Blogroll

Seeing proof of my foreign fiction fixation

It started this year and I’ve commented on it a few times. For whatever reason, I’ve become more and more intrigued with fictional works by non-U.S. authors. I realized the extent to which I’ve indulged in and enjoyed that fixation preparing the ballot I submitted during the weekend for this year’s NBCC Book Awards.

Of […]

Happy 90th Arthur!

Today is Arthur C. Clarke’s 90th birthday. I make note of this because Clarke is significantly responsible for my longstanding interest in quality science fiction.

I’d had a casual interest in SF before going to college. One semester, though, I took a SF class in the English department. By the time the year was out, […]

Happy happy joy joy III (and Ticketmaster still sucks)

The last couple days convinced me it was karma that my middle daughter ended up going to college in Nebraska. For reasons detailed below, it looked liked there might a temporary blackout here in today’s on sale for Springsteen’s March 14 appearance in Omaha. Figuring a town in Nebraska wouldn’t be subject to the blackout, […]

Book Review: Triumph by Philip Wylie

Science fiction’s most common motif is speculating on our future. Sometimes, though, it also gives a glimpse of our past. That is especially true with reissues of classic works, such as Philip Wylie’s Triumph.

First published in 1963, Triumph is a heart-of-the-Cold War tale of nuclear apocalypse. The trigger of a cataclysmic World War III […]

2007 Oops Awards

That’s my name for it but Regret The Error has announced its annual awards in media errors and corrections, which it calls Crunks 2007. The scope and variety of awards makes the entirety worth reading. Yet the following correction from The Sentinel-Review in Woodstock, Ontario, probably ranks as my favorite:

In an article in Monday’s […]