Re: God’s Problem

Since I like messing about with gods, I found Bart Ehrman’s interview on Fresh Air about the problem of evil very interesting. In his book, God’s Problem, Ehrman examines how the Bible attempts to reconcile the idea of a loving, omnipotent god with the evil in this world. Each chapter opens with his personal observations […]

Re: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

Between going to Readercon and staying up late two nights in a row reading Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, by Robert Charles Wilson, I was in serious sleep debt for a week.

Re: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

I was expecting to love The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin. I love stories that mess about with gods. It tells a cool origin story. There’s interesting magic that comes from writing. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve met her and been tantalized by the prospect of reading the stories she wants to tell. I […]

Squash to bee

The bees in the squash have horns to toot: The first squash has set fruit. So cute!

Re: Recalculating

Unlike Stross’s “Palimpsest,” I can understand why “Recalculating,” by Tina Connolly uses second person. Like “Directions,” the story is told by a GPS system, giving such directions as: Show them your spinach and the guard will let you in.

The temptations of ripe tomatoes

Whatever you may think of what I write, Kindly do not attempt to fling tomatoes.

Return of the Wool Carder bee

Another bee that I’ve been looking for has turned up: the Wool Carder bee. They’re called Wool Carders because the females gather the fuzz from hairy leaves to line their nests. Like the honeybee, they’re not natives, but an introduced bee from Europe. Unlike the honeybee, they tend to stick to Old World flowers. Mine […]

Re: Predictably Irrational

I recently read a profile of Krugman in the New Yorker, which said that economists assume that people are rational economic actors because you can be irrational in too many ways. Irrationality is not predictable. Predictably Irrational, by Daniel Ariely makes the case that it is.

Re: Will You Be An Astronaut?

In New Skies, there are a fair number of classics which are heavily anthologized elsewhere, such as “Out of All Them Bright Stars” and “They’re Made Out of Meat“. Most of the stories seem to be directed at young people who haven’t read science fiction before. I think if that were the case for me, […]

Re: Out of All Them Bright Stars

In “Out of All Them Bright Stars,” by Nancy Kress, it’s the end of the night, and Sally Gourley is filling up the catsup bottles when an alien walks into the diner. I know right away it’s one of them — no chance to make a mistake about that — even though it’s got on […]