A Kress collection — short stories with depth

I’ve made comments in the past about the limitations of the short story format, and one thing I mentioned was the lack of room for any serious character development. Well, I have just had the experience of being proven wrong, because I’ve just read Trinity and Other Stories, an exceptional 1985 collection by the [...]

Rollback combines medical advances and alien contact to tell a decent human story

Robert J. Sawyer’s Rollback (2007) takes a couple of familiar science fiction tropes and blends them together into a well-told human story. One is the discovery of (and communication with) alien life via signals received from a distant star. The other is the concept of radical life extension, in the form of a [...]

The word for “good reading” is “Le Guin”

Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle has been a source of pleasurable reading for some time now; but alas, I’m quickly running out of new (new to me) Hainish books to read. After finishing The Word for World Is Forest, the only remaining Hainish material I have yet to read (as far as I know) is [...]

The case of the fluctuating banner

You may have noticed over the last several weeks how my banner keeps changing. Yeah, I went through a few temporary ones while I thought about what kind of look I wanted to go for. And now I’m there. This one will be here for quite some time, so I hope you [...]

Kress can do better than Crucible

I said in my review for Crossfire that (to paraphrase myself) it wasn’t the best Nancy Kress was capable of, but that it was still within the realm of worthwhile reading; and that its weaknesses were offset by its strong and well-developed characters. Its sequel Crucible (2004), however, doesn’t even quite make it to [...]

Laying down the law

My friend Omphalos has just launched a new blog, The Law and Science Fiction. It’s a topic he’s more than qualified for, being both an eminently well-read SF fan AND a lawyer. The blog will analyze and discuss various issues relating to the law and judicial systems as portrayed in speculative fiction. [...]