Blogroll

Locus Awards finalists

Locus magazine has announced the finalists for its annual awards. In addition to awards for Best Science Fiction Novel, awards are also given for Best Fantasy Novel, Best First Novel and Best Young Adult Book, all based on a readers’ poll.

This year’s best sf novel finalists are: The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks; Eastern […]

Book Review: The Great Mortality (2005)

Unfortunately, many readers tend to view books about history as a sleep-inducing recitation of dry events and dates. John Kelly’s The Great Mortality is one of those works that proves there are some wonderful history books out there.

The Great Mortality is subtitled “An Intimate History of the Black Death.” Intimate accurately describes how Kelly […]

Book Review: Foop! (2005)

Aliens, robots, other planets, time travel, dystopias. All these archetypes of science fiction make their appearance in one fashion or another in Foop!, a first novel by Chris Genoa.

Foop! is a comedic and at times scatological look at where the Earth may be headed and why. Its hero is Joe, who, as the name […]

Normal marginalia

As I catch up on a few things following my return, here’s some more traditional (i.e., non-Springsteen) marginalia

I understand some of the rationale and the impact of the digital age, but there’s just something inherently wrong with the concept of emptying a library of books. (NYT article – registration required). A story in the […]

Penile humor and the First Amendment

Via How Appealing comes this Michigan Court of Appeals decision (PDF file) about whether televised jokes told by a human penis are protected by the First Amendment.

Seems Timothy Huffman produced a program called “Tim’s Area of Control” on a public access cable channel in Grand Rapids, Mich. One episode, that aired between 10:30 and […]