Tag: SciFi

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Species Imperative: SurvivalJulie E. Czerneda — read the Species Imperative trilogy in October and was very impressed. To read: 2 trilogies, 1 stand-alone, start of a new series. I think I’ll pick up the first book in the Trade Pact Universe next.

MindscanRobert J. Sawyer — read the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy a year or two ago, and more recently Calculating God. Currently reading Mindscan. His work tends to be social science-fiction: if X technological advance occurs, or Y scientific principle is discovered, what impact will that have on society? To read: 9 more stand-alone novels and a trilogy. Could take a while.

ChronolithsRobert Charles Wilson — read Chronoliths, Darwinia and Bios within the space of a few months of each other, maybe around 5 years ago. To read: 10 novels.

Strangely enough, looking them up I’ve discovered that all 3 of them are Canadian.

Also: Two authors I’d really like to see more from:

Briar KingGreg Keyes — I was introduced to his work through his Babylon 5 novels (back when he was writing as J. Gregory Keyes), then went on to track down his own work. The Age of Unreason cycle is also quite good, and I’ve previously reviewed The Waterborn and Blackgod. At this point, I’ve read every novel he’s published. The Born Queen comes out in March, finishing the 4-book Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone cycle, which means I need to start re-reading the first three books next month.

American GodsNeil Gaiman — dark fantasy, mythic fantasy, whatever you want to call it. Discovered through Sandman (yeah, big surprise). My favorite of his novels is probably either American Gods or Neverwhere. Need to track down more of his short stories, though.

I’ve previously mentioned that Gaiman and Keyes are the only authors whose work I’ll immediately pick up in hardcover, no questions asked.

Update: A year later, how’d I do?

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Saw The Golden Compass. Enjoyed it a lot, though it felt very rushed, and I think it would have benefitted from having the actual ending instead of cutting it off early. Here’s hoping they do well enough in the long run to greenlight the next film. Now I can re-read the books.

Also watched Tin Man. 5 stars for concept, but only 2 for execution. The Wizard of Oz meets The Dark Crystal by way of 1930s scifi was fascinating as a concept, but they managed to make it dull and tedious. The only reason I watched through to the end was it was Friday night, and I was tired enough that knew I wasn’t going to be doing anything useful with the time anyway, and I knew I could sleep in the next morning.

Speaking of Tin Man, just out of curiosity: how does one manage to have a solar eclipse during a full moon, anyway?

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Organization for Transformative Works – dedicated to protecting the expression of fan fiction, fan art, etc. (via Naomi Novik)

Open Standards, One Web, and Opera – Just why are standards important, anyway? (via Opera Watch)

Speaking of Opera, their EU antitrust complaint against Microsoft has been making waves. Responses at CSS3.info, Web Standards Project, Slashdot (edit: more Slashdot), Asa Dotzler, Opera Watch, plus a Q&A w/ Haarvard. My take: Good luck on unbundling, but if they can force Microsoft to catch up with the rest of the market in terms of standards support, I’m all for it.

Nissan vs. Nissan. On my way to work I saw a bumper sticker on an XTerra that said “In support of our freedom, it’s my last Nissan.” Huh? There was clearly a web address below it, but it was too small to read at that distance. So I looked up the phrase, and apparently there’s been a long-running dispute over the domain name nissan.com, between a small computer business named after its founder, Uzi Nissan, and the Nissan car company. The dispute was eventually resolved (correctly, IMO, since he has a legit reason to use the name) in favor of the little guy. On the other hand, I don’t see why the site makes such a big deal about Nissan’s “French Connection” to Renault.

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Author chosen to finish The Wheel of Time – When Robert Jordan died, he left behind his work on A Memory of Light, the final volume of his epic fantasy series, The Wheel of Time. His wife & editor has chosen Brandon Sanderson to complete the book, due out in 2009. Jordan was part way through the manuscript, left voluminous notes, and in the months before his death had told the remaining story to his family. There’s also an interview which I’ll have to read when I have more time.

Epic Pooh – Michael Moorcock on the state of fantasy literature, originally written in the 1970s but updated for the 21st century. The title comes from comparing the style of Lord of the Rings to Winnie the Pooh. I have no problem reading and enjoying both his work and Tolkien’s, and it doesn’t bother me that Phillip Pullman dislikes Tolkien’s work as well. (Link via something I was reading a few days ago.)

The Happy Endings Foundation [archive.org] – “originally founded in 2000 by Adrienne Small after she read the first book in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket to her daughter. As well as making her feel thoroughly miserable, Mrs Small noticed her daughter seemed to take a more negative approach to life.” (Yes, it’s satire.)

And on another note:

Hixie’s Natural Log: Evolution in the species “Companies” – Microsoft’s dominance of the industry has killed off or absorbed many smaller companies. Those that have survived are those with strategies resistant to Microsoft’s tactics. The article looks at Mozilla, Google, and Apple. (via Asa Dotzler)

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Catching up on interesting links from the past week.

Balkanized North America Map (thumbnail)Balkanized North America: what if every region that started independent had stayed that way, and every region that threatened to secede from the US or Canada had succeeded? (via ***Dave)

Enter Sandman: Who wrote “Footprints”? You’ve probably read the poem, or heard it, in which the narrator dreams of walking along a beach with God, and looking back and noting how many sets of footprints there are at different points in their life. It turns out at least four people claim authorship. (via Neil Gaiman)

Lunar UnicycleRetro-Future: To the Stars! Science-fiction illustrations from 1930–1970, many of them from Soviet/Eastern Bloc countries. (via Slashdot, though I noticed it popped up again today on The Beat)

My Son’s Food Allergies: Danger Every Day: An essay on a family dealing with their toddler’s serious (i.e. life-threatening) food allergies. I am so glad I didn’t have things this bad when I was younger. Fortunately for me, mine didn’t get really dangerous until I was around 17 or 18—just in time to go off to college and get exposed to all kinds of strange food! (Found on CNN)

Citizens Against Ugly Street Spam (CAUSS): volunteer group that tears down unsightly (and illegal) signs stapled to telephone poles and such. I saw their site a few years ago, but had no idea that they were not only still around, but had expanded to multiple cities. (again, via ***Dave)