As much as I wish George would stop putzing around with other stories and get on with it, I do have to admit that his various byproducts are enjoyable.  Dreamsongs II contains:

- Two stories of Haviland Tuf, very fun.  I will have to read Tuf Voyaging, which collects the linked stories in I, Robot style.
- Two screenplays, one for The Twilight Zone ( Read more... )

Entertaining for its worldbuilding, otherwise lightweight.  In the future, we've conquered death and scarcity, so the only currency is Whuffie.  Whuffie is respect.  If you have average Whuffie, you live in an average bungalow.  If people think you are worthless, you sleep in a pod and eat protein nuggets.  Whuffie-rich folks like Cory Doctorow ( Read more... )

I'm two-thirds of the way through these books and have paused to digest.  There's a lot to digest ( Read more... )

Reading a Neal Stephenson book is like stumbling around a mad scientist's laboratory: the place is dangerously alive.  The uneven floors are strewn with odd-looking bones, machines from the future, and loquacious imps arguing over semiotics.  Strange-colored fires explode out of nowhere.  No narrative arc, though.

King of the Vagabonds is unusual ( Read more... )

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Author crush!  I've read one Tiptree novel and one Tiptree short story, and halfway through the biography I'm totally in love.  I haven't even gotten to the point where Tiptree writes anything. This is the first biography I've read in years, and the most stunning that I've read in ever. Everybody, everybody, everybody agrees.

I'd heard there was ( Read more... )

Dr. Dea was getting rather better at falling off; he'd landed more-or-less on his feet this time. He made a lunge at the dangling reins, but his sorrel mare shied away from his grab. Dea jumped back as she swung on her haunches and then, realizing her freedom, bounced back down the trail, tail bannering, horse body-language for Nyah, nyah, ya can't ( Read more... )

Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste... years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay.

I'll be reading this book over and over again because Miles is the one I love so much I suck the marrow down to the fanfic.  Still, this is on that second ( Read more... )

Miles shook his head.  "I'll allow you know the man better than I do....And yet, well, people do get hypnotized by the hard choices.  And stop looking for alternatives.  The will to be stupid is a very powerful force--"

If I could write like anyone, I might pick Lois McMaster Bujold.  Bujold has won 5 Hugos and 3 Nebulas, but somehow she's invisible ( Read more... )

"Cute," said Kress.  "And common.  I have no use for either, Wo.  I want something exotic.  Unusual.  And not cute.  I detest cute animals.  At the moment I own a shambler.  Imported from Cotho, at no mean expense.  From time to time I feed him a litter of unwanted kittens.  That is what I think of cute.  Do I make myself understood?"

Wo smiled ( Read more... )