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I finished the last audiobook of novels eligible for Hugo Award nominations year. That got me thinking about the other novels I’m currently reading, none of which I’m particularly loving. I think I’m going to drop all three. Katabasis by R. F. Kuang is eligible for the Hugo this year. I wanted to like it. […]
This is my second year participating in the Hugo Award. I am not attending the Worldcon (LAcon V in Los Angeles), but I have purchased a World Science Fiction Society membership again this year, and I have been reading eligible novels all year. So far, I have read 17 eligible novels, and I’m hoping to […]
It turned out to be a vampire novel. Look, lots of people like vampire novels, so when you’re writing the blurb for yours, you should probably use the word “vampire” at least once, and maybe not the word “genre-defying”. There’s no reason to trick the rest of us. One of the early chapters, the one […]
I wanted to like Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty. I had quite enjoyed Six Wakes by the same author, and I generally like stories set on space stations. This one had a chic young woman on the cover. Instead, the protagonist is a perpetually complaining brat who doesn’t seem competent to take care of herself, […]
I don’t go to “cons,” but I am going to the Worldcon this year, the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society. I don’t even know why, exactly. One of the features of a con is the opportunity to meet celebrities, but I can’t say that I’m particularly excited about that. My interest in […]
I was in a corner bookstore, back when such places still existed, looking for something new to read. I had recently read The Far Kingdoms, which I enjoyed, and I was searching for something similar. I stumbled on a stack of paperbacks by Robert Jordan. The cover art was possibly half the reason I was […]
A list of my favorite films. It occurs to me that I should examine them for commonalities. “Blade Runner” (1982) — This film is a visual masterpiece. The story, and the novel it is based on, really miss a great opportunity to explore a deep philosophical question, but in both cases it seems that merely […]
Frank Herbert’s Dune is a story about many things, but perhaps the most central is the formation of a superhuman mind. Much of the story and its plot points takes place within the inner thoughts of Paul Atreides. In its written form, these thoughts are easily expressed, and the resulting story is deep and powerful. […]
The thing that the Daniel Craig series of James Bond movies did, apart from casting an actor who is not naturally suave, was to make James Bond a tragic figure. It was long overdue, really. Prior to the 2006 “Casino Royale“, 007 movies have defied the standard storytelling ingredients of character flaws and character growth […]
I almost abandoned Pride and Prejudice early in the book. There was a scene where the “adults” were arguing about meaningless things like a bunch of middle-schoolers, but in formal early 19th century English. I reminded me of the banter my school friends had in fake English accents and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” […]
