NB: With Russia's unprovoked murderous assault on Ukraine, I am actively looking at alternative hosts for this journal, preferably those which will retain as much content as possible. I am very uncomfortable with being part of the Russian economic system at present, in however small a way. In the meantime:

Second paragraph of third chapter of The ( Read more... )

NB: With Russia's unprovoked murderous assault on Ukraine, I am actively looking at alternative hosts for this journal, preferably those which will retain as much content as possible. I am very uncomfortable with being part of the Russian economic system at present, in however small a way. In the meantime:

Second frame of third section of Scherven ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
Sequel to the very entertaining Catfishing on CatNet, which won the 2020 Lodestar Award. Takes the story and most of the same characters in quite a new direction with a second rather less cute AI, a riff on Pokemon Go, and a slightly divergent timeline where Minneapolis and St Paul have ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:The novel-length version of Damnation Alley, which Zelazny expanded from the original novella at the suggestion of his agent, provides more explanation of how its protagonist Hell Tanner became the outlaw he is.2 On the whole, the additional material nonetheless slows the momentum of the original story, ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:To be alone in a balloon at a height of fourteen or fifteen thousand feet - and to that height Bert Smallways presently rose - is like nothing else in human experience. It is one of the supreme things possible to man. No flying machine can ever better it. It is to pass extraordinarily out of human things. It is to ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Danach wurden der Frau fünf Kinder vorgeführt, unter denen sie tatsächlich eines mit bläulicher Aurafärbung zu erkennen meinte. Da natürlich niemand sonst im Studio diese Farbe sehen konnte, wurde ein zweiter Test gemacht: Der Frau wurden die Augen verbunden und dieselben Kinder noch einmal an ihr vorbeigeführt. ( Read more... )

Non-fiction 5 (YTD 16)
Roger Zelazny, by F. Brett Cox
Duran Duran: The First Four Years of the Fab Five by Neil Gaiman
The Evil of the Daleks, by Simon Guerrier
Pyramids of Mars, by Kate Orman
Lost in Translation, by Ella Frances Sanders

( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:‘I’m looking for a record for my daughter. For her birthday. “I Just Called To Say I Love you”. Have you got it?’
Rob is thirty-five, about to turn thirty-six, and has just split up with Laura, who has moved in with the bloke who used to live upstairs. His North London record shop is failing, and so frankly is he. ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:

時計は四時を指しており、窓を見るとまだまだ強い日差しがびくともせ ずにガラスー面に張りついている。
The clock said four, but the window was a flume of sunshine.

This was one of my impulse purchases in Paris last summer, arising from the realisation that I haven't read a lot of non-genre fiction by Asian women, and seduced by the blurbs on the front cover ( Read more... )

These three all won Hugo and Nebula Awards presented in 1985 for work published in 1984. (So the 1985 Hugo, but the 1984 Nebula.)

“Bloodchild” has no chapters or sub-sections. The third paragraph is:But my mother seemed content to age before she had to. I saw her turn away as several of T'Gatoi's limbs secured me closer. T'Gatoi liked our body ( Read more... )