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Second paragraph of third chapter (A Deepness in the Sky: the Tragical History of Pham Nuwen):In A Fire Upon the Deep we learn early on that our immediate cosmic neighborhood is divided into Zones, working outwards from the Galactic core. In each Zone, cognition and technology work better. So in the core it isn’t possible to be intelligent at all, ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:True, some of us manage to rise above this aspect of our nature (or to sink below it). But these preconscious impulses remain our biological baseline, our reference point, the zero in our own personal number system. Our envolved tendencies are considered "normal" by the body each of us occupies. Willpower fortified ( Read more... )

I read only 212 books this year, which is my lowest total since 2006. Basically this is because I got sucked into feeding from the information firehose of social media around the times of both the Brexit referendum and the US Presidential election; I read precisely three books in November, which I think is the lowest since I started bookblogging at ( Read more... )

Books read this week:
Last Exit to Babylon - Volume 4: The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny
The Listener, by Tove Jansson
Christmas Days, by Jeanette Winterson
The Case of the Missing Books, by Ian Sansom
Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships, by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethà
What Makes This Book ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:Back at the council offices Linda Wei had got him to sign several forms on the dotted line, and had issued him with papers and instructions as to his exact role and responsibilities, and details of bank accounts had been confirmed, and then it had taken him an hour - a whole hour - to find Ted's Cabs following ( Read more... )

By sheer coincidence, my Christmas goodies included two collections of short stories by two different lesbian authors, and I think it makes a neat pair to review together. Not, mind you, that the two collections have anything much more in common with each other than two collections both by straight men would have; it's more that the two of them ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third story ("Home is the Hangman"): I sat in a chair turned sidewise from the table to face the door. A tool kit rested on the floor to my left. The helmet stood on the table, a lopsided basket of metal, quartz, porcelain, and glass. If I heard the click of a microswitch followed by a humming sound from within it, then a faint ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:Meanwhile Captain Jamie fretted his head off and prepared for the night, while Winwood passed the word along to the forty lifers to be ready for the break. And two hours after midnight every guard in the prison was under orders. This included the day-shift which should have been asleep. When two o’clock came, they ( Read more... )

I got the first six albums of Ken Broeders' epic saga of the life of the Emperor Julian the Apostate, who I previously knew really from Chapters XXII, XXIII and XXIV of Gibbon. It's great stuff, taking some liberties with the actual historical facts (with added prophetesses of varying accuracy and usefulness) but conveying a rollicking story of the ( Read more... )