Review: Fuzzy Nation
After reading this book, I’ve very definitely moved from “I’ll read it because it’s from Scalzi” to “I’d definitely recommend this book”. If you’re looking for an entertaining read, pick this up. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Review: Sir Dominic Flandry
Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra by Poul Anderson My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book contains three complete Flandry novels. (Books were a lot shorter, in decades past.) Here, collected in one volume for the first time, is The Plague of Masters (aka Earthman, Go Home), Hunters of the Sky Cave [...]
Tor Books Goes DRM Free
Yesterday, Tor Books announced that they were going to go entirely DRM-free, by early July, 2012. This is huge news and I’m excited to hear it. “Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.” Digital Rights Management (DRM) is the name for a software lock that publishers apply to movies and e-books that you’ve purchased. When [...]
An Interview With Mary Robinette Kowal
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In which Pat Rothfuss does an interview with Mary Robinette Kowal and I learn a new word: eremitic. Also, I become even more interested in reading Ms. Kowal’s two novels: Shades of Milk and Honey and Glamour in Glass.
Robert Caro’s Big Dig
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Caro began “The Years of Lyndon Johnson,” his multivolume biography of the 36th president, in 1976, not long after finishing “The Power Broker,” his immense, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Moses, and figured he could do Johnson’s life in three volumes, which would take him six years or so. Next month, a fourth installment, “The Passage [...]
Review: Means of Ascent
Means of Ascent by Robert Caro My rating: 5 of 5 stars Personal Enthusiasm: A Great Book I loved the first volume of Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson, The Path to Power. I’d ever read a better biography. I’ve still never read a better one but I’ve now read one that’s just as good. [...]
Review: The Peace War
Vernor Vinge does exactly what a good SF author should do: he poses a new technology and examines how it might change the world, for good and bad. This was a very imaginative book and a great example of what “hard science fiction” should be. I highly recommend it.
Review: Fool Moon
Butcher incorporated many different variants of the werewolf legends. It made for a more complex story, as it involved a mix of characters, each with different motives, abilities, and weaknesses. On the other hand, it made the story more complex and I’m not entirely sure that that was such a good thing.
Review: One Jump Ahead
This book was very well written and Van Name revealed some impressive worldbuilding skills. I especially liked the planet name of “Pinkelplonker” (named by the 5-year old son of the captain that discovered the planet) and the jump system used to travel between worlds. I very much look forward to reading the rest of the novels in the series.
Review: A Rising Thunder
Perhaps the most damning indictment I have is that most fans would be best served by reading a plot summary of this book rather than reading the book itself.