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Arthur C. Clarke award

China Miéville won the 2005 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Iron Council, which is also on the shortlist for the 2005 Hugo Awards. I personally thought it weaker than Miéville’s prior work (which is all far more fantasy than sf), particularly Perdido Street Station, which won the Clarke Award in 2001.

The Clarke Award was […]

Springsteen marginalia

Back at home, a bit of time for reflection and not having wanted to overload the concert review, here’s a few more observations from Springsteen’s St. Paul performance:

Parent-child relationships seem to be in Bruce’s thoughts. During the show, he told several anecdotes about himself and his kids or himself and his parents. Plus “The […]

A different side of Bruce

Still away from home so my comments aren’t prompt. Still, here’s several but far from all of my impressions of Springsteen’s performance in St. Paul Tuesday night.

Twenty-five songs over 2 ½ hours. Half coming from Devils & Dust (9) and The Rising< (4); the others ranging from throughout his career. It is impossible to [...]

Bruce and Starbucks

As I leave to see Bruce in St. Paul tonight, I wanted to note the news reports that the lyrics on Devils & Dust are too hot for Starbucks. Yet one more reason to patronize your locally owned and operated barista rather than a corporate conglomerate. To quote the bumper stickers sold at Black Sheep […]

Book Review: Wonderdog (2004)

Who is Dev Degraw? Wonderdog, a comedic novel by Inman Majors, takes us along as ne’er-do-well Degraw wanders through a disintegrating life.

On the surface, Dev is a lot of things. He’s the 33-year-old son of the long-time governor of Alabama. He’s a divorced parent now chasing other women and pursuing his father’s female press […]