“What took you so long to pick it up?” I did not believe the hype. Before The Windup Girl, my exposure to Bacigalupi’s work was through two short stories: “The People of Sand and Slag”–which seemed to pop-up everywhere 1 for a while; and then “Yellow Card Man”–which was in the same milieu as this […]
If you happen to be unfamiliar with Haruki Murakami: he writes these delightfully weird, surrealist 1 novels that are somehow simultaneously indecisive yet utterly certain of their subjects. Declaratively ambiguous dreamscapes that are half-hatched out of unimaginable futures. So with that in mind: Kafka on the Shore is like a bizarrely Oedipal Catcher in the […]
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Excellent. Almost perfect. To all of those that say that this is Heinlein’s best work: I agree, and would go so far as to say “by far”. A few thoughts (in no particular order 1): (1) Chapter twenty-six is probably one of the best single chapters in science fiction […]
Before we begin in earnest, a quote: If much in the world were mystery the limits of that world were not, for it was without measure or bound and there were contained within it creatures more horrible yet and men of other colors and beings which no man has looked upon and yet not alien […]
While I was reading this, I liked to imagine that I was at university and that Douglas Crockford was the insanely popular genius professor that showed up late for lectures, and then either spoke too fast or else mumbled a lot, and then locked himself in his office refusing to answer the door during office […]
In many ways, I’ve started to come to believe that you can’t go wrong with a John Joseph Adams’ collection. Wastelands was incredible, The Living Dead was great, and Federations…? Also very very good. The “dust jacket description” of this anthology pretty much sums it up… It collects a few different modern takes on the […]
SCENE: Samuel R. Delany, sitting at his writing desk, surrounded by books (some on shelves, but most piled on the floor), circa 1973; a man walks into the room. – Delany and the man stare at each other. They both stroke their beards. Delany: “Who are you?” The Man: “Don’t you know? They sent me.” […]
JavaScript Framework Matrix “Overview with functions and examples” (tagged: javascript jQuery Ext framework reference work ) Yojimbo, and The Case for Anything Buckets by Shawn Blanc (via DF) — interesting redux of Yojimbo and there are some very compelling arguments in there (perhaps I should give it a shot?) (tagged: yojimbo Mac osx software review […]
When I read Angela Carter, I imagine her as the literary grandmother to someone like Kelly Link 1. There’s an eccentric tone of fantasy, an unabashed outlandishness and roguish word-play; a challenge runs through the narrative as a thread, sometimes cleverly concealed at the seams and sometimes out in front like so much gaudy embroidery. […]
Arranged chronologically from 1955 through 2001, Dozois’ anthology Worldmakers: SF Adventures in Terraforming, is a tightly-themed collection of science fiction shorts. It’s a good overview of the terraforming subject’s treatment within the genre but the anthology seems to lack any stand-out stories – there are no great masterpieces in here. Which is not to say […]