Posted on October 9, 2009 by Pam Phillips
After seeing Eileen Gunn at Readercon last July, I finally checked out her collection of short fiction, Stable Strategies and Others. It’s a slender volume filled out with three encomiums plus an author’s foreword plus endnotes for each story, all commenting about how slowly she writes. What she does write is good stuff.
Filed under: science fiction | Tagged: books I like, Eileen Gunn | Leave a Comment »
Posted on September 25, 2009 by Pam Phillips
After putting Graham Joyce on my list of authors I’d like to read more of, I finally got around to reading another one, The Exchange. And I liked it. This could be a pattern.
Filed under: fantasy | Tagged: books I like, Books of 2007, Graham Joyce | Leave a Comment »
Posted on September 18, 2009 by Pam Phillips
You probably already know that The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson tells an alternate history where the Black Plague wiped out Christian Europe, which leaves a world dominated by Buddhists and Muslims. This gives you a good excuse to explore parts of world history we don’t hear so much about. As [...]
Filed under: science fiction | Tagged: alternate history, books I like, Kim Stanley Robinson, 2003 Hugo, Books I | 4 Comments »
Posted on September 11, 2009 by Pam Phillips
When I think of Daniel Pinkwater, the first book that comes to mind is always Lizard Music. It’s funny, intense, goofy, and light, sometimes in turns, sometimes all at once, in a way that leaves you off balance and finding something new every time you read it.
Filed under: fantasy | Tagged: books I like, Books of 1976, Daniel Pinkwater | Leave a Comment »
Posted on April 21, 2009 by Pam Phillips
In Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow, Marcus Yallow is a smartass who delights in playing Harajuku Fun Madness and in evading the security at his high school. He and his friends are caught in the post-bombing sweep after a terrorist attack on San Francisco. After a harrowing interrogation, Marcus is set loose. Though he knows [...]
Filed under: science fiction | Tagged: 2008 Nebula, 2009 Hugo, 2009 Locus, books I like, Cory Doctorow, lost sleep, Tor | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 26, 2009 by Pam Phillips
Sailing to Sarantium, by Guy Gavriel Kay breaks the pattern of the previous books. It focuses on one character, Crispin, a skilled but flawed mosaic artist. He travels to Byzantium, I mean Sarantium, apparently in the same world as Al-Rassan, but centuries earlier, there’s no war at the end, and not a word about Fionavar.
Filed under: fantasy | Tagged: 2001 Mythopoeic, books I like, books of 1999 | Leave a Comment »
Posted on December 19, 2008 by Pam Phillips
If you’re reluctant to commit to reading even a sub-series of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, Pyramids is a pretty good standalone sampler of his humor.
Teppic, heir to the kingdom of Djelibeybi, is a good-hearted character, even if he is training to be an assassin. The first third of the book is dominated by his training [...]
Filed under: fantasy | Tagged: books I like, humor, Terry Pratchett | Leave a Comment »
Posted on December 5, 2008 by Pam Phillips
When I picked a throughly read copy of A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin at the library, the book’s binding was coming apart. There’s a reason why this is also known as A Storm of Words. Despite the warning signs of bloat, I had a terrific time reading this book.
Filed under: fantasy | Tagged: books I like, George R. R. Martin, Song of Ice and Fire | Leave a Comment »
Posted on November 28, 2008 by Pam Phillips
It’s time to admit that there are several books I like that I’m not going to be able to do justice to, and waiting to post about them won’t make it any better. For example, The Limits of Enchantment, by Graham Joyce is exactly the sort of book that I never would have bothered with [...]
Filed under: fantasy | Tagged: 2006 World Fantasy, books I like, Graham Joyce | Leave a Comment »
Posted on November 21, 2008 by Pam Phillips
If you read cosmology books for fun, you’ll have plenty of fun reading Anathem, by Neil Stephenson. It also helps if you like wordplay, language, and philosophy. I liked this book so much I was actually a bit relieved that I didn’t fall in love with it, because a 900 page book could mean some [...]
Filed under: science fiction | Tagged: 2009, 2009 Hugo, 2009 Locus, books I like, cosmology, Morrow, Neil Stephenson | 2 Comments »