Re:Bumblebee Economics

Honeybees get all the glamor but I like the fat, fuzzy, comical bumblebee. So naturally I enjoyed Bumblebee Economics, by Bernd Heinrich. The economics of the title refer to the energy economy of how bumblebees spend their energy to gather energy in the form of nectar and pollen. It’s a problem every organism has to […]

Relearning The Obvious

Here’s something I already knew: when I start writing at, let’s say, nine o’clock, instead of ten minutes of midnight, I actually have the energy to make serious progress. Now I’m feeling excited about “Mars Needs Worms” again. Here’s something else I already knew: I need daily reminders that I’m going to write, no matter […]

Re: Conversations With and About My Electric Toothbrush

The weirdest thing about going to the dentist and getting my teeth cleaned is, well, my teeth are clean afterward. For the next few weeks, every time I brush, I’m going to stare at my teeth and think, Where are the coffee stains? What is this alien whiteness? What I really need to keep that […]

Tricky Bugs

I was so sure this was a syrphid fly, but bugGuide has set me straight: it’s a Narcissus Bulb Fly Merodon equestris. At least it’s in the syrphid family. And I do have actual syrphid flies, but they’re much smaller than Mr. Bumblebee Fakeout Merodon.

Re: The Unsolvable Death Trap

If you’re in the mood for a bit of dark humor, paranoia, and violence, you can get your fix from “The Unsolvable Death Trap.” In it, Jack Mangan paints a picture of a future New York, where the traffic is so bad rolling it up in the third dimension doesn’t help, corporate mergers have produced […]

Fat Fantasy

I formulated the 150 page rule as self-defense against fat fantasy novels. You know who I mean. I was pretty sure I was going to hate them, but lots of people love them. How bad could they be? So I tried to give them a chance, I really did. And my reactions were nearly as […]

The Hunt For Little Bees

I’ve always been endlessly fascinated by all the little bugs in my yard, flitting about on their mysterious bug business. Now that I can get close-up pictures of them I feel like a new window has opened upon their world. That’s how I discovered how wrong I was about which weed they would like. What […]

The Dinosaur Heresies

While The Dinosaur Heresies, by Robert T. Bakker was published over twenty years ago, it remains the seminal book that shifted the popular image of dinosaurs from plodding swamp things that were justly extinguished, to lively, rutting beasts whose children are birds. As the book acknowledges its debt to 19th century paleontologists, it’s an interesting […]

In Search of Lost Sleep

The flip side of the 150 page rule is the quest for the holy grail of books, the book that’s so compelling, you stay up all night to finish it. When that happens to me, it short-circuits all my judgment, which makes it really hard to describe these books. But I can tell you how […]

Re: Dancing On Air

Like “Bullet In The Brain,” “Dancing On Air,” by Nancy Kress is another old favorite of mine. This Nebula and Hugo nominee from 1993 is a compelling glimpse into the competitive backstage of ballet: the injuries, the competition, the starvation, all showing the lengths (mostly) women will go to become ballerinas. They even use illegal […]