The Man who Never was

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga My rating: 3 of 5 stars News outlets keep telling us how, despite the great leaps made by science and technology, despite globalization and relative global peace, in our current world, wealth disparity is at its worst. Where, on one end we see billionaires (and unreported oil trillionaires) whose total assets exceed the GDP of small and some medium sized nations. Ones who can afford to purchase ludicrously exorbitant eccentricities, have entire private nation states under their command, can control the economies of the world and remake it according to their (often naive) whims. And when the end of civilization becomes apparent, the only ones will be fully stocked and furnished bunkers and lifeboats, all ready to create a new dystopian post-apocalyptic new world order. Think 2012, but with less CGI and a lot more suffering. On the other side of the spectrum, there are those who work 3 or more jobs, jumping through hoop

Gyo by Junji Ito My rating: 5 of 5 stars Warning: This story contains mature, graphic body horror; Not for snowflakes. Reader discretion required. A man going out on a swim, encounters a mysterious fish. When he returns to land, he finds that the fish has followed him home; one its four legs. Yes, the fish has legs and is walking on land. Jaws, stand aside. Believe me when I say, this is the least horrifying thing one would be subjected to, when reading Ito Junji's Gyo. Even though this is par for course, for those who've Connosseur'd the horror maestro's previous works, such as Uzumaki or Tomie . But Ito Sensei seems to have taken the gross horror to a new plane. Now it seems we should not only be afraid of that which lurks in the shadows; but also, those that dwell in the depths. If H.P. Lovecraft, one of the mangaka's inspirations in horror, were to somehow get a copy of this book in the afterlife, he would be r