Archive for the ‘Reviews of books’ Category
Shine
{4/5} “It has always been the will of man to separate us in thought, in clothing, in language. Separate, we can be controlled. Separate, we can be killed in the quiet of the night and disappear into myth. Separate, we forget that in the end we have the power.” Shine edited by Jetse de Vries […]
House of Suns
{5/5} “In the long run, the best strategy for cultural longevity was either to sit tight in a single system, or become like the Lines, entirely unshackled from planetary life. Expansionism worked for a while, but was ultimately futile. Not that that stopped new emergents from trying, even when they had six million years of […]
The Usurper’s Crown
{4.5/5} “What few outsiders knew was that the palace itself formed a latticework of spells with the Pearl Throne at its heart. The order of the passages, the order of the day, the patrols of the soldiers, the dances of the worshipers, all combined to continuously renew the work of the thousand sorcerers who had […]
Star Trek: Troublesome Minds
{4.5/5} “Occasionally a child has a telepathic ability that exceeds the strength of most Isitri. These children are undisciplined and have a tendency to push their thoughts and emotions on those around them. Usually, with training, this can be controlled. Every few generations there is a genetic mutation that produces what we call a ‘troublesome […]
The Distant Hours
{4.5/5} “All things considered, I think I was doing pretty well: only occasionally did I allow myself to slip deep inside the pool of my own most maudlin imaginings. At these times I’d find a quiet, dark corner — all the better to give myself over fully to the fantasy — and picture in great […]
City of Illusions
{4.5/5} “We hide from the Shing. Also we hide from what we were. Do you see that, Falk? We live well in the houses — well enough. But we are ruled utterly by fear. There was a time we sailed in ships between the stars, and now we dare not go a hundred miles from […]
Planet of Exile
{4.5/5} “They looked at her. She had heard that farborns would meet one’s eyes straight on, but did not put the story to test. At least none of them stopped her; her clothing was not unlike theirs, and some of them, she saw in her quick flicking glances, were not very much darker-skinned than men. […]
Rocannon’s World
{4.5/5} “The kind of ship Rocannon had come here on took years and years to ride the night between the worlds, those years to the men in the ship seemed only a few hours. In the City Kerguelen on the star Forrosul this man Rocannon had spoken to Semley of Hallan and given her the […]
Eon
{4/5} “That was where it began — the Library Beast, he thought of it, threatening to consume him — the knowledge that had every day taken a bit of his humanity and rubbed it thin, pushing him closer to some sort of personal crisis. There was no way — yet — to deal with what […]
A Sorcerer’s Treason
{5/5} “When he was with her, describing the place from which he came and telling her its legends and history, the proposed journey seemed as natural as taking the train to Madison or Chicago. But alone on the streets of Bayfield with the ordinary bustle and clatter of life around her punctuated by the church […]