Like a lot of people in SF/ Fantasy circles, I stayed up late reading last night. Unlike most of those people, though, what I was reading was not A Dance with Dragons from George R. R. Martin, but Vortex by Robert Charles Wilson, the sequel to Spin and Axis, concluding a series that he said […]
Category: SF
Daniel Abraham and Bizarre Quirks of Publishing
A little while back, I bought The Dragon’s Path by Daniel Abraham. Abraham is the author of the highly-regarded but not all that highly sold Long Price Quartet. I’ve heard nothing but good things about this, but I couldn’t get through the first book, for reasons that are entirely personal and no reflection on the […]
Hannu Rajaniemi, The Quantum Thief [Library of Babel]
I’ve heard a lot of buzz about The Quantum Thief— see, for example, this enthusiastic review from Gary K. Wolfe, so I was psyched when it finally became available in the US a little while back. Of course, the down side of this sort of buzz is that it’s almost impossible to live up to […]
Short Story Club: “That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made”
In past years, I have griped at length about the awful, maudlin dreck that Mike Resnick keeps putting on the Hugo ballot– see this 2009 post for example. I think Abigail Nussbaum put it very well back in 2009, when she wrote of Resnick’s “Article of Faith” from that year’s short story ballot that “his […]
More on Divided by Infinity
I had intended last Wednesday’s post on the Many-Worlds variant in Robert Charles Wilson’s Divided by Infinity to be followed by a post on the other things I said when I did a guest lecture on it for an English class. What with one thing and another, though, I got a little distracted, and I’m […]
Short Story Club: “Ponies,” by Kij Johnson
Kij Johnson’s “Ponies” is the second on Locus’s Short Story Club list of award-nominated stories. More than that, though, it’s an actuall award winner, having claimed a share of the Nebula for Best Short Story. I enjoyed Johnson’s two novels, The Fox Woman and Fudoki quite a bit, so I’m happy to see her doing […]
You Will Never Die
If I ever decided to abandon any pretense of integrity or credibility, and just shoot for making a bazillion dollars peddling quantum hokum, the particular brand of quantum philosophy I would peddle has already been laid out, in Robert Charles Wilson’s Divided by Infinity. In the story, the narrator is given a copy of a […]
When Aliens Attack
As I have admitted previously, I have a fondness for tv shows about UFO’s, the loonier the better. So, when I learned that there was a show called When Aliens Attack airing last night on the National Geographic channel, I was all over that. I’m happy to report that it did not disappoint– it brought […]
Short Story Club: “The Jaguar House, in Shadow,” by Aliette de Bodard
As mentioned a little while ago, Locus is running a Short Story Club to discuss the award-nominated stories that are available online. First up is Aliette de Bodard’s “The Jaguar House, in Shadow”. Like her novels and other notable short fiction, this has a Central American theme, though it’s alternate-history SF rather than fantasy. This […]
Short Story Club 2: The Locussing
For both of the readers who enjoyed last fall’s Short Story Club, there’s another round starting up soon, this time run by Locus, featuring award-nominated works. I’m busier now than I was in the fall, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to participate in all of these, but then, I’ve already read two of […]