Jim Henley proposes a “meme” about literature: Adrienne Aldredge has a twist on Bookish Questions I’m herewith turning into a meme: What authors have you given up on for good? And why? I’m going to stick to authors who continue to produce work, and whom I used to follow eagerly, not authors I felt obligated… Continue reading Cranky Book “Meme”: Voted Off the Island
Category: Books
Some Fall Farther Than Others
The Slush God offers all-too-typical news: Today SCI FI Wire published a piece I wrote about Terry Brooks’s latest novel, Armageddon’s Children, which is the first in a series that will connect his Word and the Void trilogy with his Shannara series. Is there any surer sign that an author has fallen to the Brain… Continue reading Some Fall Farther Than Others
Brandon Sanderson, Elantris [Library of Babel]
When Brandon Sanderson’s debut novel, Elantris first appeared on store shelves, I was tempted to buy it. It had a lot of things going for it: good review quotes, a striking cover, an interesting description, and it’s published by Tor, who are usually pretty reliable. I couldn’t quite figure out, though, whether it was the… Continue reading Brandon Sanderson, Elantris [Library of Babel]
Peter Woit, Not Even Wrong
The two most talked-about books in physics this year are probably a pair of anti-sting-theory books, Lee Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics, and Peter Woit’s Not Even Wrong, which shares a name with Jacques Distler’s favorite weblog. I got review copies of both, but Not Even Wrong arrived first (thanks, Peter), and gets to be… Continue reading Peter Woit, Not Even Wrong
Too Many Science Books?
One of the perks of this corporate blogging gig is that it’s put me on the radar of book publishers, who have started sending me free stuff. We like free stuff, here at Chateau Steelypips, and we like books, so that’s a Good Thing. It’s becoming almost too much of a Good Thing, though– In… Continue reading Too Many Science Books?
2,087
That’s the number of books in our collection at the moment. Kate went nuts with a bar-code scanner, and entered them all into LibraryThing. Well, OK, that’s just the stuff at home– it doesn’t include the textbooks I keep in my office, or the maybe twenty science-related books I keep in there for extra reading… Continue reading 2,087
Seventeen Books Answers
Here are the answers to last week’s list of quotes from seventeen books:
Deep Thoughts from Pop Culture II
Here’s the other quote from Chuck Klosterman IV that I mentioned earlier, this one from an essay in Esquire on people who feel betrayed by pop culture: Do you want to be happy? I suspect that you do. Well, here’s the first step to happiness: don’t get pissed off that people who aren’t you happen… Continue reading Deep Thoughts from Pop Culture II
Deep Thoughts from Pop Culture
It feels a little silly to quote Chuck Klosterman as some sort of Deep Thinker– this is a guy whose whole claim to fame revolves around the expression of weirdly absolute opinions about pop culture ephemera, after all. Then again, the best political reporting being done these days is done by a pair of comedy… Continue reading Deep Thoughts from Pop Culture
Hugo Awards 2006
This year’s Hugo Awards (either the Oscars of the Golden Globes of the science fiction/ fantasy field, depending on who you ask) were announced last night at the Worldcon in LA. Pleasant surprises abound: 1) Spin by Robert Charles Wilson won the Best Novel Hugo. As I’ve said before, I think it was far and… Continue reading Hugo Awards 2006