Re: The Women of Nell Gwynne’s

One thing “The Women of Nell Gwynne’s,” by Kage Baker, really gets right is that you can’t take steampunk seriously.

Re: Palimpsest (by Valente)

Some people write for the love of zombies and airships. Others for dinosaurs . Others write for the love of books and trains. And cities and maps. And deeply, deeply damaged people. Palimpsest, by Catherynne M. Valente, tells the story of the things it loves in such bejeweled language, it seems to inspire still more […]

Re: It Takes Two

When I first read Nicola Griffith’s “It Takes Two,” in Eclipse Three, it didn’t make much of an impression on me. All I could remember was how quickly my interest faded in reading about high-tech workers bemoaning their fate post-dot-com bust. Even now that I’ve re-read the whole thing recently, I’m still not all that […]

Re: Overtime

I like the central premise of Charles Stross’s Laundry stories: eldritch gods are real, computers are breaching the barriers that keep them out, and the job of maintaining that barrier is left to a dysfunctional British bureaucracy known as the Laundry. But if you haven’t read The Atrocity Archives or The Jennifer Morgue, this is […]

One tomato, so close to ripe

The first ripe tomato of the year started to color up a few days ago. The red is filling in so fast, I can see it changing over the course of a day. Today, for instance, that pale patch on top was about twice as big.

Re: Your Inner Fish

With its strong emphasis on commonalities with all tetrapods, all animals with heads, all animals with bodies, all living beings — Your Inner Fish, by Neil Shubin is a fascinating book about the structures in our bodies. It’s a little sad that the book has to begin with an argument for evolution. The first chapter […]

Re: The God Engines

I really didn’t expect to like “The God Engines,” by John Scalzi as much as I did. For one thing, most of his work makes me crazy. For another, the story is written in a clunky fantasy style that makes you wonder if he’s practicing for next year’s Kirk Poland. I mean, what else can […]

Re: The City & The City

While I found The Windup Girl absorbing but unpleasant, I found The City & The City, by China Mieville more pleasant, but — up until the last third — soporific. Much of the pleasure comes from the language, not just in the prose, but in the invented languages, Besz and Illitan, and the invented cities, […]

Advice for a pear

Hi there, pear, blushing on your branch Near the treetop. Belly swelling as you grow Like a raindrop. Forget about the metaphor. Don’t drop.

Re: The Windup Girl

I first encountered The Windup Girl, at last year’s Readercon, when Paolo Balcigalupi read the first chapter. It paints a vivid picture of a factory in a future Bangkok, where genetically modified elephants are used like mill donkeys to wind massive springs to store energy. It’s a world where generippers have destroyed food supplies and […]