Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer
December 9, 2021 at 1:06 am | Posted in Book Reviews, Elsewhere, Science Fiction | 1 CommentTags: Ada Palmer
Perhaps the Stars, the fourth and final book in Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota series, came out recently. I’ve written an in-depth review of it for Strange Horizons. If you haven’t read the previous three books, I reviewed the first book on this blog and wrote a huge two–part joint review of the second and third books a few years back for Strange Horizons.
Having written thousands and thousands of words about this series across those four essays, plus some past and forthcoming “year in review” Strange Horizons articles, I’ll just reiterate that I highly recommend trying this series. You might not like it, but if you do, you’ll be glad you tried it because there really aren’t many other authors writing similar science fiction.
In Search of Lost Time by Karen Heuler
October 2, 2018 at 12:50 am | Posted in Book Reviews, Elsewhere, Science Fiction | Leave a comment
In May, Strange Horizons posted my review of Karen Heuler’s novella In Search of Lost Time.
With that, I am caught up. At this point it is customary for me to say I hope to write more for this blog in the future. Since that sort of promise usually fails to turn out well, I’ll instead say I hope to at least link to my reviews elsewhere faster and we’ll see how that goes.
THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY, EDITED BY PETER S. BEAGLE AND JACOB WEISMAN
October 2, 2018 at 12:45 am | Posted in Book Reviews, Elsewhere, Fantasy, Short Stories, Uncategorized | Leave a comment
A little over six months ago, Strange Horizons posted my review of Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman’s anthology The New Voices in Fantasy. Besides of course discussing the stories themselves, I try to figure out what makes a story genre fantasy or mainstream. Then, for an encore, I muse about why fantasy short stories are less distinctive than novels.
Void Star by Zachary Mason
October 2, 2018 at 12:39 am | Posted in Book Reviews, Elsewhere, Science Fiction | Leave a commentTags: Zachary Mason
More than a year ago, Strange Horizons posted my review of Zachary Mason’s novel Void Star. This novel led me to theorize some readers read SF in hopes of learning how the future will work while others want to know how the future will feel. This is a book that will satisfy one of those two groups.
You may be waiting for me to explain why a review from more than a year ago is being posted now. The answer is should be obvious: because I didn’t do it before now!
Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald
April 15, 2016 at 11:01 am | Posted in Book Reviews, Elsewhere, Science Fiction, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Ian McDonald
Unfortunately I haven’t had time lately to review books I’ve been reading on this blog, but I’m still alive and, as ever, hoping to get back to writing more here in the future. In the meantime, Strange Horizons has published my review of Ian McDonald’s Luna: New Moon.
The Starry Rift by James Tiptree, Jr.
August 28, 2015 at 11:50 pm | Posted in Elsewhere | Leave a commentTags: James Tiptree Jr
Here’s something a little different from my usual reviews. Monday marked 100 years since the birth of Alice Sheldon, AKA James Tiptree, Jr., and to celebrate Strange Horizons hosted a discussion of one of the less commonly read Tiptree collections, The Starry Rift. The participants were SH fiction editor and critic Lila Garrott, author and critic Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, and…me!
When I link from here to a review of mine on Strange Horizons I usually try to let it stand on its own, but since this isn’t a review I can’t resist the temptation to put on my reviewer hat for just a second and mention that people who haven’t read Tiptree should probably start with the collection Her Smoke Rose Up Forever and move on to the novel Brightness Falls From the Air. The stories in The Starry Rift are in much the same vein as Brightness Falls. They share their setting with it as well, though not any characters, so it’s a good follow-up for fans wanting more.
The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin
July 30, 2015 at 11:43 am | Posted in Elsewhere | Leave a commentTags: Liu Cixin
To continue getting caught up, we move on to May of this year, when I reviewed Liu Cixin’s The Three Body Problem at Strange Horizons.
Echopraxia by Peter Watts
July 28, 2015 at 10:56 am | Posted in Elsewhere | Leave a commentTags: Peter Watts
This blog has been neglected as of late, but I’ve still been reviewing for Strange Horizons. Normally I link to those reviews more or less as they are posted there, but in this case the signal seems to have taken a long time to arrive. I’m not sure where WordPress’s servers are, but I don’t think this blog is a fifth of a parsec away from Strange Horizons as the crow flies. Perhaps that’s how far the signal had to go due to an inefficient path (bouncing around inside my head).
I’ve read but never reviewed Peter Watt’s 2006 novel Blindsight. That’s too bad, because it’s a fascinating book that really deserves a lot of discussion and scrutiny. Hopefully I will reread it in a year or two and write about it. In the meantime, I reviewed his long-awaited next novel Echopraxia in Strange Horizons back in October of last year.
The Moon King by Neil Williamson
August 7, 2014 at 11:37 pm | Posted in Book Reviews, Elsewhere | 4 CommentsTags: Neil Williamson
Recently Strange Horizons published my review of Neil Williamson’s debut novel The Moon King, and by recently I mean two weeks ago. Obviously this blog is going through another of its periods where I’m too busy to update it (I guess that’s a polite way of saying I’ve been too lazy to write stuff). That won’t change all that soon because tomorrow I’m getting on a plane for London. That’s right, Worldcon is nearly at hand.
I’ve been to two Worldcons before, but this is the first where I’ll attend a Hugo ceremony where I’m kinda, sorta, not-really-but-almost nominated for a Hugo (Speculative Fiction 2012, nominated for a Best Related Work category, contains an essay from this blog about, er, Worldcon) as well as the first where I’ll be on a panel. I may not have been posting, but I’ve been doing a lot of reading because I’m on a panel discussing the best novel Hugo. It’s a funny year to be doing this. Thanks to my obsession with reading series in order, to read as much as I can of the five Best Novel nominees I’ve so far read nine novels and feel distinctly under-prepared. I still have eleven left! Unless I get trapped in an elevator for a a few days I probably won’t finish Wheel of Time, but if you’re at the convention you should still swing by the panel at 7pm Thursday night to hear what the other panelists have to say. As for me, I plan on writing about the nominees on this blog after the convention but, let’s face it, I’m just as likely to never get around to it, so this may be your only chance to hear my amazing insights. If I think of any, that is. Right now, my notes consist of “Wheel of Time seems very long” but then I’ve never been good about taking notes.
I was going to link to the panel description, but Loncon3’s fancy online programming guide doesn’t seem to make this possible obvious (Edit: Niall points out you can keep track of my busy one panel schedule by following this link). Now I know why other participants have been pasting panel descriptions into their posts! Well, here you go:
2014 Hugos: Best Novel Shortlist Discussion
7pm – 8pm
Capital Suite 7+12 (ExCeL),
Justin Landon (M), Matt Hilliard, Ruth O’Reilly, Maureen Kincaid Speller
Our panel discusses this year’s shortlist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Orbit US / Orbit UK)
Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross (Ace / Orbit UK)
Parasite by Mira Grant (Orbit US / Orbit UK)
Warbound, Book III of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia (Baen Books)
The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor Books / Orbit UK)
What should win? What will win? What are the notable omissions?
The Echo by James Smythe
April 1, 2014 at 1:47 am | Posted in Book Reviews, Elsewhere, Science Fiction | Leave a comment
In what I’m pretty sure is a first for me, Strange Horizons has posted my second review for them in two months, this time of The Echo, James Smythe’s sequel to The Explorer.
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