{"id":2197,"date":"2012-11-13T11:50:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T18:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/?p=2197"},"modified":"2012-11-13T11:50:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-13T18:50:00","slug":"book-reviews-sleight-of-hand-world-war-z","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/?p=2197","title":{"rendered":"Book Reviews: Sleight of Hand, World War Z"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>These reviews are cross-posted from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/3053345.Shannon_Phillips\">my Goodreads account<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"frame-outer  \"><span><span><span><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1616960043\/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=1616960043&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=shannphill-20\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51fusvnluPL._SL160_.jpg\" ><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=shannphill-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=1616960043\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Peter S. Beagle at his best is a master conjurer, but I don&#8217;t think any of the stories here really show Beagle working at the top of his craft. &#8220;Sleight of Hand&#8221; is a good title for the collection: these tricks of the imagination <em>are<\/em> fairly slight, but good fun nonetheless&#8212;a pleasant and diverting way to spend a few hours. <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"frame-outer  \"><span><span><span><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0307346617\/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=0307346617&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=shannphill-20\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51mfsPPtDiL._SL160_.jpg\" ><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=shannphill-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=0307346617\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It seems weird to call a book about the zombie apocalypse a &#8220;light, fun&#8221; read, but that&#8217;s ultimately what this is. I picked it up expecting something similar to Stephen King&#8217;s <em>The Stand<\/em>, a book that&#8217;s stuck with me even though it has one of the single hackiest endings I&#8217;ve ever read. But there&#8217;s not nearly as much meat to <em>World War Z<\/em>. It&#8217;s a series of vignettes, each well done, but short enough that you don&#8217;t end up really getting attached to any particular characters. My favorite bit involved the story of a downed Air Force pilot making her way through a zombie-infested swamp, guided by the remote voice of a ham radio operator who seems to be keeping some secrets. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These reviews are cross-posted from my Goodreads account. Peter S. Beagle at his best is a master conjurer, but I don&#8217;t think any of the stories here really show Beagle working at the top of his craft. &#8220;Sleight of Hand&#8221; is a good title for the collection: these tricks of the imagination are fairly slight, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2197"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2199,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197\/revisions\/2199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}