Path is like a snake, it curls around the whole of Little Belaire with its head in the middle and the tip of its tail by Buckle cord’s door, but only someone who knows Little Belaire can see where it runs. To someone else, it would seem to run off in all directions. So when [...]
The first thing to say about J.G. Ballard is not that he is among our finest writers of science fiction but that he is among our finest writers of fiction tout court period. Ballard himself might retort that, granted the first claim, the second is redundant, since the only important fiction being produced today is [...]
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Jessica saw the shrug, thought, This is the age of the shrug. [...] Our civilization could well die of indifference within it before succumbing to external attack. — Frank Herbert, Children of Dune
Monday, December 21, 2009
This volume collects an assortment of Paul Park’s early short stories, written between 1983 and 2002. Park is primarily a novelist, and an excellent one, and his short fiction affects me as well as his work in longer forms. The Tourist is the first Park story I read. I found it online before I went [...]
When you undertake to make a work of art—a novel or a clay pot—you’re not competing against anybody, except yourself and God. Can I do it better this time? – Ursula K Le Guin, from her essay The Stone Ax and the Muskoxen, collected in The Language of the Night.
I’ve never read anything by Octavia Butler, but some list or other recommended her, and Kindred was checked out of the library, so I picked up the Lilith’s Brood trilogy omnibus, in which Dawn is the first book. I figured I’d test her out, and if I liked Dawn, I’d be probably enjoy Kindred as [...]
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
In my resolve to read more mainstream canon, I had forgotten how great a writer Roger Zelazny is. This must never happen again. He writes a beautiful blend of science and fantasy, and sometimes plays them off each other, which appeals to me very much since I’m fascinated by that balance between measurable knowledge and [...]
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Based on the recommendation of Neil Gaiman, via his blog, I read The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, a collection of criticism and other essays by Samuel R. Delany on sf and the craft and mechanics of writing. It boggled me. His fresh, lighting thought, his ability to strike to the heart of whatever he was reading or [...]
Thomas M. Disch committed suicide a few days ago, and I watched all the writer and artist bloggers to whom I subscribe mourn his passing. I hadn’t read anything by Disch until today and, honestly, hadn’t heard of him either. He was a poet, a short story and novel writer, and critic; he won several [...]
The SFX Magazine list of science fiction and fantasy’s top 100 writers surprised me, especially when I scanned the full 100. These sorts of lists always degrade into a sort of desert island scenario for me, and I spend more time rearranging people than reading more good books (which is all I want the list [...]