Review: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchet —
They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered.…
Review: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky —
To be of a Karamazovian nature is to be able to contemplate both abysses at once, that of the loftiest and most noble abyss above us and that of the one beneath us, the lowest and foulest of human degradation and thought.…