Blogroll

Book Review: The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas

It may now be as customary as carols, eggnog or nativity scenes. Odds are that each November and December there will a fracas over whether there is a “war on Christmas.” No doubt, those who contend Christmas is under attack by liberals, secular humanists or what have you will say “we told you so” if […]

Book Review: A Kidnapping in Milan by Steve Hendricks

George Orwell said they defend the indefensible. According to George Carlin, they “conceal reality.” Both reasons can explain how euphemisms have come to pervade modern media and be increasingly relied upon in government and politics. The so-called war on terror has generated plenty of them, from “regime change” to “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Yet one of […]

Book Review: Death as a Side Effect by Ana María Shua

Dystopian literature stems from no particular geographic boundaries. Aldous Huxley and George Orwell were British, Margaret Atwood is Canadian, Philip K. Dick and Kurt Vonnegut were American. Thus, while Ana María Shua sets Death as a Side Effect in her native Argentina, the conditions that beset that future society are perhaps universally possible.

Survival is […]

Book Review: The Ice Road by Stefan Waydenfeld

Good fortune — luck — manifests itself in a variety of ways. Frequently, just how lucky we are comes only with hindsight and even then we may not realize just what contributed to a serendipitous result. Yet the extent of a person’s fortune may well be a matter of perspective, much like the adage about […]

Book Review: The Universe in Miniature in Miniature by Patrick Somerville

Book publicity frequently is an exercise in the art (or artifice) of puffery. So, when a book is described as a “genre-busting” work, I tend to approach it with a bit of caution. Generally, though that term is a fair description of The Universe in Miniature in Miniature, Patrick Somerville’s collection of short stories. Some […]