Re: The Edge of Nowhere

What is it with me and talking dogs? In The Edge of Nowhere, by James Patrick Kelly, three sinister talking dogs show up, looking for a book that doesn’t exist. But then it’s doubtful that anything or anyone in Nowhere exists.

Re: Burn

Have you ever heard the theory that giving away content can encourage people to buy? Well, it worked on me. After I listened to James Patrick Kelly read “Burn” on Free Reads, I bought a copy. In hard-cover. And a collection of his short stories, Strange But Not A Stranger, also in hard-cover. In “Burn,” […]

Re: Conversations With and About My Electric Toothbrush

The weirdest thing about going to the dentist and getting my teeth cleaned is, well, my teeth are clean afterward. For the next few weeks, every time I brush, I’m going to stare at my teeth and think, Where are the coffee stains? What is this alien whiteness? What I really need to keep that […]

Re: The Unsolvable Death Trap

If you’re in the mood for a bit of dark humor, paranoia, and violence, you can get your fix from “The Unsolvable Death Trap.” In it, Jack Mangan paints a picture of a future New York, where the traffic is so bad rolling it up in the third dimension doesn’t help, corporate mergers have produced […]

Re: Dancing On Air

Like “Bullet In The Brain,” “Dancing On Air,” by Nancy Kress is another old favorite of mine. This Nebula and Hugo nominee from 1993 is a compelling glimpse into the competitive backstage of ballet: the injuries, the competition, the starvation, all showing the lengths (mostly) women will go to become ballerinas. They even use illegal […]

Re: Bullet In The Brain

Normally, I’m not all that interested in literary fiction. Most of what I’ve seen feels more like stuff you’re supposed to like, not stories you can like. The worse cases are go down like medicine that tastes so bad, you know it must be good for you. But on rare occasions, I’m surprised by a […]

Re: Trunk and Disorderly

First off, I want to thank Charles Stross for writing “Trunk and Disorderly” and Subterranean Press for making it available as a free Audiobook. Listening to it on the drive from Boston to New York makes Connecticut disappear. The hilarity begins when Ralph’s “clanky” girlfriend Laura walks out and his sister Fiona calls up. Fiona […]

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: The House Beyond Your Sky

Some science fiction reads like popular science writing dressed up in story. “The House Beyond Your Sky,” by Benjamin Rosenbaum, is a story you really can’t understand unless you already know some science. The references to cosmology–like simulated universes and critical constants–go completely unexplained. And you know what? I like being treated as an adult.

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 […]