Re: Palimpsest (by Stross)

“Palimpsest,” by Charles Stross had great buzz at Readercon, even inspiring a panel. When I finally squeezed it into my reading, I could see why. It’s filled with great mind-stretching concepts. There are beautiful passages that are easily the best things I’ve ever read by him. You’ve got to respect a time-travel story that goes […]

Re: The Island

There’s lots of sense of wonder in “The Island,” by Peter Watts: the vast sweep of time, glimpses of a mysterious past and hints of a mysterious future. I loved the prologue, which describes building a space highway of wormholes. Then it injects the first sour note by asking to be thanked.

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, […]

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 […]

Re: Bridesicle

Mira awakens in a cryonic drawer to a hideous situation: Men can pay to have the woman of their choice fully revived, if the woman will agree to marry them. This idea just sickens me. And yet the vivid opening of “Bridesicle,” by Will McIntosh sucked me right in.