Category: SF

Short Story Club: “Elegy for a Young Elk” by Hannu Rajaniemi

Hannu Ranjaniemi’s The Quantrum Thief has generated a lot of buzz, but doesn’t seem to be available on this side of the Atlantic (not without exorbitant shipping charges, anyway). As a result, I haven’t read anything of his, so I was happy to see “Elegy for a Young Elk on the Short Story Club list.… Continue reading Short Story Club: “Elegy for a Young Elk” by Hannu Rajaniemi

Short Story Club: “A Serpent in the Gears” by Margaret Ronald

I do intend to keep reading and commenting on the stories for Torque Control’s Short Story Club, but I missed last week’s because I couldn’t really think of anything to say about it. The story was nicely written, and all, but it’s just kind of… there. This week’s post was delayed by my annual day… Continue reading Short Story Club: “A Serpent in the Gears” by Margaret Ronald

Hugo Awards 2010

The 2010 Hugo Award Winners were announced on Sunday night. Of course, this being a science fiction award, it’s only appropriate that they be announced from THE FUTURE, so the results were available early this morning, US time. It turns out that I voted for 1.5 of the fiction award winners: China Mieville’s The City… Continue reading Hugo Awards 2010

Short Story Club: “The Things” by Peter Watts

Over at Torque Control, Niall Harrison is doing a Short Story Club, hosting discussions of SF short fiction. As I always vaguely regret not reading enough short fiction to make sensible nominations for the Hugos, this seemed like a good opportunity to read a selection of stories that a smart person with pretty good taste… Continue reading Short Story Club: “The Things” by Peter Watts

Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik [Library of Babel]

Tongues of Serpents is the nth book in the Temeraire series started with His Majesty’s Dragon (in the US, anyway), and another “Meh” review from me. In this case, this is probably less to do with the book itself than with the fact that I am not really in the target demographic for this book.… Continue reading Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik [Library of Babel]

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold [Library of Babel]

I don’t believe the actual book is out yet, but you can get an electronic Advance Reading copy of the Nth Miles Vorkosigan book, Cryoburn already. Kate picked up a copy, and while she hasn’t gotten around to it yet, I read it this week while putting SteelyKid to bed. The book is another “Lord… Continue reading Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold [Library of Babel]

All the Myriad Inceptions

In comments to yesterday’s post about my favorite Many-Worlds story, a couple of people mention “All the Myriad Ways,” a Larry Niven short story. I don’t think I’ve ever actually read the story, but it gets brought up all the time, so I’m familiar with the concept. It’s an angle on Many-Worlds that I don’t… Continue reading All the Myriad Inceptions

Inception

We haven’t yet gotten to the point where we’re comfortable leaving SteelyKid with a babysitter, so seeing the movie everybody’s talking about took a while. Since she’s off at Gammy’s, though, we got a rare night to ourselves and went to the movies. My immediate reaction is that it’s great to see a movie that’s… Continue reading Inception

Many-Worlds in Fiction: “Divided by Infinity”

Today, Tor.com has posted the complete story “Divided by Infinity” by Robert Charles Wilson. This remains probably the best science fiction story ever using the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum physics (though it doesn’t call it that explicitly), and also the creepiest: In the year after Lorraine’s death I contemplated suicide six times. Contemplated it seriously,… Continue reading Many-Worlds in Fiction: “Divided by Infinity”