Stephen had been put to sleep in his usual room, far from children and noise, away in that corner of the house which looked down to the orchard and the bowling-green, and in spite of his long absence it was so familiar to him that when he woke about three he made his way to the window almost as quickly as if dawn had already broken, opened it and walked out on to the balcony. The moon had set: there was barely a star to be seen. The still air was delightfully fresh with falling dew, and a late nightingale, in indifferent voice, was uttering a routine jug-jug far down in Jack's plantations; closer at hand, and more agreeable by far, nightjars churred in the orchard, two of them, or perhaps three, the sound rising and falling, intertwining so that the source could not be made out for sure. There were few birds he preferred to nightjars, but it was not that they had brought him out of bed: he stood leaning on the balcony rail and presently Jack Aubrey, in a summer-house by the bowling-green, began again, playing very gently in the darkness, improvising wholly for himself, dreaming away on his violin with a mastery that Stephen had never heard equalled, though they had played together for years and years. more...

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When he came back he found Jack arranging the score of their next duet on their music stands. Like many other heavy men Jack could be as sensitive as a cat on occasion: he knew that he had touched on some painful area—that in any case Stephen hated questions—and he was particularly attentive in laying out the sheets, pouring Stephen another glass of wine, and when they began, in so playing that his violin helped the 'cello, yielding to it in those minute ways perceptible to those who are deep in their music if to few others.

(Patrick O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea)

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The review can now be found here.

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Omnibus review can now be found here.

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As I've mentioned (briefly), I'm building a travel Dobsonian telescope around a mirror that I made with my Granddad back in 1982. Here's what I looked like back then. (I'm the one on the left ;-)

We're in the process of polishing the mirror with rouge (as evidenced by the red-stained pitch lap).

Here's the resulting fine piece of optics, some 25 years in the future:
more...

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(Let's try posting this a third time!)

It's that time of the month again. The time for Dave Langford to illuminate the field of science fiction with Issue #242 of Ansible.

And, as always, it is interesting to see how those outside look at the field:

Arthur C. Clarke gets short shrift in Crunch Time: How Everyday Life is Killing the Future (2007) by Mike Hanley and Adrian Monck. 'Here in spades is the incurable optimism of the science fiction writer,' they write, and then quote 'Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Technology', including 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' Our reporter John Bark wonders whether Professor Monck (Head of the Faculty of Journalism and Publishing at City University, London) teaches his students that 'Any sufficiently famous Science Fiction writer is indistinguishable from any other.'

Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods is not sf, because: 'I hate science fiction. But good writers about science, such as Jim Crace and Margaret Atwood, are great. They take on science because it's crucial to our world, and they use language to give energy to ideas. Others just borrow from science and it ends up like the emperor's new clothes, with no understanding of the material. But you shouldn't fake it because science is too important, it's the basis for our lives. I expect a lot more science in fiction because science is so rich.' (New Scientist, 25 August) What is so particularly non-sciencefictional about this science novel? From The Bookseller: 'Billie Crusoe flees an authoritarian society in the company of a highly evolved robot of the species Robo sapiens, to join the perilous voyage to a new Blue Planet, a pristine place of apparently infinite possibilities. [...] Another part of the book is set in Wreck City, a no-go zone peopled by outcasts and casualties post 3-War, a conflict which has ravaged the world.' Winterson explains: 'This part of the book is far from fantasy [...] Everything in that part of the book has been written about scientifically already, it's very near.' [MKS via CB] Her next book will be equally unsciencefictional: 'It's called Robot Love and it's for kids. A girl builds a multi-gendered robot, which then kills her parents because it sees them mistreat her, so they both go on the run. I'm fascinated by artificial intelligence and where it will lead. These robots couldn't build anything as bad as us -- so why would they keep us?' [YH] What sf author could have imagined such novel concepts?

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Here's what I've read since my last report:

The Ghost Brigades, John Scalzi I love Scalzi's Colonial Union universe. I hope he is able to find a way to keep it interesting for himself, so that he will write more stories in this setting.

1776, David McCullough I don't know why I put this one off for so long. It was actually a pretty easy and informative read once I started.

Magician, Raymond E. Feist. I read this book many years ago and enjoyed it again as I was previewing it for my 13-year-old. I'm not much for swords-and-sorcery (I prefer hard SF), but this novel is set in a nicely-planned universe reflecting careful world-building and plotting. I may actually check out a few of the other stories set in this universe.

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, Christopher Hitchens. A quick read, inspired by the recent Time Magazine article about Mother Teresa's crises of faith.

In progress:

Making up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World, Chris Frith. This is a good one so far, but needed some more careful editing (I've noticed several sloppy typos that aren't the kind to be caught by spell-check; they would require a human copyeditor).

Consciousness Explained, Daniel C. Dennett.

Amateur Telescope Making Book One, Albert G. Ingalls (editor)

On Deck:

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens. My Sunday School class may be discussing this one in the near future, so I'll be getting a head start.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas R. Hofstadter. Time to re-read this.

Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain--and How it Changed the World, Carl Zimmer. I love Zimmer's science writing (check out his blog here). This is of a kind with all the other cognitive science reading I've been devouring this year. If I could find another way to pay for my 3 kids' college today, I would quit being a lawyer and go back to school for graduate work in CogSci. It's one of the most fertile areas of interdisciplinary study these days, and I have a very personal interest in learning more about how the brain works.

About eight months' worth of Analog magazine.

I am reading more than writing, still, and hope someday to condense some of my reading down into worthy blog posts. In the meantime, please continue to enjoy Planet Stories' excellent contributions around here.

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