Bard’s Oath
{4/5} “That oath cut them off from family, clan, and country. They forswore all thought of vengeance for wrongs done to themselves or their kin. They could not take up arms in war. Instead, their task — impossible as it all too often seemed — was to remain impartial and seek a peaceful solution to […]
Julian Comstock
{4.5/5} “It was Christmas morning. I supposed that didn’t mean anything in particular to Julian or Sam, but I was poignantly aware of the date. The sky was blue again, but a squall had passed during the dark hours of the morning, and the snow ‘lay round about, deep and crisp and even.’ Even the […]
Dragon and Phoenix
{5/5} “To rule the heart of the Phoenix Lord — that was power. Yet what was power if one lived confined? Though the bars of the cage were of carved jade, banded with gold and hung with silk, they were still bars.” Linden and Maurynna have returned to Dragonskeep. Maurynna changed into a dragon once but […]
Highway of Eternity
{4/5} “The incorporeality was, to many of the human race, something akin to a new and exciting religion… There were, however, some who protested most violently against it. We number ourselves among those protestants. There are many other protestants hiding out in various time periods. We maintain small, widely separated groups. It is harder to […]
More Than Human
{4.5/5} “He was in the wood, numbly prying the bark from a dead oak, when it happened. His hands were still and his head came up hunting, harking. He was as aware of the pressures of spring as an animal, and slightly more than an animal could be. But abruptly the spring was more than […]
The Last Dragonlord
{4.5/5} “He landed, claws scraping against stone, the sound harsh in the crystalline air. A red mist surrounded him and the great dragon became a wraith; the mist contracted, then disappeared, leaving behind the figure of a tall man.” Linden is a dragonlord, a human who can turn into a dragon. But he’s the last […]
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 : […]
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 […]