(2006 continued...)

A profile of author Alex Irvine.

"What gets me about science fiction and all genre literature," he said in a recent coffee shop interview, "is that nobody has to work for a living. That drives me nuts...I want to write stories about people who work for a living."

Hmmm...I guess he hasn't read Allen Steele, Travis Taylor, Alastair Reynolds, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ben Bova, Robert A. Heinlein, Fred Pohl, Arthur C. Clarke, Tim Powers, Neil Gaiman, C.M. Kornbluth, William Gibson, Michael Flynn, Samuel R. Delany, Joe Haldeman and many others. They all have written stories about people who work for a living. Granted, their jobs might not be what we do here and now, but you'll find plenty of "grunts" in the tales of these and others.

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(2006 continued...)

The review can now be found here.

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(2006 continued...)

The review can now be found here.

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The kind folks at SF Signal have "tagged" me, so I'm being forced to think this morning. Don't worry, I'll carefully spread the wealth further...

1. One book that changed your life?

The World, The Flesh and The Devil by J.D. Bernal. more...

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Over at SF Signal, the management threw down the challenge to name three books that you've read and liked and that others probably have missed. Given my collection, I had many choices. As with many of these "meme"-like challenges, the problem was not so much finding choices but restricting them. Here are my choices. I figured that if I took the time to construct the comment there, I ought to be able to use it as a posting here! more...

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I've got a fair number of non-fiction books. Up to now, I've shelved them purely in alphabetical fashion (last name of the author). Recently I started pulling out books on observational astronomy, because I might be out observing in the backyard and come in to pull a book down off the shelves. It made it easier to group all the observing books together.

If certain things come to fruition, then I'll need a better way of shelving my other non-fiction books. Shelving solely by alphabetical fashion means that books on a certain subject might be hidden (out of sight, out of mind). So I'm thinking of adopting the Dewey Decimal system or something equivalent. Anybody out there do anything similar?

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A very good article about a series of "boy's books" that I read during my misbegotten youth. I visit the series now and again.

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(2006 continued...and moves into 2007...and then 2008...)

Combined reviews can be found here.

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Jane Galt wonders if Hollywood will be able to make Atlas Shrugged.

Hmmmm...hot Objectivist nude scenes...hmmmm...

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(2006 continued...)

A new book that might help me get over my O'Brian deprivation (when I finish my current re-read of his works).

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(2006 continued...)

The review can now be found here.

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(2006 continued...)

The review can now be found here.

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(2006 continued...)

The review can now be found here.

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(2006 continued and part of 2007...sidetracked for the rest of 2007...but then jump started for 2008!)

The review can now be found here.

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(2006 continued and part of 2007...)

Can you think of a better recommendation? 941 pages of space opera goodness! I'm heading for the bookstore tomorrow with my forklift!

So many anthologies. So many novels. So little time. So many ex-lovers to get rid of.

Part of the 2007 Short Story Project. more...

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(2006 continued and part of 2007...)

The review can now be found here.

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(2006 continued and part of 2007...)

The review can now be seen here.

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(2006 continued and part of 2007...)

Rick N Tumlinson and Erin R. Medlicott(editors): Return to the Moon.

Made up of: The Moon (Rick Tumlinson); The Next Age of Lunar Exploration (Andrew Chaikin); Marketplace of Competing Ideas Will Determine Alternate Futures (Courtney A. Stadd); The Moon: A New Destination in Space for America (Dr. Paul D. Spudis); Manned and Robotic Explorations of Space (Dr. Yoji Kondo); History and Frontiers: What Works, What Doesn't (Alex Gimarc); Returning to the Moon Will Transform NASA (Howard E. McCurdy); Making a Business Case for a Return to the Moon (Dr. Mike H. Ryan); The Extraterrestrial Enterprise (Philip K. Chapman, Sc.D.); Brave New World? (Robert Zimmerman); LunaMars: The Challenge (Robert D. Richards); Transporting a Legal System from the Earth to the Moon (Rosanna Sattler); The Space Settlement Initiative (Alan Wasser); Lunar Prospector: Lessons Learned (Alan Binder, Ph.D.); A Real Return to the Moon (David Gump); The New Space Revolution and Return to the Moon (Charles Lurio, Ph.D.); Access to Luna (John K. Strickland, Jr.); Lunar High-Risk Manufacture (Simon P. Worden); The Future of Lunar Tourism (Patrick Collins); Asteroidal Resources and the Cis-Lunar Industrial Economy (Dennis Wingo); Astronomy from the Moon (Yoji Kondo); The Overview Effect from the Moon (Frank White); The Conscious Evolutionary Choice (Steven Wolfe); The Social and Spirtual Significance of Lunar Settlement (Edward Hudgins, Ph.D.); Moon Age Daydreams (Allen M. Steele); The Lunar Declaration; Moon Facts; Moon Statistics.

Counts as four entries in the 2006 short story project.

Part of the 2007 Short Story Project.

Part of the 2008 Year in Shorts.

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(2006 continued and part of 2007...)

Chet Raymo: The Soul of the Night: An Astronomical Pilgrimage.

Made up of: Preface; The Silence; In a Dark Time; Faint Lights; Night Creatures; Beginnings; An Ancient Brilliance; Snakes and Ladders; Stardust; Far Down a Billowing Plain; Hidden Matter; The Monster in the Pool; Night Brought to Numbers; The Blandishments of Color; Follower of the Pleiades; The Shape of Night; A Midwinter Night's Dream; Earth, Kind, Mild; Waiting for the Comet; How Slowly Dark; The Bird and the Fish.

Counts as three entries in the 2006 short story project.

Part of the 2007 Short Story Project.

Part of the 2008 Year in Shorts.

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(2006 continued...)

Douglas R. Hofstadter: Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern (An Interlocked Collection of Literary, Scientific, and Artistic Studies. more...

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