The 2009 Hugo award nominations are up and available for viewing! Surprise of surprises, I’ve read three of the five best novel nominees. Best Novel (639 Ballots) * Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK) * The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK) * Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; HarperVoyager UK) …
Category Archives: Fiction
As Promised
I’ve finally uploaded the two Librivox recordings to our server, for your listening pleasure: The Enchanted Canary -The Red Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang, read by moi. The Next Logical Step, by Ben Bova, again read by me. These are both available on Gutenberg, Red Fairy Book, and The Next Logical Step, for your reading …
Anathem
A few weeks ago I created an homage to Xkcd by evaluating my experience reading Neal Stephenson’s Anathem. Well, I’m done. Overall, I think Neal Stephenson will be remembered as one of the premier scifi authors of this generation. That doesn’t make his books any easier to read. This one in particular I found to …
Hugo-Winning Novels == Blah?
I have a theory. My theory is that I don’t like Hugo winning novels. If you’re not familiar with the Hugos, it’s like the Academy Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy. There’s a whole bunch of categories, but the one that gets the most attention, and that I’m talking about now, is “Best Novel”. Back …
Racism in Children's Stories
I recently finished recording a story for LibriVox. I rather randomly selected a project to work and had the moderator assign me something to read. I ended up with “The Enchanted Canary” from the Red Fairy Book. I recently picked up a copy of The Red Fairy Book while we were in New Orleans. I’ve …
Dresden Files #11: Turn Coat
The eleventh book in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series, Turn Coat, will be published in April of ’09. I’m already looking forward to it. If your only exposure to this fiction was through the SciFi channel TV destractular of the same name, I’m very sorry; retrieve and read Storm Front right now. The novels are …
Elantris
I finished reading Elantris by Brandon Sanderson today. Review: Good, but a few flaws (some big). I hope his novels get better—this is his first published work—otherwise I might stop reading. I picked up this book because Mr. Sanderson was picked to finish the Wheel of Time (WOT) series in place of the late Robert …
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
I had the privilege of seeing an advance version of Star Wars: The Clone Wars tonight. I have to say that despite my low expectations, I was disappointed. First off, there was the not-so-subtle relationship between Anakin and Obi Wan. We all know that George Lucas loves to retcon, but having them become gay lovers …
2008 Hugo Awards
Hey! If you’ve been too busy watching the Olympics, you might not know that the 2008 Hugo Awards were awarded at Denvention on Saturday. I’d only read 2.1 of the 5 Best Novel nominees (Halting State, The Last Colony, and Brasyl). Halting State was good but I didn’t think it deserved a nomination. The Last …
Eureka
Jenn turned me on to the SciFi channel show, Eureka. It’s smart, funny, clever [add your own adjective here] and fun to watch. At least it was. This is the third season. We watched episode 2 last night and I have to say, “meh”. By all means, rent/borrow/buy seasons 1 and 2. They were excellent. …