Category Archives: science fiction

Neal Stephenson Week: Snow Crash

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Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is a classic science fiction book. It contains futuristic concepts married with historical ideas. It’s the first Stephenson book that was a hit and was the start of 7 consecutive best sellers. It’s rides the end of the cyberpunk wave of books (started by Neuromancer) and was one of the capstones on that style of book. But most of all, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

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Wrack and Roll by Bradley Denton

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Wrack and Roll by Bradley Denton (author of Blackburnand Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede) is a fun rock-and-roll alternate history where rock and roll has really changed the world. It’s a political-social satire that centers around the 1980 election in the alternate time-line while dealing with politics, regret, love and the power of music.

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Kop by Warren Hammond

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Kop by Warren Hammond was recommended to me as a science fiction detective story and I’m a sucker for a good science fiction detective story. It is a detective story in a science fiction setting, but the science is minimized and completely irrelevant to the story. It tries to be a noir, but ultimately fails at that level. The science fiction setting is just that, a setting. There is little to tell that we are on a different world with future technology. As a detective novel it’s a decent story with an ending that is designed to lead into a sequel more than provide closure.

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Counting Heads by David Marusek

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Counting Heads by David Marusek is a few years old with a sequel, Mind Over Ship, that came out a year ago. The book is an expansion of a short story Marusek wrote a 15 years ago (“We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy”). While their are some interesting ideas, it’s very flawed and not worth reading.

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Authors I Have Trouble Reading

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It’s not you, it’s me. There are some authors that I just can’t read. It’s not that their books are bad (they are award winning authors which is why I keep trying to read them), but I just can’t get into them. They leave me cold and disinterested and I just can’t bring myself to read their books any more. I know other people who love their writing, so I know it’s not them it’s me.

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A Clockwork Orange: Movie vs Book

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A Clockwork Orange was a literary masterpiece by Anthony Burgess before Stanley Kubrick made a award winning movie out of it. The two versions are completely different while retaining the same essential story. So whose was better, it really depends what you’re looking for.

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Blackout by Connie Willis

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Blackout by Connie Willis is a time travel and World War II novel all in one. In 2060, time travel is possible and historians are clamoring to go back to all eras. But when the time travel department starts rearranging people’s trips, all hell starts breaking loose. Connie Willis’ concept is good and the details about WWII England are amazing, but just as the plot starts pulling together the book ends and tells us to wait for the sequel.

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Makers Review

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Makers by Cory Doctrow (author of Little Brotherand Eastern Standard Tribe and co-editor of the Boing Boing website) is almost a pre-history of Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age (exploring the history surrounding the creation of the Matter Compiler).  Or it’s a political screed on the virtues of free access to intellectual property.  But either way, it’s a quick fun read, although a generally mediocre book.

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Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

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Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson (author of the wonderful Spin and the not so good sequel Axis) is a post apocalyptic western. The setting feels like it’s the 1800’s US with some newer technology, and the religious aspect is interesting. But overall the plot holes and technology questions overwhelm the characterization and make this a thoroughly mediocre story.

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