To be content-free or not to be content-free

Did I mention that my posts here may become more irregular? Or that sometimes I feel like I’ve jumped the rails? Well, the rails have rusted away under me. So I have a question for you.

Re: Immortal Snake

I’m a sucker for stories based on myths and folktales, and even if I don’t know the original, I love that sense of ancient days, with kings and gods and priests, and impossible situations evaded with cunning. “Immortal Snake,” by Rachel Pollack, is mythic from beginning to end. Long ago, in a time beyond memory, […]

Re: Fear of Rain

While listening to a reading of “Fear of Rain,” by Robert T. Jeschoneck, I was immediately drawn in by Aphrodite, a girl raised by Mr. Flood to drown Johnstown yet again. I liked that crazy old coot, Mr. Flood. The story is told with wonderful description, vivid magic, and a building tension. And it was […]

Desert Broom

I’m back. I spent a few days in San Diego visiting family, traipsing about, and of course–bee hunting. Are you surprised? The first place I found bees was on this trail to Cowles Mountain. It’s not exactly Everest, but I grew up just down the hill from here, and the silhouette of that peak haunts […]

Optimistic Tomatoes

If you need a little optimism in your life, grow tomatoes. (Besides, we might all be growing victory gardens next year.) They will keep flowering no matter what, until the first hard frost. Look at this! It’s after Columbus Day, and it’s still hoping. Too bad. I pinched the flower off so the plant will […]

Re: Bears

“Bears” by Leah Bobet opens with one of those sweeping statements that just beg to be justified: Ninety-eight percent of all fictional deaths are directly attributable to being eaten by bears. Bullshit, you say? What about those shooting and stabbings and drownings and beatings and death by Doomed Gay Manlove? Well, it’s not my problem […]

My Pratchett Project

First, a quick heads-up: I’ll be travelling this week, so the posts may get even more irregular. So I’m going to use this trip as an excuse to deal with some old material I’ve been meaning to finish. For one thing, I’ve been sitting on the notes I began when I decided I was going […]

Still Buzzing

Things are getting ratty looking in the garden, but the heart-leaved aster is still hosting a buzzapalooza every day. I wish I could get some pictures that conveyed just how many bees are all over. There must be a dozen bees just on one plant. Plus an Eastern carpenter bee showed up the other day. […]

GTFH: The universe

The most interesting parts of God: The Failed Hypothesis is not what the book has to say about god, but about science and morality (which I’ll save for a post next week.) In chapters four and five, the book tackles why there is something rather than nothing, and why our something is the way it […]

Re: The Alchemy of Stone

From the beginning, the rich detail of The Alchemy of Stone, by Ekaterina Sedia draws you into a tale of a city once ruled by a duke, now divided between Mechanics and Alchemists, and always, always watched over by gargoyles. Our heroine, Mattie is an intelligent automaton and as her city goes through a wrenching […]