Alternative History - The Power of What If
November 18, 2008 by admin
Filed under Books & Literature
Examining what might have been might have been is quite possibly the best way to understand what is. To start out this book series I want to start by introducing a few of my favorite Alternative history series. At the end will be a list of alternative history authors that i hope grows in time.
Darwin’s Bear
August 13, 2008 by poptart
Filed under Books & Literature
I don’t often get to recommend books on The Other Blog simply because I don’t get a chance to read nearly as much as I would like. This is true for many reasons, mostly because I spend so much time writing my own fiction and in free time I often only have time for quick reads of old favorites. Insomnia though has brought me two great reads from Greg Bear.
As a master of Science fiction, I am loathe to say I hadn’t read much of his work before and what I had read were only anthology inclusions picked up for some other author. That will change. I picked up Darwin’s Radio at the library simply out of curiosity and left with it like so many other books, having the intention to read them but not finding the time before or after I already owed fines.
Darwin’s Radio is the story of love and fear interwoven with biology, anthropology and modern politics. I have had a lot of time lately to think what family means to me, and this book was picked up at the right time in my life to have a full impact. There are notions that will put both Darwinians, Creationists, pro-choice and pro-lifers on edge in ways you wouldn’t necessarily count on ever happening. True crises help people figure out where there priorities are and in places in the novel I was wondering when the radical black lesbian vegetarians were going to stand side by side with good ol’ boys of the NRA and Klan to fight the guv’ment as one. (He didn’t go quite that far)
Like all good science fiction Darwin’s Radio left me hanging with lots of questions about what if. There was more story to be told. I was sufficiently pleased to go back to the library and see there was a sequel, Darwin’s Children. This answered many of the longing questions I had been left with about the characters I so quickly became attached to. However it too was a powerful novel that leaves you thinking in the end.
If you enjoy intellectual fiction of any type picking up Darwin’s Radio and Darwin’s Children would not be a mistake. If you have already read this and are looking for other recommendations you can’t go wrong with Steven Baxter’s Evolution of Robert J Sawyer’s Neanderthal Parallax Series: Hominids, Humans, Hybrids.
Urban Legends, Contemporary Fantasy, and Political Jokes
May 2, 2008 by poptart
Filed under Books & Literature
This morning two things appeared in Google Trends that more or less confused me. Among the top ten searches were Rip Van Winkle and Sleepy Hollow. These are two great tales of old, but frankly I couldn’t see how they were relevant at first. Sure Paula Abdul could have been pulling a either a Rip Van Winkle or a Sleepy Hollow head during the first round of idol this week. Alas neither seems to be the joke on hand.
Aside from the political jokes being made with both terms there is another pop culture reference in Irving’s legacy. In 1807 he was the first to affix the name Gotham to New York City. With the Dark Knight’s release so close at hand, Batman and His home town never being far from our minds, and New York City’s ties to the name Knickerbockers Washington Irving is still on our minds even if we don’t know it.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle both were accorded not only as popular literature at the time, but were what amounted to some of the first American Urban Fantasy stories. I usually deplore those big fat fantasy novels (BFF) that are so keenly read by my fellow nerds and geeks, but urban fantasy is a very different story, though they were my teenage wasteland (lyrics to Baba O’Riley). I have no love for sword swinging paladins or evil wizards phallic shaped towers, but a gun toting horny sidhe, a badass pixie, or werewolf living everyday normal lives by our sides is cool. Read more
Arthur C Clarke Tribute
March 19, 2008 by poptart
Filed under Books & Literature, Farewell
The best tribute we can pay to Arthur C Clarke today is by not reading his own works, of which there are many, but to read the works of living authors who continue to pushing the genre into the realm of tomorrow.
These are some of my favorites Authors in the genre and links to their websites, wikis, and blogs. I hope you enjoy
- Kevin J Anderson
- Stephen Baxter
- Ben Bova
- Michael Crichton
- Ellen Datlow
- Bill Eakin
- Philip Jose Farmer
My Vampire Weekend
March 9, 2008 by poptart
Filed under Books & Literature
I tried to clear my mind of Vampire Weekend with some quiet reading of another vampiric nature. I am rereading Kim Harrison’s Rachel Morgan series before I read her latest in the Series, The Outlaw Demon Wails. For those unfamiliar with the series the first thing that drew me to it was the bad puns used for the titles, such as Dead Witch Walking, and Fist Full of Charms. The setting is modern day Cincinnati, assuming we really lived where vampires, witches, werewolves, pixies, and elves really live side by side with us.
The back story difference begins with an early genetic food modification tomatoes which kills a high percentage of the human population. It is quickly realized that a large number of people survive and it comes out that they aren’t exactly human, thus beginning forty plus years of learning to live in the public. Flash forward to modern times you have Rachel Morgan, a white witch, tired of her job as a supernatural cop. Sick of the lack of respect she gets from her superiors and coworkers, she strikes out on her own with the Pixie Jenks and her soon to become BFF Ivy, the vampire. With a host of problems from her old bosses and people she has just pissed off over the years the trio runs a fairly complicated PI service for the supernatural crowd.
The series has it all. I know what some of you are thinking, a book. Yes, before the internet, television and even movies there were books and it would do a lot of you good to read one once in a while. Yes I know that sounds preachy but damn it, I am an author and know I have to sell roughly 8900 paperback copies to clear my my $5k advance, so shut up and buy one, and help support us poor slobs. Okay it is a book, I know what your next question is, “are there sports in it”? Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles. Okay now your question has got to be is this a kissing book? Yeah there is some of the that too, and if we are lucky we will get to see a more than a taste of our bisexual Ivy in The Outlaw Demon Wails.
