Ever since I finished reading the stories in this collection, I’ve been trying to articulate the effect they’ve had on me. It’s easy enough to appreciate Shirley Jackson as a superb writer who had absolute control of her material, but when it comes to discussing the content of the stories, I find myself struggling because they seem to say so much ( Read more... )

I’m still on my SF reading binge and in the last week I have finished Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, which I liked very much, am still working my way through Iain M. Banks’s complex The Algebraist and have just started Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow. Andy and I have started rewatching Season 4 of Babylon 5.  I haven’t watched any of the new ( Read more... )

SF Mistressworks posts a review of an anthology of science fiction stories by women, Women of Wonder: the Contemporary Years .  I’ve had this on my wishlist for a while and may now get round to buying it.

From Bad Reputation, Dr Who, Feminist Icon?   Ace was my feminist Dr Who companion. I thought she was amazing.

One for the Babylon 5 fans, Andy ( Read more... )

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Montague Rhodes James was born in 1862 and died in 1936.  He was a well-regarded scholar of medieval manuscripts and early Christianity at Cambridge University, but is now remembered for the ghost stories that he started writing in the 1890s as a hobby and an amusement for his friends and students. They are still considered to be among the most ( Read more... )