Re: Our Cosmic Origins

The second cosmology book recommended in Spin is Our Cosmic Origins, by Armand Delsemme. A slender book, it gives a good summary of the origins of the Solar System, but skims over a lot of explanation. Understanding and accepting it is largely dependant on reading other books. Being a cometologist, he goes into fascinating detail […]

Re: Territory

It’s a good thing Tombstone, Arizona is a small town, because in Territory, by Emma Bull, you seem to meet all of them. The four Earp brothers, their wives, a daughter, Doc Holliday and his common-law wife, Kate Elder. Ike and Billy Clanton, John Ringo and his various rustler friends. In the first 200 pages, […]

What’s your favorite SF movie scene?

Chris Howard asks what’s your favorite SF movie scene? Well, this is a huge spoiler, but the first thing that comes to my mind is the sudden impalement of a beloved character near the end of “Serenity”. It’s the classic, shocker, anything-can-happen-after-this moment. The next that comes to mind is from “Dark Star”: “It’s time […]

Looking forward to reading the Hugos

I’ve got May all charted out for reading the Hugo nominees, plus a smattering of other works I like. I’m come really close to actually casting a vote in past years, but never managed to read them in time. Well, this year, I’ve got this blog to give me an excuse. Now if I could […]

2007 Nebula recap

I didn’t quite manage to read the Nebula ballot before they announced the winners. Here are the stories, anyway, ordered very roughly by how much I enjoyed them. I definitely want to read more from Nalo Hopkinson, Ted Chiang, and Vera Nazarian. I was so disappointed by the Nancy Kress stories, I want to go […]

Re: Odyssey

Considering my resistance to children in stories, I was beginning to worry I was being too much of a curmudgeon. But I can see I have some learning to do if I want to be nearly as grumpy as Gregory McAllister. The dominant voice in Odyssey, by Jack McDevitt, Mac is an editor with a […]

Re: In The New Moon’s Arms

After all this space opera and time travel and scifi, I was ready to read something truly human as I cracked open In the New Moon’s Arms, by Nalo Hopkinson. The book opens with the funeral of Calamity’s father, and Calamity is trying to hide her laughter over Mrs. Winter losing her drawers. Calamity herself […]

Why you should leave leaf litter on the ground

The flowers look amazing right now, but the really amazing awakening is what you hear at night.

Re: The Life and Death of Planet Earth

One of the books recommended at the end of Spin, The Life and Death of Planet Earth, by Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, shows you what the Spin protects the Earth from. The book has an interesting structure, telling the creation and history of our world by mirroring it in the future.

Re: Spin

Some science fiction reads like thinly disguised science articles, which makes me more interested in reading the source material than the stories. Sad, I know. Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson, overcomes this by focusing on the lives of three people while using the science as a visionary backdrop. By the end of the first chapter, […]