Cosmic Jackpot

A good book you might wish you had read before tackling “The House Beyond Your Sky,” is Cosmic Jackpot. In clear, entertaining arguments, Paul Davies works his way through the various flavors of theories attempting to explain the “Goldilocks” problem. That is, there are a small set of critical constants that have to be within [...]

Bright of the Sky

I heard Kay Kenyon present at Readercon and liked her, so I went looking for Bright of the Sky. The book has a very cool opening, in which a quantum AI grew obssessed with evidence for another universe. I wanted to know more about the AI, but the story is really about the other universe.

softspoken

Do you go to cons only to discover that the Guest of Honor is someone you’ve barely heard of? That certainly makes me feel stupid. For instance, last year Lucius Shepard was the GoH at Readercon, and had interesting things to say in his interview. I decided I needed to do my homework. Now I’m [...]

The Secret History of Moscow

In 90s Moscow, where the streets are filled with kiosks “selling everything and manned by loud men who wouldn’t leave you alone,” something even stranger than capitalism is happening. Galina’s sister Masha is transformed into a jackdaw, sending Galina looking for her. She meets a cop, Yakov, who is assigned to track down rumors [...]

A Geography of Oysters

Some people have loved oysters since childhood. Some would never touch them. Some discover them as adults, and then can’t get enough of them. That last group describes me.
The first time I ate an oyster on the half shell, I had the usual fears. It would be slimy. It would sicken me. It was [...]

Halting State

When an army of Orcs rob a bank, you’re know you’re in for a good time. So who thinks it’s worthwhile to raid the central bank of the gameworld Avalon Four? Sue, an Edinburgh cop, Elaine, a forensic auditor, and Jack, a gaming programmer, are called together to find out. Throw in corporate backstabbing, terror [...]

Ysabel

I started reading Guy Gavriel Kay because I had the feeling I was supposed to like him. The Fionavar books looked like just the thing for my Tolkien-warped brain. Well, I hated Fionavar, only making it partway into the second book. It got better once he stopped playing insert-the-Simarillion-reference and started writing his own ideas, [...]

Rollback

Robert J. Sawyer has some useful things to say about promoting your work. After all, the guy who snagged sfwriter.com for his website must know what he’s doing. But maybe he’s a little too good at promoting himself.
When I heard him interviewed on Dragon Page Cover to Cover, I was intrigued by the opening dilemma. [...]

My 2007 Reading List

I plan to read the Nebula ballot, mostly out of a sense of obligation, but I’ve already read the one I was most interested in. I’m more excited about reading through my own list.

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 I’ve [...]