read more about it here!

Comic Book Recommendation: Ms. Marvel

| February 7, 2018

If you’re not reading Ms. Marvel, you may want to reconsider your life choices. Seriously, this is one of the best, funniest, smartest comics going right now, and you should absolutely be reading it. Kamala Khan is a delight!  She’s a teenager dealing with having super powers, but still being beholden to her family and […]

Review of Serpent’s Rise by Trish Heinrich

| January 24, 2018

My newest book review is up on Mad Scientist Journal, and it’s the sequel to a book I reviewed earlier! Serpent’s Rise is the sequel to Serpent’s Sacrifice. In this book, Alice/the Serpent has a few more years beneath her belt, but she’s dealing with the fallout of the previous book, on multiple levels. While this […]

Author Recommendation: J. Tullos Hennig

| January 17, 2018

This past weekend at Rustycon, I was on a number of panels with J. Tullos Hennig, the author of a series known as The Books of the Wode, which she explains as “a reimagining of Robin Hood as a queer druid.” I’d met Jen previously through Broad Universe, and I’ve had one of her books […]

Comic Book Review: East of West

| January 10, 2018

I had a bit of time to read a few of the graphic novels that are currently in my towering stack. (This stack is intimidating. And possibly dangerously tall.) One of them was East of West: Volume One. This graphic novel seemed like it should be right up my alley, with its weird west/alternate history vibe. […]

Review of Full Throttle by Jon Hartless

| January 3, 2018

My first book review of 2018 is up at Mad Scientist Journal. Today, I’m reviewing Full Throttle by Jon Hartless, which is a steampunk/dieselpunk competitive car racing novel, set in an alternate Edwardian era. If that sounds like a lot of different things, it most certainly is, but it weaves them all together, along with social […]

Review of Cry Your Way Home by Damien Angelica Walters

| December 13, 2017

My latest review for Mad Scientist Journal is now up. Today, I’m reviewing a short story collection, Cry Your Way Home, by Damien Angelica Walters. Though I’ve read some of Walters’ stories before in anthologies, the stories in this collection were all new to me. They’re creepy and beautiful at the same time. Cry Your Way […]