Re: Tideline

As with “The House Beyond Your Sky,” what impresses me most about “Tideline,” by Elizabeth Bear is the sound and imagery of the prose. Here’s the opening: Chalcedony wasn’t built for crying. She didn’t have it in her, not unless her tears were cold tapered glass droplets annealed by the inferno heat that had crippled […]

Re: All Seated On The Ground

I usually don’t like Christmas stories. Or Christmas. And especially not Christmas carols. But I do like choral music. Which probably goes a long way toward explaining why like “All Seated On The Ground,” by Connie Willis so much. It begins in the middle of the frenzy of the “holiday season,” when six aliens come […]

Re: The Merchant and The Alchemist’s Gate

The story I have to tell is truly a strange one, and were the entirety to be tattooed at the corner of one’s eye, the marvel of its presentation would not exceed that of the events recounted… A lovely salute to the storytelling girl in The Orphan’s Tales, and a big claim to make. At […]

Re: The Yiddish Policeman’s Union

The 2007 Nebula final ballot is out, and I’ve actually read a few of them. So let here’s what I think of the one novel I’ve read so far. You probably already know the premise of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, by Michael Chabon. So far this and The Final Solution are the two Chabon books […]