Lest you think I am blinded by all things Howey, just cause I think Molly Fyde is so amazing I'll leave Peter if he doesn't read it, and Wool is lining up to be that calibre (though it isn't finished yet), I didn't like these three other books so much ( Read more... )

Usually when a movie or book attempts multiple genres, they all wash out. Either so many things blow up you're lucky if the High Concept get a single sentence; or, as in Embassytown, there's so much High Concept, you're lucky if you get any story; or the romance feels tacked on; or the invented technology or world is so inadequately explained, you ( Read more... )

When Wired mentioned that a self-published author was cresting the sci fi charts with goood story, I jthought I'd give it a try. The first story hit me like a bazooka and I had to hold the kindle over my midsection to stop the pain. In short, it's about a widower sheriff in a post-apocalyptic world who is compelled to solve the mystery of his wife' ( Read more... )

After wading through Metamorphosis, I needed a fluff break. I read one book (that should remain nameless) because its premise was unusual, the love interests are a psychic woman who sees out of the eyes of a serial murderer as he kills and the male cop who is trying to catch him. Mixing romance and serial killers didn't work for me. I kinda ( Read more... )

I've always been fascinated by metamorphosis. Who isn't? How the heck can something go to bed a grub and wake up as a sexy butterfly? Does it remember any of its former life? How about the transition, the horror story where the grub melts into goo and transforms? Was Larry Niven on to something in Draco's Tavern where he suggested caterpillars ( Read more... )

What if I told you that you:

• still eat and are surrounded by plants that originated on cliffs?
• will be healthier with worms living in your gut?
• are still anxiety-ridden because your ancestors had to be to avoid being eaten?
• are still xenophobic because your ancestors avoided disease by being that way?

With his sometimes-romantic, colorful prose, NCSU ( Read more... )

When I first heard of this non-fiction book, I thought it would be a medical mystery. Thought I'd tag along with the father of epidemiology as he solved the mystery of where, in 1854 London, the Cholera was coming from. I didn't know this book would also address the present day, dig at questions of waste disposal, evolution, creativity and the ( Read more... )

For one of the 100 best novels of the century, I wish I could say better things. Yes, this woman can write-- Thackeray would have worshipped her wit, and Sam Shepard her dialogue-- but I wish I had been lucky enough to read one of her Futurebooks in which a solid introduction and a clear story arc blaze me to an organic finale ( Read more... )

This collection of memories was particularly interesting to me because Julia was also a Californian who settled in Europe (briefly) who learned that--in addition to how nice some people from other countries can be-- some Americans (including Californians) can be ridiculously closed-minded, fearful, and provincial ( Read more... )

I haven't yet read _Miss Smilla's Sense of Snow_ by the same author and yet every other reviewer has, and in comparison to that wondrous tome, per them, his next book is found wanting. They all complain that _The Quiet Girl_ is far too difficult to read for far too little payoff ( Read more... )