I was reading The Plutonium Blonde the other day when I realized just how many SF/F novels I've read recently that had heavy doses of noir or the hardboiled detective in them. Not that I mind, but it's curious that with the influx of Urban Fantasy some of the other staples of the urban environment came along for the ride ( Read more... )

A year ago this week I finally dipped my toe back into the SF/F field.

This wasn't a spur of the moment decision -anybody who knows me knows that I'm not an impulsive person- but something I'd been hemming and hawing about for over a month. After years of avoiding both the genre and fiction in general, a little urge to return to my past had ( Read more... )

Not me, mind you, but the kids.

School started last Thursday, but due to our oldest's illness we only got all three back to school on Monday.  As the oldest is now in fifth grade, she had to meet with her teacher early on Monday to go through the items she missed the first two days of school.  Tuesday was my wife's day to help with the paper ( Read more... )

When you sit down to think about what is impacted by the ongoing recession -whether it has hit bottom or not is debatable- there is one item that doesn't come to the forefront of your mind:  libraries ( Read more... )

It's been one of those days at work today, and to keep myself from going bananas after a morning of banging my head against the wall meetings, I was clicking around idly on YouTube.  As can happen on that place, you play your own version of Six Degrees From Kevin Bacon.  One thing led to another, and I ended up watching the old music video for ( Read more... )

A while back I was posting in one of ( Read more... )

My wife finished her first Fantasy series the other week.  Okay, finished is a relative thing; she's caught up through the current published books in the series, and is eagerly waiting on the next installment.

Did I say eagerly?  When she finished, she was seriously bummed for that first week because she had to wait to find out what happened next to ( Read more... )