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Current books:
  • Lonely: A Memoir

    Lonely: A Memoir by Emily White

  • Dark Heart of the Night (French Voices)

    Dark Heart of the Night (French Voices) by Leonora Miano


Recent books:

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Book Review: Tomorrow! by Philip Wylie

It was an era more than half our population knows only through history. It was an era in which the United States went from being the only nation possessing nuclear weapons to facing the reality that the “Godless Commies” also had them. It was an era in which the Cold War blossomed, together [...]

Book Review: The Secret History of Science Fiction edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel

The Secret History of Science Fiction, a new anthology aimed at questioning the existence of genre boundaries, could be a victim of the very issue it seeks to address. It uses the term “science fiction” in the title.

The anthology proceeds from an interesting premise. Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow was nominated for the 1973 [...]

Book Review: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Science fiction — excuse me, speculative fiction — loves series. For whatever reason, readers — and evidently authors — can’t get enough of particular worlds or characters. And just as Margaret Atwood distances her fiction from science fiction, she may be taking the concept of a series in a different direction.

Atwood’s latest novel, [...]

Book Review: The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway

Writing an adroit novel is a challenge any time, but especially if you’re going to throw in ninjas and mime troupes. Setting the story in a post-Apocalyptic world also requires more than a bit of imagination. Throwing in a twist readers don’t see coming but find entirely acceptable is a Chinese puzzle in [...]

Favorite Film Friday: 2001: A Space Odyssey

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen 2001: A Space Odyssey. I do have one huge regret about all those viewings, though. None has been in a movie theater on a big screen.

I was 11 when the movie came out in 1968. I asked my parents to let me [...]

Book Review: The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist

Worried about retirement or maintaining your standard of living in your “old age”? The near-future country in which Swedish author Ninni Holmqvist’s first novel, The Unit, is set has a comfortable future in store for many women 50 and older and men 60 and older.

Imagine this: Your own, fully furnished apartment in a complex [...]

Book Review: The Burning Skies by David J. Williams

For whatever reason, series abound in science fiction and fantasy. You can’t go through those sections of a bookstore or library without seeing a large number of authors who have embarked on a series. Yet one of the problems that poses for a writer is how much space should be spent trying to [...]

New Scientist on SF

The latest issue of New Scientist contains a special section on SF. Among other things, it contains the picks of staff for various awards for SF books. Here’s a smattering:

Staff:

Best SF Book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Runners-up: Frank Herbert’s Dune and Iain M. Banks’ Use of Weapons

Worst SF Book: [...]

Book Review: The Mirrored Heavens by David J. Williams

Although normally cast in the future, science fiction still tends to be built upon current or relatively recent events and the state of the world. That’s certainly the case with The Mirrored Heavens, the debut novel by David J. Williams. Williams uses terrorist threats, political battles, military branch rivalries and East-West distrust and [...]

Book Review: The Man Who Turned Into Himself by David Ambrose

It’s surprising sometimes just what the popularization of certain scientific ideas can do. Certain concepts work their way into popular culture, despite the difficulty of math or science truly behind them. David Ambrose’s The Man Who Turned Into Himself indicates that even theoretical physics can actually prolong the life of and perhaps even resurrect [...]