Archives: August2008
Review of Crystal Rain

Crystal Rainby Tobias Buckell384pp (Paperback)My Rating: 4/10Amazon Rating: 4/5LibraryThing Rating: 3.86/5Good Reads Rating: 3.62/5 Crystal Rain, Tobias Buckell’s debut novel, is the first book in a series of stand-alone space operas set in the same universe (if it has a series name, I can’t find it on Buckell’s site or Amazon). It is followed by Ragamuffin, which was nominated for a Nebula Award in 2007, and Sly Mongoose, which just came out a few days ago. These books seem to […]

Update

I have no plans for this weekend other than catching up on some cleaning so I am hoping to get caught up on my reviews then (or at least caught up on what I have right now since I’m almost done with The Cipher by Diana Pharoah Francis and don’t think I’ll be able to manage 3 reviews over the weekend). These next reviews will be Tobias Buckell’s Crystal Rain and Iain M. Banks’s Use of Weapons. I seem to […]

Contest for $200 To Spend on Books

It doesn’t get much better than this – Ann Aguirre is giving away $200 to spend at the bookseller of your choice! All you have to do is buy a copy of Wanderlust when it comes out on August 26 or preorder a copy and post either your receipt number or order confirmation number in the comments of this post on her blog. The contest runs until September 3. Wanderlust is the second book in the Sirantha Jax series, following […]

More Songs Inspired by Fantasy and Science Fiction

The Sci Fi Songs blog has a few more songs inspired by science fiction and fantasy, including Sarene which is of course based on Brandon Sanderson’s novel Elantris. This is a good song but my favorite so far is definitely The Return of Titus Quinn, a beautiful instrumental piece about a character from Kay Kenyon’s Bright of the Sky (a book I really need to read at some point). More information on the songs can be found at the blog.

Review of Young Miles

Young Milesby Lois McMaster Bujold864pp (Paperback)My Rating: 8/10Amazon Rating: 4/5LibraryThing Rating: 4.32/5Good Reads Rating: 4.17/5 Young Miles is an omnibus containing three stories in the “Miles Vorkosigan” series by Lois McMaster Bujold — the novel The Warrior’s Apprentice, the Hugo award winning novella “The Mountains of Mourning” and the Hugo award winning novel The Vor Game. Although the books in this series are self-contained and not written in any particular order, these three are compiled in chronological order and come […]

Toads of glory, slugs of joy

The results from this year’s Bulwer-Lytton contest are in, and the future of western literature has never looked, um, brighter. Bulwer-Lytton challenges entrants to write the worst opening sentence possible for imaginary novels in a variety of genres, and they generally succeed horribly. A few choice examples: (Children’s literature) Joanne watched her fellow passengers – a wizened man reading about alchemy; an oversized bearded man-child; a haunted, bespectacled young man with a scar; and a gaggle of private school children […]