Re: The Gambler

In “The Gambler,” by Paolo Balcigulpi, Ong is a Laotian who fled a despotic regime. His father was an idealist who believed in Thoreau, civil disobedience, and publishing broadsheets denouncing Laotian politics. His mother was a realist who escaped with Ong after his father was arrested. Now Ong is in LA, working for Milestone Media—a […]

Re: As Their Eyes Touched God

“As Their Eyes Touched God,” by Robin Gillespie is a great example of the impact a piece of short fiction can have. The story sneaks up on you with a couple sitting on the roof of their apartment building. Something’s going on. As it unfolds, you slowly understand how awful it is and how beautiful. […]

The end of flower weeks

The roses are done. The rose hips begun. The irises are done. A pod for each one.

Re: Article of Faith

If I believed in a god I would swear to him/her/them that I’ve read “Article of Faith” by Mike Resnick before. A priest has a robot servant who wants to understand god. The robot asks him questions and takes his answers to heart. The robot desperately wants to believe. It wants to know if it […]

Re: Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders

One thing’s for sure about “Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders” by Mike Resnick; the title lets you know right away that it’s a magic shop story. And if you like sentimental magic shop stories, this one delivers.

Upsy daisy

Just the other day, I was wondering who the next volunteer would be. And yesterday, as if having a bright sunny day for a change wasn’t enough, a bright little Ox-eye Daisy popped up. Nice! Last year I had to go to Readercon to see a daisy. The real question is, Will the bees like […]

Bowl of berries

Today’s harvest: four big juicy strawberry strawberries and three intense Alpine strawberries. It’s a real incentive to get your shoes on in the morning when you know there’s ripe strawberries waiting for you. And the snails.

Re: Exhalation

Where “Evil Robot Monkey” touched my heart, “Exhalation” by Ted Chiang engaged my brain. No, wait. It stole my brain and turned it inside out in one long thought experiment. The reading on Escape Pod perfectly matches the dry tone of the narration. Opening with the jarring image of exchanging lungs for freshly charged ones […]

Re: Evil Robot Monkey

“Evil Robot Monkey“, by Mary Robinette Kowal presents yet another talking animal for me to fall in love with.

Another batch of volunteers

Last year I discovered squash bees in my yard. Since they specialize in squash, I wanted to make sure they would have squash flowers. So I planted some crookneck summer squash. And it’s coming up. So far so good. And now this year’s batch of volunteer squash are showing up, which means we might have […]