Re: Accelerando

I’m about to insert one large grain of salt into the 150 page rule. (Ouch.) The rule sounds generalized, but the results are individualized. There are books I can’t finish that you may love. Take Accelerando, by Charles Stross. Please.

Read More Re: Accelerando

Re: The Spray

“The Spray,” by Jonathan Lethem explores the conceit of a spray that makes things you’ve lost visible. As the narrator and his wife, Addie, play with the spray, they tease each other. Then finally they spray each other–and reveal what probably should have stayed lost.

Read More Re: The Spray

Re: The Edge of Nowhere

What is it with me and talking dogs? In The Edge of Nowhere, by James Patrick Kelly, three sinister talking dogs show up, looking for a book that doesn’t exist. But then it’s doubtful that anything or anyone in Nowhere exists.

Read More Re: The Edge of Nowhere

Re: Girl In Landscape

Whether they admit or it not, everyone writes with all the other books and movies they have seen in mind and everyone reads with all the other books and movies they have seen in mind. And now we can throw games and comics into the mix. For example, Halting State won’t make a lot of […]

Read More Re: Girl In Landscape

Re: Burn

Have you ever heard the theory that giving away content can encourage people to buy? Well, it worked on me. After I listened to James Patrick Kelly read “Burn” on Free Reads, I bought a copy. In hard-cover. And a collection of his short stories, Strange But Not A Stranger, also in hard-cover. In “Burn,” […]

Read More Re: Burn

Re: Luminous

I was wrong about “Luminous,” by Greg Egan. I finally got around to reading it, and I have to say I’m disappointed. Since I read “Dark Integers” first, I was hoping for a little more about what happened in Shanghai, who Industrial Algebra was, and some justification for a defect in math allowing contact with […]

Read More Re: Luminous

Re: The Collapsium

When you’re reading something that’s so aggressively bad it makes your stomach hurt, it’s no great act of courage to invoke the 150 page rule. But when the book merely fails to entertain you, you can only set it aside with a twinge of regret. For example, I’m sorry that I gave up on The […]

Read More Re: The Collapsium

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 […]

Read More Re: The Unsolvable Death Trap