Book Blog

know enough to be outraged by slavery. I don’t agree (i.e. I think it’s horseshit) to the droll explanation of economics and time and place that makes slavery in the U.S. into some understandable economic phase. It’s as if we consider that our country is a human being and the slavery phase was when it was rebelliously and petulantly thirteen. We had steam engines, telegraphs, and iron-working to the point where we could build metal ships. And still we had people in chains? I mean, WTF? So that didn’t surprise me. But everything else in Howard Zinn’s massive A People’s […]

here is something about a really good book. If you watch a really good movie, you want to go buy the DVD or something. With a book, you want to have the author’s baby, the feeling is so powerful. I’d have Priest’s children after reading through this 1974 classic about a colony settlement that’s in a horrific situation. See, they know they came from Earth. And they know the sun their new planet orbits is strange, shaped rather like a child’s top. And they know the ground beneath them is slowly sliding, a mile every ten days or so, down […]

‘ve read Hammett before, specifically his Maltese Falcon, which is a cracking good film because it stuck straight to the text. It was one of the best tough-guy novels I’d ever read. This this time around, Hammett is playing to the depression-era readers, giving them a hero they can dream themselves into. Nick Charles has it all. He’s managed to marry young and rich, so he can traipse around New York with pockets full of cash, offering quips while drinking (seemingly) nonstop and staying out all hours. But before all this, he was a detective and now he’s being pulled […]

heap shot here; I’m reviewing a book that I wrote, and that wasn’t ever published. So yes, this one will be tough to find. I think I have the only copy in existence. But maybe I can change all that. I’m preparing to rewrite this thing, to aim it at the adult/YA steampunk market. It’s a jolly little romp that has always warmed my heart. I think, reworked, it could have a chance of publication (of course, when is that ever not true? Why would I write them anyway?) Anyway, Tubitz and Mergenstein involve the pairing of a mismatched couple, […]

ully titled Looking Backwards: 2000-1887, this utopian science fiction novel was a landslide blockbuster hit (only third behind Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Ben Hur). Published in 1888, it broke all sorts of records for sales. Hundreds of clubs formed to discuss the novel and its ideals, and its proposal for a better world. In a word. SOCIALISM! Yes, poor Julian West, suffering insomnia, has himself put to sleep by quackish means in a crypt-like basement, only to find out (through later evidence) that his house burned down, his servant died, and nobody was there to wake him. Locked in suspended […]

ou gotta really want it. That’s all I can say about this book. I love China Mieville – he always provides amazingly new ideas to his works. But this one you’re going to have to work at. I’m not sure if I even get all the points he was making (which sucks since I’m reviewing it, right?). His books are out there, but he invites you (with language and setting and beautiful writing) to join him. Okay, so, Embassytown is a strange place, a little town of ambassadors living on an alien world way out on the edge of known […]

first leaned of this, oddly enough, through an old radio serial (Escape). See, while I audit at work, I sometimes listen to old radio programs. I loved the idea of this story and when I heard it came from a book, I had to check. And yes, Project Gutenberg had it for free. Written in 1913? Hmmm. But it turns out I was pleasantly surprised – Perceval Gibbon is more of a modern author. In fact, I’d say he was one of the kings of the gotcha ending. The free eBook I found was a collection of fifteen of his […]

efore heading out on vacation, I broke open one of my old boxes of yellowing paperbacks, to take a handful with me for my relaxing time off. In the coming weeks, I’ll be reviewing a number of older titles from the eighties. You’ve been warned. I wish someone had warned me about Venus of Dreams – why didn’t I write myself a note inside the cover, letting myself know what I was in for? It would be one of those time travel deals, where a past me could have let my current me know what I was getting myself into. […]

fter my first not-so-good 80s novel (Venus of Dreams), I started this one, The Glass Hammer with a little trepidation. After all, I remember (echoing so faintly) that I’d not really cared for this the first time around. But evidently the experiences and growth of thirty years can make a difference. Really enjoyed this one. So it’s Cyberpunk from that heyday (dystopian worlds with running-on-the-edge punks manipulating a world equal parts real and meta), a tale about a guy who is really good at the nightly game of running computer chips across the great desert from Phoenix to L.A. while […]

triking cover that originally caught my attention back in the 80s – an ME109 shooting down a something or other with the Empire State Building in the background. Yes, the Nazis are invading New York! Well, when I read it, I really didn’t get it. See, after that action-packed cover, the Germans are actually on the ground, having swept down from Iceland and up from Bermuda, taking the Northeast while the US was distracted with the fall of Hawaii and the Japanese fleet off the west coast. It isn’t about the short blitz that took the city – it’s about […]