Mayflies and Eggs

All these little bugs having one last fling before winter are reminding me of a trio of stories I heard on Drabblecast a while ago, or as they like to call it, a Trifecta.

Re: Clad in Gossamer

One thing I’m finding in Nancy Kress stories is really good portrayals of jerks. In “Clad in Gossamer”, her take on The Emperor’s New Clothes, you know everyone’s a jerk, so it works well.

Re: Gifting Bliss

So I’m going through my archives of stories I like, which gave me an excuse to listen again the Drabblecast of “Gifting Bliss: Fifteen Years Later, Jason Avery’s Magic is Still Saving the World” by Josh Rountree. It’s a charming presentation, a kind of musical bio show, complete with promo break. Considering that I’m not […]

Re: Watchmen

Well, I finally read Watchmen, the graphic novel in which Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons so expertly deconstructed a genre overripe for deconstruction — the superhero comic. I’ve been hearing about this book for twenty years. I resisted because I just don’t care about superheroes. I always knew superheroes were silly, but I never realized […]

Re: There Are No Great Truths Here

It’s not often that I like something that whiffs even remotely of horror, but “There Are No Great Truths Here,” by D. T. Friedman suckered me in expertly. A carny barker retrieves small facts from the marks, charging them a nickel each. The reader gets the sense of leaning closer, of a brush with evil, […]

Re: The Exchange

After putting Graham Joyce on my list of authors I’d like to read more of, I finally got around to reading another one, The Exchange. And I liked it. This could be a pattern.

Re: Lizard Music

When I think of Daniel Pinkwater, the first book that comes to mind is always Lizard Music. It’s funny, intense, goofy, and light, sometimes in turns, sometimes all at once, in a way that leaves you off balance and finding something new every time you read it.

Re: The Yggysey

After The Neddiad, the only possible follow-up is The Yggysey. Yggsdrasil Birnbaum has resigned herself to her friends calling her Iggy. She played a minor role in the previous book, hanging out with Neddie and Seamus. Here she takes the soundstage, finding out where all the ghosts in the haunted hotel where she lives are […]

Re: The Neddiad

In The Neddiad, Neddie Wentworthstein’s father decides to move his family to Los Angeles so they can eat at the Brown Derby. This is typical of the charming absurdities that fill Daniel Pinkwater’s books. Anyway, Neddie goes on an eccentric journey by train to the Hollywood of an earlier era: bellboy ghosts and retired cowboy […]

Hugo 2009 scorecard

If you care about the Hugos, you already know that winners have been announced. All I know is that it looks like neither my votes nor my predictions went very far.