Over at Crooked Timber they're having an online seminar on Charlie Stross and his work. Lots of interesting reading for the politically aware SF fan!

In the post about 'Halting State' I was moved to comment about the literary value of the novel, resulting in the following (slightly edited here) extemporaneous review of the book:
I’m of the opinion ( Read more... )

Last night I was left to my own devices as my grandson and daughter went to the Seattle Torchlight Parade ( Read more... )

Yesterday was one of the bad days. I still have them, since Anita died. They come further and further apart, but there remain those days where I get to thinking about things and find myself drowning in the sea of 'Should Have Beens ( Read more... )

Just about six months ago Anita and I stopped at Third Place Books on our way home from something I now forget. I got myself a coffee and my grandson a hot chocolate while Anita went and found a book she had been lusting after: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final episode of J. K. Rowling's famous series ( Read more... )

Over at CyberunkReview.com they have a review of New Rose Hotel (based on the William Gibson short story of the same name) where they say New Rose Hotel not only isn't Cyberpunk, it also sucks rocks:On top of its lack of cyberpunknesss, New Rose Hotel as a movie is boring as shit! Ferrara needs an award for taking a high quality cast consisting of ( Read more... )

I've had a busy week, and am way behind if I want to report it here. (I am normally a link blogger or an essayist; I don't write about my personal life or my work. But I am often 'encouraged' to write reports on events I attend.) So today is report day here at Antigravitas ( Read more... )

No, I'm not talking about an impaired romantic couple trying to drive farm equipment. I'm saying that one of my favorite bands in the world is going to play at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard. A band I have described before this way:Who are the Clumsy Lovers you ask? Well, they are a Canadian 'Celt-Grass-Rock' band who play a very active fusion of ( Read more... )

Saw it, liked it, enthusiastically recommend it. Good for Firefly fan and SF-loving non-fan alike. See it soon, so we can boost their first week's numbers and guarantee a sequel.

See Julie's Gothhouse blog for a collection of one-liner descriptions.

Read David Edelstein's review in Slate where he explains why the Firefly series was better than ( Read more... )

Critic Doug Ireland dislikes Edward Klein's new book on Hillary Clinton 'The Truth About Hillary' for all the right reasons:Instead of frothing like a 19th-century Comstockian prude at anyone in the book with an active sex life, Klein would have performed a valuable service had he dynamited the myth, perpetuated by the Clintons’ defenders, that the ( Read more... )

Anita and I went to see Howl's Moving Castle tonight. It is a beautiful film; the animation and backgrounds are superb ( Read more... )