I have an aversion to books that are part of a trilogy or other mult-ology. I’m better with series books, like the Discworld novels or the Old Man’s War novels, where each book is complete by itself, and reading the previous books is helpful but not strictly necessary. But when I’m deciding to invest time [...]
If you missed the reading by John Scalzi and Mary Robinette Kowal at Borderlands Books last night, well, I hope you were off saving the world or at an all-star orgy or something equally top drawer, because otherwise your evening, by comparison, was as lame as lame can be. John Scalzi is even funnier in [...]
All right, it’s not quite that bad. But it’s sad to see that Dragon is not only paying a pittance for fiction, but requires authors to give up all rights to their work. Those of you with a low threshold for old-geek nattering should wander off and get a fresh cup of coffee at this [...]
When the cops came to tell me about my parents being dead, I thought they were being hostile because they thought I killed my parents, or maybe they pulled my psych history and figured I would give them trouble. I didn’t know till later that they were jealous. Even though I hadn’t met Khadija yet, [...]
Yes, you should read John Scalzi’s naked power-grab with fear and trepidation, but if nothing else, for the ultimate comment on writing workshops: Certain events of the past few days have convinced me that most of writerdom has trouble finding its own ass without a claque of workshop buddies to comment on the journey (“I [...]
Since I spent a lot of time sitting in a hospital room this week, I did get some reading done. Samwise warned me that Accelerando was awfully hip, and it is. It’s like reading Neal Stephenson, but smarter and more entertaining, and without the bits where the author just can’t restrain himself anymore and barges [...]
Oh, man. Where to begin. The current-but-outgoing vice president of the SFWA wrote a barely-coherent tantrum about the evils of a) artists who give away their work FOR FREE!!! b) on THE INTERNET!!!!. Because it interferes with a good, old-fashioned, wood-chopping way of life where if you want to call people idiots, you have to [...]
The literary scene has been agog about Kirino’s newer book, Grotesque. It didn’t appeal to me much, so I picked up her earlier book, Out. It’s hard to read. There’s a deep current of despair; this isn’t the slick, techno-clever Japan of an Isaac Adamson or William Gibson novel. The protagonists are women who work [...]
Since I needed to spend some time lying around, and there are only so many unoccupied computers at once in our house: Daughter of Hounds is kind of a sequel to Low Red Moon. I was a little iffy about picking this one up, especially since the cover art looked like an attempt to sell [...]
“Another cigarette?” she asked. He nodded, and she fished one out of the half-empty pack for him. She watched with interest to see if he could get it between his lips and operate the lighter one-handed without dropping either. It was awkward, but he got it lit and took a long draw. Share and Enjoy: