Brightly Burning
{4/5} “Lan stared at the wine the color of old embers glowing in the heart of his glass. ‘I would like to toast my family,’ he said, taking an absolute malicious pleasure in choosing words heavily weighted with irony and loaded with a definite double meaning. ‘For without your actions, I would not be where […]
Comments on Locus All-Centuries Poll: Novels
Here are my comments on the novel component of the results of the Locus All-Centuries Poll. 20th Century SF Novel: Their ranking Author : Title (Year) My rating My comments 1 Herbert, Frank : Dune (1965) I read it too long ago to rate but I will read it again. 2 Card, Orson Scott : […]
Comments on Locus All-Centuries Poll: Shorts
The results of the Locus Online All-Centuries Poll are now out. I told you what my votes were a while ago. Here are the results of the poll, and following are my comments on the short fiction component. In terms of short fiction, there’s a lot I haven’t read — there’s also some I read a […]
Codex
{4.5/5} “But there was something magnetic about them, something that compelled respect, even the silly ones, like the Enlightenment treatise about how lightning was caused by bees. They were information, data, but not in the form he was used to dealing with it. They were non-digital, nonelectrical chunks of wood pulp and ink, leather and […]
The Beekeeper’s Pupil
{4.5/5} “It’s hard to put into words the effect he has on the household, being both its master and a blind man. I caught a glimpse of him this morning seated at the harpsichord, just beginning to play, with such pain on his face that I hardly dared to look. For an hour the house […]
The Many-Colored Land
{4.5/5} “The notion that time-travelers might disrupt the present world by meddling with the past had seriously troubled Madame Guderian for many weeks after the departure of Karl Josef Richter. She had concluded at last that such a paradox must be impossible, since the past is already manifest in the present, with the continuum sustained […]
The Andromeda Strain
{4/5} “Scientific research was much like prospecting: you went out and you hunted, armed with your maps and your instruments, but in the end your preparations did not matter, or even your intuition. You needed your luck, and whatever benefits accrued to the diligent, through sheer, grinding hard work.” When a satellite is brought down […]
Hitchers
{4.5/5} “My success came by standing on the shoulders of someone I hadn’t even liked, who had expressly forbidden me from doing what I did. On his death bed.” Finn’s wife Lorena was struck by lightning and died two years ago. Now he’s trying to date again, but it’s tough. Finn is a cartoonist — […]
Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes
{4.5/5} “There was something inside of man that made him want to destroy what he built. Alone among God’s primates he kills for sport or lust or greed. With each passing season, men found new ways to kill more of each other. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land. And yet […]
Star Trek Typhon Pact: Paths of Disharmony
{4.5/5} “‘So far,’ Jean-Luc replied, ‘every move the Typhon Pact has made, regardless of the ultimate goal, has been carried out with deliberation and patience. Whatever they’re doing, it’s for a reason.’” Andor, one of the founding members of the Federation, was hit hard by the Borg and it’s facing a problem specific to their people — […]