Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Book: Powers by Ursula LeGuin
Nebula winner in 2009. A slave is freed, then has adventures. Live in forest for a while, then with his original people in a marsh.
Book: A Dog in a Hat by Joe Parkin
A story of bike racing in Europe in the late 80s. A great, if not always convincing, series of anecdotes.
Book: Shadowbridge by Gregory Frost
Fantasy, metafiction. An interesting idea: A mostly water-covered world with stretches (spirals) of bridges on which people live. Oddly reminiscent of William Gibson's Bay Bridge colony. This is book 1 of 2. I'll read #2, but the ending of this one was slightly sour tasting.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Book: The God Engines by John Scalzi
A short (novella-length), dark take on a universe populated by living gods, who motivate space ships and are disciplined by, well, physical discipline.
The work is in very sharp contrast to Scalzi's often aw-shucks tone on Whatever, his blog, and substantially darker in tone than most of his other fiction.
Not that I insist on dark work, but if you're gonna do it, guts and blood and faith shattering is probably the way to do it.
Recommended.
The work is in very sharp contrast to Scalzi's often aw-shucks tone on Whatever, his blog, and substantially darker in tone than most of his other fiction.
Not that I insist on dark work, but if you're gonna do it, guts and blood and faith shattering is probably the way to do it.
Recommended.
Book: 2010 Nebula Awards
As with most of these collections, some very excellent stuff and some not so great. Oddly, the ones I was most eager to find more of were the young adult books. Maybe I'm regressing?
In the Jane Austen/monster mashup category was "Pride and Prometheus". Interesting mostly for focusing on Mary Bennett, who's rafrely given much narrative space.
In the Jane Austen/monster mashup category was "Pride and Prometheus". Interesting mostly for focusing on Mary Bennett, who's rafrely given much narrative space.
Book: The Bradbury Report by Steven Polansky
If the US starts creating clones of everyone to be used for replacement organs, what happens when a clone escapes?
Angst, apparently.
A few interesting ideas here, not hugely well explored. Not to mention pretty unappealing characters.
Angst, apparently.
A few interesting ideas here, not hugely well explored. Not to mention pretty unappealing characters.
Book: Economics for the Rest of Us by Moshe Adler
Subtitled "Debunking the Science that Makes Life Dismal", this book is a pithy assault on modern (and classical, as I understand it) microeceonomics, and how the theories pushed by mainstream economists provide grist for the policies that insist a few homeless are small price to pay for an "efficient" housing market, or that people unemployed in a recession are just asking for too much.
Not gonna blow the lid off economic orthodoxy, but definitely a useful perspective on some of the economic dogma that underlies many policies.
Not gonna blow the lid off economic orthodoxy, but definitely a useful perspective on some of the economic dogma that underlies many policies.
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