http://www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/...
A Tarzan clone, and unlike in the planetary romance case where Kline is worth a shot, here you can stick with Tarzan.
Although the love interest being named Ramona is certainly a little different, even if the royalty part is not.
You also do get some mastodons along with lots of capturing, caging and escaping of Jan.
2.5 out of 5
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Between the Strokes Of Night 1-9 - Charles Sheffield
http://www.webscription.net/chapters/0743435680/0743435680.htm
"From the diary of Charlene Bloom:
Today I received word from Kallen's World. Wolfgang IV is dead. He was five hundred and four years old, and like his forebears he was respected by the whole planet. A picture of his own grandson came with the message. I looked at it for a long time, but blood thins across six generations. It was impossible, save in my imagination, to recognize any sign of the original (and to me the one-and-only) Wolfgang in this descendant.
My Wolfgang is dead, long dead; but the great wager goes on. On days like this I feel that I am the only person in the Universe who cares about the outcome. If Wolfgang and his friends are right, who but I will know and be here to applaud him? And if we win, who but I will know the cost of victory?
It is significant that I record this death first, before acknowledging the report of a faster-than-light drive from Beacon Four. Gulf City is throbbing with the news, but I have heard the same rumor a hundred—a thousand?—times before. For 28,000 years our struggle to escape the yoke of relativity has continued; still it binds us, as strongly as ever. In public I say that the research must go on even if Beacon Four has nothing, that the faster-than-light drive will be the single most important discovery in human history; but deep within me I deny even the possibility. If the Universe is apprehensible to the human mind, then it must have some final laws. I am not permitted to admit it, but I believe the light-speed limit is one. As humans explore the galaxy, it must be done at a sub-light crawl.
I wish I could believe otherwise. But most of all today I wish that I could spend one hour again with Wolfgang."
3.5 out of 5
"From the diary of Charlene Bloom:
Today I received word from Kallen's World. Wolfgang IV is dead. He was five hundred and four years old, and like his forebears he was respected by the whole planet. A picture of his own grandson came with the message. I looked at it for a long time, but blood thins across six generations. It was impossible, save in my imagination, to recognize any sign of the original (and to me the one-and-only) Wolfgang in this descendant.
My Wolfgang is dead, long dead; but the great wager goes on. On days like this I feel that I am the only person in the Universe who cares about the outcome. If Wolfgang and his friends are right, who but I will know and be here to applaud him? And if we win, who but I will know the cost of victory?
It is significant that I record this death first, before acknowledging the report of a faster-than-light drive from Beacon Four. Gulf City is throbbing with the news, but I have heard the same rumor a hundred—a thousand?—times before. For 28,000 years our struggle to escape the yoke of relativity has continued; still it binds us, as strongly as ever. In public I say that the research must go on even if Beacon Four has nothing, that the faster-than-light drive will be the single most important discovery in human history; but deep within me I deny even the possibility. If the Universe is apprehensible to the human mind, then it must have some final laws. I am not permitted to admit it, but I believe the light-speed limit is one. As humans explore the galaxy, it must be done at a sub-light crawl.
I wish I could believe otherwise. But most of all today I wish that I could spend one hour again with Wolfgang."
3.5 out of 5
The Web Between the Worlds 1-6 - Charles Sheffield
http://www.webscription.net/chapters/0671319736/0671319736.htm
"Rob sat down again in the chair facing Regulo. "You know there's an old saying about engineering projects. Fast—cheap—good. You can only have two out of three."
Regulo waved a hand. "Oh, I know, I know. I've already made my pick. You give me fast and good, and let me worry about the costs."
Rob stared hard at the ruined face, trying to read the feelings behind the deformed mask. It was impossible. Only the eyes were human, and they glittered with an intense intellectual interest. "All right. Fast and good. It's still your ball. You realize that an extrusion rate of two hundred kilometers a day could spin a supporting cable out of the Spider in one year to go twice around the Earth? At ten kilometers a day we'd have thousands of kilometers of cable—more than we'd ever need. What are you playing at, designing bridges to put on Jupiter?"
"No. Something a lot more interesting and a lot more useful." Regulo leaned across to the control panel at the side of the desk and pressed a sequence of keys. The big display screen on the right hand wall came alive with the stylized image of the Earth-Moon system, roughly to scale. "You already know my view of rockets, from the motto in the top of the desk. I'm responsible for hauling more material up from Earth than anyone else, and we use rockets for all of that; but I happen to believe that I'm working with an obsolete piece of technology. Even with the best nuclear propulsion systems, it still takes an awful lot of energy to hoist a payload up from the surface of Earth into orbit. And it takes just as much energy and reaction mass to get the damned stuff back down again.
"Now, Rob, you're trained in physics as well as engineering. I checked that much of your background, before I ever asked Cornelia to try and bring you up here. So you know very well that a Newtonian gravitational field is conservative. A potential function exists for it. What does that mean? I'll tell you: it means that in principle you should be able to take a mass from one point of the field—let's say the surface of the Earth—out to some other point—let's say geosynchronous orbit—using a certain amount of energy. Then you should be able to take it back down to Earth—and you should recover all the energy you expended to get it up in the first place. That's the whole point of a conservative field, what you used going up, you should recover when you come back down again."
Rob shrugged. "I understand the ideas behind potential fields. They don't help at all in practice. The Earth's gravitational field is very close to conservative, true enough, but you still have to use energy to get the rockets up into space from the surface. And you still need reaction mass and energy to stop them falling too fast when you want to go back down."
"We do. Isn't that a terrible situation, from the point of view of engineering efficiency? So there's where we have to begin." Regulo pressed another key on the control console and the wall display became animated, showing the Earth and Moon rotating together about their common center of mass, with the Earth also rotating on its axis.
"Suppose we don't use rockets at all," he said. "Rockets are like ferry-boats, taking materials and people up and down. Suppose that instead of ferry-boats we were to build a bridge to space. The idea is simple enough: we take a cable, tethered to a point of the Earth's surface, somewhere on the equator. It extends vertically upwards, all the way up to synchronous orbit, where we are now, and on beyond it. At the far end, we have some kind of ballast weight. See the picture? The whole thing hangs there in equilibrium, with the downward forces from all the length of cable below geosynchronous altitude just balancing the outward forces from centrifugal acceleration. The ballast weight wants to fly outward, but the cable prevents that, and the outward tension on the cable is just balanced by the force on the tether point, down on the surface. The whole assembly rotates, at exactly the same speed as the Earth. Like this."
Regulo pressed another key. The rotating Earth-Moon system now showed a long cable, extending up from the surface of the Earth and rotating steadily with it.
Rob stared at the display, thoughtfully, head to one side and hand rubbing at his black beard. He had not bothered to remove the eleven-day growth before he and Corrie left Suget Jangal. "It sounds nice. But I don't see how it could work. Every element on that cable wants to move in a different orbit. Every part of it wants to move around the Earth at a different speed."
"Quite true." Regulo sounded confident, and it was clear that he was enjoying himself. "Elements of the cable want to move at different speeds—but they can't. The tension in the cable prevents that from happening. There's no difference between this situation and a stone swinging around on the end of a rope."
He reached again to the side of the desk and picked up another listing. "Look, Rob, this isn't something I've just now dreamed up. You can find references to it in the literature—as an idea, not as an engineering reality—over ninety years ago. The first suggestions for a system like this one go back to the 1960's, maybe even farther. All the orbital mechanics were studied back then. This is a list of some of the references. I told you, I've known about the idea and wanted to build it for over forty years. The thing that always held me back was the problem of materials. We never had anything strong enough to support the cable's own weight, never mind carry other materials up and down. I've been watching the progress in materials science, year after year, looking for something like that article I just showed you. Finally, it came."
Regulo again picked up the abstract that he and Rob had been reading earlier. He tapped the page with a thin finger. "There's a crucial point about this that you might have missed on a quick read through. These doped silicon whiskers for cable-making can be produced cheaply, and that's the key to everything. They're even less expensive than the graphite ones."
Rob was still staring at the image on the display screen. His eyes were blank as he performed rapid mental calculations. "Regulo, that thing would have to be at least seventy thousand kilometers long, just to keep the ballast weight to a reasonable value. My God, what a project—and I thought the Tasmanian Bridge might be the biggest job I'd ever see."
Regulo watched approvingly as Rob's absorption in the display before him increased. "You see now why I'm interested in the Spider," he said. "You know, I noticed at once when you patented the Spider, three years ago. I thought it was just the thing we'd need if I ever got the chance to build this one. We tried to duplicate the idea for ourselves, thinking we might find a way around your patents once we understood the process. We never came close. That's when I realized the two of us ought to be talking. It's one of my basic principles, hire anybody who does something that I can't. As for your estimate of seventy thousand kilometers . . ."
He leaned forward and again pressed a key on the control board. The display remained in position, but an additional message appeared at the foot of the screen: CABLE DESIGN LENGTH: ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE THOUSAND KILOMETERS."
3 out of 5
"Rob sat down again in the chair facing Regulo. "You know there's an old saying about engineering projects. Fast—cheap—good. You can only have two out of three."
Regulo waved a hand. "Oh, I know, I know. I've already made my pick. You give me fast and good, and let me worry about the costs."
Rob stared hard at the ruined face, trying to read the feelings behind the deformed mask. It was impossible. Only the eyes were human, and they glittered with an intense intellectual interest. "All right. Fast and good. It's still your ball. You realize that an extrusion rate of two hundred kilometers a day could spin a supporting cable out of the Spider in one year to go twice around the Earth? At ten kilometers a day we'd have thousands of kilometers of cable—more than we'd ever need. What are you playing at, designing bridges to put on Jupiter?"
"No. Something a lot more interesting and a lot more useful." Regulo leaned across to the control panel at the side of the desk and pressed a sequence of keys. The big display screen on the right hand wall came alive with the stylized image of the Earth-Moon system, roughly to scale. "You already know my view of rockets, from the motto in the top of the desk. I'm responsible for hauling more material up from Earth than anyone else, and we use rockets for all of that; but I happen to believe that I'm working with an obsolete piece of technology. Even with the best nuclear propulsion systems, it still takes an awful lot of energy to hoist a payload up from the surface of Earth into orbit. And it takes just as much energy and reaction mass to get the damned stuff back down again.
"Now, Rob, you're trained in physics as well as engineering. I checked that much of your background, before I ever asked Cornelia to try and bring you up here. So you know very well that a Newtonian gravitational field is conservative. A potential function exists for it. What does that mean? I'll tell you: it means that in principle you should be able to take a mass from one point of the field—let's say the surface of the Earth—out to some other point—let's say geosynchronous orbit—using a certain amount of energy. Then you should be able to take it back down to Earth—and you should recover all the energy you expended to get it up in the first place. That's the whole point of a conservative field, what you used going up, you should recover when you come back down again."
Rob shrugged. "I understand the ideas behind potential fields. They don't help at all in practice. The Earth's gravitational field is very close to conservative, true enough, but you still have to use energy to get the rockets up into space from the surface. And you still need reaction mass and energy to stop them falling too fast when you want to go back down."
"We do. Isn't that a terrible situation, from the point of view of engineering efficiency? So there's where we have to begin." Regulo pressed another key on the control console and the wall display became animated, showing the Earth and Moon rotating together about their common center of mass, with the Earth also rotating on its axis.
"Suppose we don't use rockets at all," he said. "Rockets are like ferry-boats, taking materials and people up and down. Suppose that instead of ferry-boats we were to build a bridge to space. The idea is simple enough: we take a cable, tethered to a point of the Earth's surface, somewhere on the equator. It extends vertically upwards, all the way up to synchronous orbit, where we are now, and on beyond it. At the far end, we have some kind of ballast weight. See the picture? The whole thing hangs there in equilibrium, with the downward forces from all the length of cable below geosynchronous altitude just balancing the outward forces from centrifugal acceleration. The ballast weight wants to fly outward, but the cable prevents that, and the outward tension on the cable is just balanced by the force on the tether point, down on the surface. The whole assembly rotates, at exactly the same speed as the Earth. Like this."
Regulo pressed another key. The rotating Earth-Moon system now showed a long cable, extending up from the surface of the Earth and rotating steadily with it.
Rob stared at the display, thoughtfully, head to one side and hand rubbing at his black beard. He had not bothered to remove the eleven-day growth before he and Corrie left Suget Jangal. "It sounds nice. But I don't see how it could work. Every element on that cable wants to move in a different orbit. Every part of it wants to move around the Earth at a different speed."
"Quite true." Regulo sounded confident, and it was clear that he was enjoying himself. "Elements of the cable want to move at different speeds—but they can't. The tension in the cable prevents that from happening. There's no difference between this situation and a stone swinging around on the end of a rope."
He reached again to the side of the desk and picked up another listing. "Look, Rob, this isn't something I've just now dreamed up. You can find references to it in the literature—as an idea, not as an engineering reality—over ninety years ago. The first suggestions for a system like this one go back to the 1960's, maybe even farther. All the orbital mechanics were studied back then. This is a list of some of the references. I told you, I've known about the idea and wanted to build it for over forty years. The thing that always held me back was the problem of materials. We never had anything strong enough to support the cable's own weight, never mind carry other materials up and down. I've been watching the progress in materials science, year after year, looking for something like that article I just showed you. Finally, it came."
Regulo again picked up the abstract that he and Rob had been reading earlier. He tapped the page with a thin finger. "There's a crucial point about this that you might have missed on a quick read through. These doped silicon whiskers for cable-making can be produced cheaply, and that's the key to everything. They're even less expensive than the graphite ones."
Rob was still staring at the image on the display screen. His eyes were blank as he performed rapid mental calculations. "Regulo, that thing would have to be at least seventy thousand kilometers long, just to keep the ballast weight to a reasonable value. My God, what a project—and I thought the Tasmanian Bridge might be the biggest job I'd ever see."
Regulo watched approvingly as Rob's absorption in the display before him increased. "You see now why I'm interested in the Spider," he said. "You know, I noticed at once when you patented the Spider, three years ago. I thought it was just the thing we'd need if I ever got the chance to build this one. We tried to duplicate the idea for ourselves, thinking we might find a way around your patents once we understood the process. We never came close. That's when I realized the two of us ought to be talking. It's one of my basic principles, hire anybody who does something that I can't. As for your estimate of seventy thousand kilometers . . ."
He leaned forward and again pressed a key on the control board. The display remained in position, but an additional message appeared at the foot of the screen: CABLE DESIGN LENGTH: ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE THOUSAND KILOMETERS."
3 out of 5
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Cobra - Timothy Zahn
http://www.webscription.net/chapters/0743488474/0743488474.htm
An episodic novel that tells the story of a young man who signs up for a space force army when it seems that war with an alien race is inevitable.
He then is picked to get what is the 24 million dollar man treatment - full bionics, plus weapons implants.
The various novel sections follow him in training, in first guerilla action on a planet, coming home, as a colonist, and then as a politician.
3.5 out of 5
An episodic novel that tells the story of a young man who signs up for a space force army when it seems that war with an alien race is inevitable.
He then is picked to get what is the 24 million dollar man treatment - full bionics, plus weapons implants.
The various novel sections follow him in training, in first guerilla action on a planet, coming home, as a colonist, and then as a politician.
3.5 out of 5
The Wallenstein Gambit - Eric Flint
The Wallenstein Gambit - Eric Flint
Multi-part. With APCs. Whether you call them rooks or bishops, dunno.
2.5 out of 5
Multi-part. With APCs. Whether you call them rooks or bishops, dunno.
2.5 out of 5
Monday, January 26, 2009
Temptation 3 - David Brin
http://podcast.starshipsofa.com/podcast/StarShipSofa_Aural_Delights_No_59_Gregory_Frost.mp3
Jijo got a big future, if we are rational.
3.5 out of 5
Jijo got a big future, if we are rational.
3.5 out of 5
In the Sunken Museum - Gregory Frost
http://podcast.starshipsofa.com/podcast/StarShipSofa_Aural_Delights_No_59_Gregory_Frost.mp3
Don't think you should be, though.
3.5 out of 5
Don't think you should be, though.
3.5 out of 5
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Blood Bound 1 - Patricia Briggs
http://www.hurog.com/books/bloodboundChapter.shtml
"No, I don't need you in order to appear intimidating," Stefan agreed softly after I'd stared at him for a few seconds. "But he'll think intimidation is why I have a coyote on my leash. " He hesitated, then shrugged. "This vampire has been through here before, and I think that he managed to deceive one of our young ones. Because of what you are, you are immune to many vampyric powers, especially if the vampire in question doesn't know what you are. Thinking you a coyote, he's probably not going to waste his magic on you at all. It is unlikely, but he might manage to deceive me as well as he did Daniel, but I don't think he'll be able to deceive you."
3.5 out of 5
"No, I don't need you in order to appear intimidating," Stefan agreed softly after I'd stared at him for a few seconds. "But he'll think intimidation is why I have a coyote on my leash. " He hesitated, then shrugged. "This vampire has been through here before, and I think that he managed to deceive one of our young ones. Because of what you are, you are immune to many vampyric powers, especially if the vampire in question doesn't know what you are. Thinking you a coyote, he's probably not going to waste his magic on you at all. It is unlikely, but he might manage to deceive me as well as he did Daniel, but I don't think he'll be able to deceive you."
3.5 out of 5
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Breathing Trouble - Michael Jasper
http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/gallery.php?item=56&fl=1&title=&author=jasper
Gonna make a deal, guy, see this gun?
3 out of 5
Gonna make a deal, guy, see this gun?
3 out of 5
The Walls Of the Universe 2 - Paul Melko
http://www.paulmelko.com/walls/Chapter2.html
"Prime smiled. "Don't want me hitting on Casey Nicholson, huh?"
"Stop it!" He raised his hand. "That's it. Why don't you just move on? Hit the next town or the next universe or whatever. Just get out of my life!"
Prime frowned. He paused for a moment, as if considering something important. Finally, he lifted up his shirt. Under his grey sweatshirt was a shoulder harness with a thin disk the diameter of a softball attached at the center. It had a digital readout which said 7533, three blue buttons on the front, and dials and levers on the sides.
Prime began unstrapping the harness and said, "John, maybe it's time you saw for yourself."
3.5 out of 5
"Prime smiled. "Don't want me hitting on Casey Nicholson, huh?"
"Stop it!" He raised his hand. "That's it. Why don't you just move on? Hit the next town or the next universe or whatever. Just get out of my life!"
Prime frowned. He paused for a moment, as if considering something important. Finally, he lifted up his shirt. Under his grey sweatshirt was a shoulder harness with a thin disk the diameter of a softball attached at the center. It had a digital readout which said 7533, three blue buttons on the front, and dials and levers on the sides.
Prime began unstrapping the harness and said, "John, maybe it's time you saw for yourself."
3.5 out of 5
Friday, January 23, 2009
Temptation 2 - David Brin
http://podcast.starshipsofa.com/podcast/StarShipSofa_Aural_Delights_No_58_Ian_Watson.mp3
Second part of Brin's dolphin adventure novella. Also available on his website in text version.
http://www.kithrup.com/.brin/temptation1.html
3.5 out of 5
Second part of Brin's dolphin adventure novella. Also available on his website in text version.
http://www.kithrup.com/.brin/temptation1.html
3.5 out of 5
Looking Down On You - Ian Watson
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Afterword to Wizardry and Wild Romance - Jeff VanderMeer
http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2009/01/12/afterword-to-michael-moorcocks-wizardry-and-wild-romance/
Apparently an updated edition of the earlier work that looks at fantasy books. I have the older version, so can't speak for the rest of this one, but the first is definitely interesting. This is also from Monkey Brain Books who specialise in non-fiction about science fiction and fantasy, so I am sure what they have done is good, given I have several of their other books. You can trust Chris Roberson, who is the Big MonkeyBrain to do good stuff.
4.5 out of 5
Apparently an updated edition of the earlier work that looks at fantasy books. I have the older version, so can't speak for the rest of this one, but the first is definitely interesting. This is also from Monkey Brain Books who specialise in non-fiction about science fiction and fantasy, so I am sure what they have done is good, given I have several of their other books. You can trust Chris Roberson, who is the Big MonkeyBrain to do good stuff.
4.5 out of 5
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 8 - Scott H. Andrews
http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/toc.php?s=all
A pretty typical Beneath Ceaseless Skies issues it would seem, but with this particular pair of stories good enough to round up.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 8 : Beneath the Mask - Aliette de Bodard
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 8 : Winterblood - Megan Arkenberg
Blood and masks for Quetzlcoatl.
3.5 out of 5
Cold musketeering.
3 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
A pretty typical Beneath Ceaseless Skies issues it would seem, but with this particular pair of stories good enough to round up.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 8 : Beneath the Mask - Aliette de Bodard
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 8 : Winterblood - Megan Arkenberg
Blood and masks for Quetzlcoatl.
3.5 out of 5
Cold musketeering.
3 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Sir Arthur and I - Frederik Pohl
http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2009/01/sir-arthur-and-i/#more-28
Talking about how he came to collaborate on the last Arthur C. Clarke book.
5 out of 5
Talking about how he came to collaborate on the last Arthur C. Clarke book.
5 out of 5
The Walls Of the Universe 1 - Paul Melko
http://www.paulmelko.com/walls/Chapter1.html
"My name is John, just like yours. I am you, but you may not like to think of me as John Rayburn. I think of you as John Farmboy. But you gotta' remember there's an infinite number of us. It's going to be hard to keep track of all us John Rayburns if we ever get together." The stranger laughed. "How about you think of me as John Prime for now? We'll keep track of ourselves relative to our downstream and upstream universes."
"Who gave you the device?"
"John Superprime," Prime said with a smile. "So do you believe me yet?"
3.5 out of 5
"My name is John, just like yours. I am you, but you may not like to think of me as John Rayburn. I think of you as John Farmboy. But you gotta' remember there's an infinite number of us. It's going to be hard to keep track of all us John Rayburns if we ever get together." The stranger laughed. "How about you think of me as John Prime for now? We'll keep track of ourselves relative to our downstream and upstream universes."
"Who gave you the device?"
"John Superprime," Prime said with a smile. "So do you believe me yet?"
3.5 out of 5
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Eros and Thanatos - Tim Pratt
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cafrica/ultraverse/2004_11/v2i1_scifimage_pratt.shtml
Cupid vs Death, with lots of guns.
3.5 out of 5
Cupid vs Death, with lots of guns.
3.5 out of 5
Behemoth Brewing And Distribution Co. - Tim Pratt
http://www.forteanbureau.com/feb2004/Pratt/
Sasquatch's Old Hairy Bastard Stout
Aztec Nectar Ale
Angelic Effluvia Lager
Giant Whale Ale
Lo! Calorie Light Beer
Deathly Pale Ale
From this lot, recommend the stout.
3.5 out of 5
Sasquatch's Old Hairy Bastard Stout
Aztec Nectar Ale
Angelic Effluvia Lager
Giant Whale Ale
Lo! Calorie Light Beer
Deathly Pale Ale
From this lot, recommend the stout.
3.5 out of 5
Melancholy Shore - Tim Pratt
http://www.ideomancer.com/hr/Pratt-Shore/Pratt-Shore.htm
Abandon hope, plus all leftovers and cold beer.
3.5 out of 5
Abandon hope, plus all leftovers and cold beer.
3.5 out of 5
Old Ones - Tim Pratt
http://www.journalscape.com/tim/2006-08-12-09:42#oldones
Birthday party tentacle summoning.
3.5 out of 5
Birthday party tentacle summoning.
3.5 out of 5
Dr. Nefarious And The Lazarus Project - Tim Pratt
http://www.timpratt.org/nefarious.html
"It's simple, Li. You impersonate Harold Sullivan and take Dr. Nefarious his parrot and his hot dog. Once you're inside his headquarters, you capture him, stop the rain, and bring us the weather machine."
4 out of 5
"It's simple, Li. You impersonate Harold Sullivan and take Dr. Nefarious his parrot and his hot dog. Once you're inside his headquarters, you capture him, stop the rain, and bring us the weather machine."
4 out of 5
Bleeding West - Tim Pratt
http://www.deepoutside.com/Fiction/bleedingwest.shtml
Ghost Riders Fought the Law and the Law Lost.
4 out of 5
Ghost Riders Fought the Law and the Law Lost.
4 out of 5
Adventures In Sci-Fi Publishing - Tom Lloyd
http://www.adventuresinscifipublishing.com/2008/12/aisfp-69-tom-lloyd/
An interview with the author of The Stormcaller, published a while ago, now getting a US edition through Pyr, and how that came to be.
4.5 out of 5
An interview with the author of The Stormcaller, published a while ago, now getting a US edition through Pyr, and how that came to be.
4.5 out of 5
The Ray-gun: A Love Story - James Alan Gardner
The Ray-Gun: A Love Story - James Alan Gardner
" On the other hand, Jack had just acquired great power. And great responsibility. Like Peter Parker, Jack had to keep his power secret, for fear of tragic consequences. In Jack's case, maybe aliens would come for him. Maybe spies or government agents would kidnap him and his family. No matter how farfetched those things seemed, the existence of a ray-gun proved the world wasn't tame."
4 out of 5
" On the other hand, Jack had just acquired great power. And great responsibility. Like Peter Parker, Jack had to keep his power secret, for fear of tragic consequences. In Jack's case, maybe aliens would come for him. Maybe spies or government agents would kidnap him and his family. No matter how farfetched those things seemed, the existence of a ray-gun proved the world wasn't tame."
4 out of 5
Brimstone Orange - Livia Llewellyn
http://media.rawvoice.com/pseudopod/media.libsyn.com/media/pseudopod/PseudoFlash006_BrimstoneOrange.mp3
Scary fruit licker bunch.
3.5 out of 5
Scary fruit licker bunch.
3.5 out of 5
Monday, January 19, 2009
Hollywood Roadkill - Cat Sparks
http://www.ripping-ozzie-reads.com/sfHolywoodRoadkill.html
The old car accident scam is a lot harder with spider robots and armoured guys with guns.
(call it 4.25)
4 out of 5
The old car accident scam is a lot harder with spider robots and armoured guys with guns.
(call it 4.25)
4 out of 5
Incident On And Off A Mountain Road - Joe R. Lansdale
http://www.joerlansdale.com/stories.shtml
Panty slingshot frypan basher baby clubbing slasher fightback mountain man murder.
4 out of 5
Panty slingshot frypan basher baby clubbing slasher fightback mountain man murder.
4 out of 5
The Longest Running Pulps - Mike Ashley
http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/01/the_longest_run.html
Some magazine history, trivia (and big numbers) to be found here.
4.5 out of 5
Some magazine history, trivia (and big numbers) to be found here.
4.5 out of 5
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Suffer the Little Children - Rowena Cory Daniells
http://www.ripping-ozzie-reads.com/hsufferthelittlechildren.html
Children in the bush are becoming very different.
3 out of 5
Children in the bush are becoming very different.
3 out of 5
Slow and Ache - Trent Jamieson
http://www.ripping-ozzie-reads.com/sfSlowandAche.html
Sellout. Jump out. Knives out. Clear out.
4 out of 5
Sellout. Jump out. Knives out. Clear out.
4 out of 5
The Bluebell Vengeance - Tansy Rayner Roberts
http://www.ripping-ozzie-reads.com/yaBluebell.html
Good fairies and bad witches have conniving families.
4 out of 5
Good fairies and bad witches have conniving families.
4 out of 5
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Three Tales From Sky River - Vandana Singh
Three Tales from Sky River <...> - Vandana Singh
"Listen!" Said the Tipi-Bird
Haiho's Knife
The Marriage of Tree and Stone
Humans blow too much shit up, so we'll natural disaster 'em every so often.
3 out of 5
Tentacle bonfire.
3.5 out of 5
Rocky woody scare.
2.5 out of 5
2.5 out of 5
"Listen!" Said the Tipi-Bird
Haiho's Knife
The Marriage of Tree and Stone
Humans blow too much shit up, so we'll natural disaster 'em every so often.
3 out of 5
Tentacle bonfire.
3.5 out of 5
Rocky woody scare.
2.5 out of 5
2.5 out of 5
Listen! Said the Tipi-Bird - Vandana Singh
Three Tales from Sky River <...> - Vandana Singh
Humans blow too much shit up, so we'll natural disaster 'em every so often.
3 out of 5
Humans blow too much shit up, so we'll natural disaster 'em every so often.
3 out of 5
Errata - Jeff VanderMeer
http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=story&id=11546#comments
Magazine ramblings.
3 out of 5
Magazine ramblings.
3 out of 5
Honey In His Mouth - Lester Dent
http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bios.cgi?entry=bk60&type=excerpt
"Harsh supposed that using the girl to con Roebuck out of seven hundred and twelve dollars worth of photo supplies was what had driven the man crazy. If Harsh had stuck to the straight con and left out sex, maybe Roebuck wouldn’t have blown his top. However it made no difference now, it was water past the bridge. Harsh had used the photo supplies. He did not have money to pay up. All he could do was run for it. The roar from his engine was deafening and the whole car pounded and shuddered. Son of a bitch trying to fly to pieces, he thought."
3.5 out of 5
"Harsh supposed that using the girl to con Roebuck out of seven hundred and twelve dollars worth of photo supplies was what had driven the man crazy. If Harsh had stuck to the straight con and left out sex, maybe Roebuck wouldn’t have blown his top. However it made no difference now, it was water past the bridge. Harsh had used the photo supplies. He did not have money to pay up. All he could do was run for it. The roar from his engine was deafening and the whole car pounded and shuddered. Son of a bitch trying to fly to pieces, he thought."
3.5 out of 5
Losers Live Longer 1 - Russell Atwood
http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bios.cgi?entry=bk59&type=excerpt
"The light changed and he started across. He looked frail, but had sounded solid enough over the phone.
Well, solid enough for me because, fact or fantasy, I could use his hundred bucks, even if I only spent the rest of the day tramping after heffalumps and woozles."
3.5 out of 5
"The light changed and he started across. He looked frail, but had sounded solid enough over the phone.
Well, solid enough for me because, fact or fantasy, I could use his hundred bucks, even if I only spent the rest of the day tramping after heffalumps and woozles."
3.5 out of 5
The Star Pit - Samuel R. Delany
http://www.pseudopodium.org/repress/TheStarPit/index.html
Psycho kids good at space travel.
3 out of 5
Psycho kids good at space travel.
3 out of 5
An Officer and A Lady - Rex Stout
http://fiction.eserver.org/short/stout/an-officer-and-a-lady.html
Burglary martinet marching bust.
3.5 out of 5
Burglary martinet marching bust.
3.5 out of 5
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Orphan's Tales 1 - Catherynne M. Valente
http://www.archive.org/download/TheOrphansTalesPodcast-01/orphans_tales-01.mp3
Some goose snapping prince choppery and some witch capturing origin.
4 out of 5
Some goose snapping prince choppery and some witch capturing origin.
4 out of 5
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Agony Column Interview on New Fantasy - Lou Anders
http://www.bookotron.com/agony/audio/2009/2009-news/010909-anders.mp3
Talking about the 'New Fantasy' - e.g. epic fantasy that is grittier, more realistic - and of course relating that to some of his authors, Lloyd, Enge and Mark Chadbourn in particular (who is great, and someone that got me interested in fantasy books again way back when they originally came out).
(If this one gets a takedown notice, perhaps I'll ask the lawyers of the idiots that did it for the complete Pyr catalogue in damages, for their lawbreaking :)).
4.5 out of 5
Talking about the 'New Fantasy' - e.g. epic fantasy that is grittier, more realistic - and of course relating that to some of his authors, Lloyd, Enge and Mark Chadbourn in particular (who is great, and someone that got me interested in fantasy books again way back when they originally came out).
(If this one gets a takedown notice, perhaps I'll ask the lawyers of the idiots that did it for the complete Pyr catalogue in damages, for their lawbreaking :)).
4.5 out of 5
Women Are Ugly - Eliot Fintushel
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040621/ugly.shtml
And apparently lustfully bumfuzzling.
2.5 out of 5
And apparently lustfully bumfuzzling.
2.5 out of 5
The Green Leopard Plague - Walter Jon Williams
The Green Leopard Plague - Walter Jon Williams
(Upgrade! :) )
Plant people economic overthrow research romance revenge.
5 out of 5
(Upgrade! :) )
Plant people economic overthrow research romance revenge.
5 out of 5
Bibliophile Stalker Interview - Tobias S. Buckell
http://charles-tan.blogspot.com/2009/01/interview-tobias-buckell.html
Where he professes a desire for X-Men novelage.
3.5 out of 5
Where he professes a desire for X-Men novelage.
3.5 out of 5
Metro Magazine Interview - Lewis Shiner
http://artandliterature.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/lewis-shiner-reflects-on-black-white/
Talking about his Black and White novel, mostly.
4 out of 5
Talking about his Black and White novel, mostly.
4 out of 5
The Redemption Of Silky Bill - Sarah Zettel
http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php?option=com_deeppockets&task=contShow&id=1566&Itemid=57
Gambler's Cheyenne devil deal.
3.5 out of 5
Gambler's Cheyenne devil deal.
3.5 out of 5
Excerpts from the Discussion of the Controlled Vibration Theory of Communication Among the Un-Kin - Sarah Zettel
http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php?option=com_deeppockets&task=contShow&id=1563&Itemid=56
Unlikely solo talk.
3.5 out of 5
Unlikely solo talk.
3.5 out of 5
The Caliban Proclamation - Sarah Zettel
http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php?option=com_deeppockets&task=contShow&id=1438&Itemid=56
Dumb ugly help.
3 out of 5
Dumb ugly help.
3 out of 5
Mad For the Mints - Amy Sterling Casil
http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=120&Itemid=251
Crazy poms, talking horses, and chonks.
3 out of 5
Crazy poms, talking horses, and chonks.
3 out of 5
From the Files Of the Time Rangers - Richard Bowes
http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/originals/originals_archive/bowes/bowes1.html
Old murders.
3.5 out of 5
Old murders.
3.5 out of 5
The Steel Remains 1 - Richard Morgan
http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780345493033&view=excerpt&ref=news&name=drin0109
"From his one or two previous encounters with these creatures,
Ringil also knew that they could be very—
The corpsemite flexed its body free of the encaging ribs, leapt
straight at him.
—fast.
He hacked sideways, rather inelegantly, and succeeded in batting the
thing away to the left. It hit a headstone and dropped to the ground
writhing, sliced almost in half by the stroke. Ringil brought the sword
down again and finished the job, mouth pursed with distaste. The two
severed halves of the creature twisted and trembled and then lay still.
Demons and the souls of the evil dead were not, it seemed, up to
repairing that kind of damage."
4 out of 5
"From his one or two previous encounters with these creatures,
Ringil also knew that they could be very—
The corpsemite flexed its body free of the encaging ribs, leapt
straight at him.
—fast.
He hacked sideways, rather inelegantly, and succeeded in batting the
thing away to the left. It hit a headstone and dropped to the ground
writhing, sliced almost in half by the stroke. Ringil brought the sword
down again and finished the job, mouth pursed with distaste. The two
severed halves of the creature twisted and trembled and then lay still.
Demons and the souls of the evil dead were not, it seemed, up to
repairing that kind of damage."
4 out of 5
The Spacetime Pool - Catherine Asaro
http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=33623623207
Riemann sheet match capture factorial escape discovery.
3.5 out of 5
Riemann sheet match capture factorial escape discovery.
3.5 out of 5
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Space Prison - Tom Godwin
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/22549
The Gern Empire declares war on Earth and humans, and a ship full of people are stranded on a planet with a name fitting its grim environment - Ragnarok - there they struggle to adapt to the heavy gravity and harsh weather.
Revenge is on their minds, so along with food and shelter enough knowledge has to be preserved to get back into space - a task they realise will not be able to be accomplished in one generation.
A grim survival and pioneering fightback story.
4 out of 5
The Gern Empire declares war on Earth and humans, and a ship full of people are stranded on a planet with a name fitting its grim environment - Ragnarok - there they struggle to adapt to the heavy gravity and harsh weather.
Revenge is on their minds, so along with food and shelter enough knowledge has to be preserved to get back into space - a task they realise will not be able to be accomplished in one generation.
A grim survival and pioneering fightback story.
4 out of 5
The Survivors - Tom Godwin
The Survivors - Tom Godwin
The Gern Empire declares war on Earth and humans, and a ship full of people are stranded on a planet with a name fitting its grim environment - Ragnarok - there they struggle to adapt to the heavy gravity and harsh weather.
Revenge is on their minds, so along with food and shelter enough knowledge has to be preserved to get back into space - a task they realise will not be able to be accomplished in one generation.
A grim survival and pioneering fightback story.
4 out of 5
The Gern Empire declares war on Earth and humans, and a ship full of people are stranded on a planet with a name fitting its grim environment - Ragnarok - there they struggle to adapt to the heavy gravity and harsh weather.
Revenge is on their minds, so along with food and shelter enough knowledge has to be preserved to get back into space - a task they realise will not be able to be accomplished in one generation.
A grim survival and pioneering fightback story.
4 out of 5
Time Rangers stories - Rick Bowes
http://snurri.livejournal.com/218243.html
According to the gentleman in question, this is the list :-
Seven stories I wrote and published from around 2000 to 2004 were used.
From SciFiction:
'From the Files of the Time Rangers'
'The Quicksilver Kid'
'Days Red and Green'
'Godfather Death'
from F&SF:
'The Ferryman's Wife'
'The Mask of the Rex'
from Black Gate:
'Straight to My Lover's Heart'
in addition I used two earlier stories:
From F&SF:
'Diana In the Spring'
from Bending the Landscape - Fantasy:
'In the House of the Man in the Moon'
4.5 out of 5
According to the gentleman in question, this is the list :-
Seven stories I wrote and published from around 2000 to 2004 were used.
From SciFiction:
'From the Files of the Time Rangers'
'The Quicksilver Kid'
'Days Red and Green'
'Godfather Death'
from F&SF:
'The Ferryman's Wife'
'The Mask of the Rex'
from Black Gate:
'Straight to My Lover's Heart'
in addition I used two earlier stories:
From F&SF:
'Diana In the Spring'
from Bending the Landscape - Fantasy:
'In the House of the Man in the Moon'
4.5 out of 5
Monday, January 12, 2009
God's Demon 1 - Wayne Barlowe
http://us.macmillan.com/BookCustomPage.aspx?isbn=9780765348654
"There was the Fall. And no one was permitted to speak of it, or of the time before or of the Above. But it was the Fall that established many things in Hell, not the least of which was the distribution of territory. The future wards of Hell were randomly determined as each Demon Major, on his own sizzling trajectory from the Above, plunged headlong, meteoric, into the unknown wilds of the Inferno."
3.5 out of 5
"There was the Fall. And no one was permitted to speak of it, or of the time before or of the Above. But it was the Fall that established many things in Hell, not the least of which was the distribution of territory. The future wards of Hell were randomly determined as each Demon Major, on his own sizzling trajectory from the Above, plunged headlong, meteoric, into the unknown wilds of the Inferno."
3.5 out of 5
Blasphemy 1 - Douglas Preston
http://us.macmillan.com/BookCustomPage.aspx?isbn=9780765349668
"“Gregory, Isabella might be tearing the ’brane,” said Mercer. “I really think we should power down now.”
The black dot grew, expanded, began swallowing the image on the screen. At its margins, it jittered manically with intense color.
“These numbers are wild,” said Chen. “I’m getting extreme space-time curvature right at CZero. It looks like some kind of singularity. We might be creating a black hole.”
“Impossible,” said Alan Edelstein, the team’s mathematician, looking up from the workstation he had been quietly hunched over in the corner. “There’s no evidence of Hawking radiation.”
“I swear to God,” said Chen loudly, “we’re ripping a hole in space-time!”
On the screen that ran the program code in real time, the symbols and numbers were flying by like an express train. On the big screen above their heads, the writhing flower had disappeared, leaving a black void. Then there was movement in the void—ghostly, batlike. Dolby stared at it, surprised.
“Damn it, Gregory, power down!” Mercer called.
“Isabella not accept input!” Volkonsky yelled. “I lose core routines!”"
3.5 out of 5
"“Gregory, Isabella might be tearing the ’brane,” said Mercer. “I really think we should power down now.”
The black dot grew, expanded, began swallowing the image on the screen. At its margins, it jittered manically with intense color.
“These numbers are wild,” said Chen. “I’m getting extreme space-time curvature right at CZero. It looks like some kind of singularity. We might be creating a black hole.”
“Impossible,” said Alan Edelstein, the team’s mathematician, looking up from the workstation he had been quietly hunched over in the corner. “There’s no evidence of Hawking radiation.”
“I swear to God,” said Chen loudly, “we’re ripping a hole in space-time!”
On the screen that ran the program code in real time, the symbols and numbers were flying by like an express train. On the big screen above their heads, the writhing flower had disappeared, leaving a black void. Then there was movement in the void—ghostly, batlike. Dolby stared at it, surprised.
“Damn it, Gregory, power down!” Mercer called.
“Isabella not accept input!” Volkonsky yelled. “I lose core routines!”"
3.5 out of 5
Dazzle Joins the Screenwriters Guild - Scott Bradfield
http://media.libsyn.com/media/clonepod2/EP_26__Dazzle_Joins_the_Screen_Writers_Guild.mp3
Entertainment for the dogs.
3 out of 5
Entertainment for the dogs.
3 out of 5
Knowledge - Grace Dugan
http://transmissionsfrombeyond.com/podpress_trac/web/115/0/TFB_014_Knowledge.mp3
Death clock watch.
3.5 out of 5
Death clock watch.
3.5 out of 5
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Magician - Jeff VanderMeer
http://podcast.starshipsofa.com/podcast/StarShipSofa_Aural_Delights_No_55_Ben_Bova.mp3
Tongue retention tastier than pigeon pie prestidigitation.
3 out of 5
Tongue retention tastier than pigeon pie prestidigitation.
3 out of 5
Saturday, January 10, 2009
The Road To the Rim 1-5 - A. Bertram Chandler
http://www.webscription.net/p-686-the-road-to-the-rim.aspx
"HIS UNIFORM was new, too new, all knife-edged creases, and the braid and buttons as yet un-dimmed by time. It sat awkwardly upon his chunky body—and even more awkwardly his big ears protruded from under the cap that was set too squarely upon his head. Beneath the shiny visor his eyes were gray (but not yet hard), and his face, for all its promise of strength, was as yet unlined, had yet to lose its immature softness. He stood at the foot of the ramp by which he had disembarked from the transport that had carried him from the Antarctic Base to Port Woomera, looking across the silver towers that were the ships, interplanetary and interstellar, gleaming in the desert. The westering sun was hot on his back, but he did not notice the discomfort. There were the ships, the real ships—not obsolescent puddle-jumpers like the decrepit cruiser in which he, with the other midshipmen of his class, had made the training cruise to the moons of Saturn. There were the ships, the star ships, that span their web of commerce from Earth to the Centaurian planets, to the Cluster Worlds, to the Empire of Waverley, to the Shakespearian Sector and beyond.
(But they're only merchantmen, he thought, with a young man's snobbery.)
He wondered in which one of the vessels he would be taking passage. Merchantman or not, that big ship, the one that stood out from her neighbors like a city skyscraper among village church steeples, looked a likely enough craft. He pulled the folder containing his orders from his inside breast pocket, opened it, read (not for the second time, even), the relevant page.
. . . you are to report on board the Interstellar Transport Commission's Delta Orionis . . .
He was not a spaceman yet, in spite of his uniform, but he knew the Commission's system of nomenclature. There was the Alpha class, and the Beta class, and there were the Gamma and Delta classes. He grinned wryly. His ship was one of the smaller ones. Well, at least he would not be traveling to Lindisfarne Base in an Epsilon class tramp.
Ensign John Grimes, Federation Survey Service, shrugged his broad shoulders and stepped into the ground car waiting to carry him and his baggage from the airport to the spaceport."
3 out of 5
"HIS UNIFORM was new, too new, all knife-edged creases, and the braid and buttons as yet un-dimmed by time. It sat awkwardly upon his chunky body—and even more awkwardly his big ears protruded from under the cap that was set too squarely upon his head. Beneath the shiny visor his eyes were gray (but not yet hard), and his face, for all its promise of strength, was as yet unlined, had yet to lose its immature softness. He stood at the foot of the ramp by which he had disembarked from the transport that had carried him from the Antarctic Base to Port Woomera, looking across the silver towers that were the ships, interplanetary and interstellar, gleaming in the desert. The westering sun was hot on his back, but he did not notice the discomfort. There were the ships, the real ships—not obsolescent puddle-jumpers like the decrepit cruiser in which he, with the other midshipmen of his class, had made the training cruise to the moons of Saturn. There were the ships, the star ships, that span their web of commerce from Earth to the Centaurian planets, to the Cluster Worlds, to the Empire of Waverley, to the Shakespearian Sector and beyond.
(But they're only merchantmen, he thought, with a young man's snobbery.)
He wondered in which one of the vessels he would be taking passage. Merchantman or not, that big ship, the one that stood out from her neighbors like a city skyscraper among village church steeples, looked a likely enough craft. He pulled the folder containing his orders from his inside breast pocket, opened it, read (not for the second time, even), the relevant page.
. . . you are to report on board the Interstellar Transport Commission's Delta Orionis . . .
He was not a spaceman yet, in spite of his uniform, but he knew the Commission's system of nomenclature. There was the Alpha class, and the Beta class, and there were the Gamma and Delta classes. He grinned wryly. His ship was one of the smaller ones. Well, at least he would not be traveling to Lindisfarne Base in an Epsilon class tramp.
Ensign John Grimes, Federation Survey Service, shrugged his broad shoulders and stepped into the ground car waiting to carry him and his baggage from the airport to the spaceport."
3 out of 5
Friday, January 09, 2009
Bone Sigh - Tim Pratt
http://media.rawvoice.com/pseudopod/media.libsyn.com/media/pseudopod/Pseudo123_BoneSigh.mp3
A bit of daughter scarification.
3.5 out of 5
A bit of daughter scarification.
3.5 out of 5
SciFi Dimensions - Lou Anders
http://www.scifidimensions.com/main/podpress_trac/web/60/0/sfdpodcast018.mp3
Talking a lot about the Fast Forward 2 anthology and SF, but also about Pyr books, and apparently at the time of this sales had been going up in for 8 months in a row (no real surprise to me, given this :- http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2008/12/burning-christmas-pyr-or-lou-anders-in.html
Also branching out into some oversized mass market paperbacks with Joel Shepherd's excellent Cassandra Kresnov series.
4.5 out of 5
Talking a lot about the Fast Forward 2 anthology and SF, but also about Pyr books, and apparently at the time of this sales had been going up in for 8 months in a row (no real surprise to me, given this :- http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2008/12/burning-christmas-pyr-or-lou-anders-in.html
Also branching out into some oversized mass market paperbacks with Joel Shepherd's excellent Cassandra Kresnov series.
4.5 out of 5
Cyril With an M or I'm As Kornbluth as Kansas in August - Bud Webster
http://baens-universe.com/articles/Cyril_With_an_M__or__I_m_As_Kornbluth_as_Kansas_in
The Budzilla lives, it seems, and so does his excellent Past Masters column.
You can also find all of the Helix variety here http://www.helixsf.com/list.htm
One of these led me to a lot of the awesomeness of Leigh Brackett, so check them out.
This column is of course all about C. M. Kornbluth, who I can definitely recommend, too, having read all his stories that weren't team-ups.
4.5 out of 5
The Budzilla lives, it seems, and so does his excellent Past Masters column.
You can also find all of the Helix variety here http://www.helixsf.com/list.htm
One of these led me to a lot of the awesomeness of Leigh Brackett, so check them out.
This column is of course all about C. M. Kornbluth, who I can definitely recommend, too, having read all his stories that weren't team-ups.
4.5 out of 5
Short Story Collections - Kristine Kathryn Rusch
http://baens-universe.com/articles/Short_Story_Collections
On the economics thereof (and not having her own whole heap of old ones organised).
4.5 out of 5
On the economics thereof (and not having her own whole heap of old ones organised).
4.5 out of 5
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Death On the Crosstime Express - Chris Roberson
http://www.chrisroberson.net/2009/01/for-your-consideration-death-on.html
Underspace Pinkerton seer shield slipper sleuthing.
4 out of 5
Underspace Pinkerton seer shield slipper sleuthing.
4 out of 5
The Last Great Clown Hunt - Chris Furst
http://weirdtales.net/wordpress/2009/01/07/the-last-great-clown-hunt/
Trying to bag the Three Ring Slam.
4 out of 5
Trying to bag the Three Ring Slam.
4 out of 5
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Refining Fire - Elizabeth Bear and Emma Bull
http://www.shadowunit.org/refiningfire1.html
The Shadow Unit finale novel has Chaz out by himself in Nowheresville, which turns out to be a pretty big mistake.
Cue capture by supervillain and entry into a Stephen King situation - made even worse because of the Hummingbird like metabolism of this particular officer.
The rest of the team have an additional problem when they work out where he is likely to be. The surrounding countryside is literally like a tinderbox, so violent confrontation could get really, really hot.
4 out of 5
The Shadow Unit finale novel has Chaz out by himself in Nowheresville, which turns out to be a pretty big mistake.
Cue capture by supervillain and entry into a Stephen King situation - made even worse because of the Hummingbird like metabolism of this particular officer.
The rest of the team have an additional problem when they work out where he is likely to be. The surrounding countryside is literally like a tinderbox, so violent confrontation could get really, really hot.
4 out of 5
Apex Magazine 4 - Jason Sizemore
http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online/
Lavie Tidhar is a bookburner. Doctor Doom only does karaoke via myspace appointment.
Apex Magazine 4 : On the Shadow Side of the Beast - Ruth Nestvold
Apex Magazine 4 : In Memory - Eric James Stone
Apex Magazine 4 : Starter House - Jason Palmer
Apex Magazine 4 : Edison's Dead Men - Ed Turner
Hunters and Strangers.
3 out of 5
And sorting them out.
3.5 out of 5
Falling apart food hunt.
3.5 out of 5
Zombie shock.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Lavie Tidhar is a bookburner. Doctor Doom only does karaoke via myspace appointment.
Apex Magazine 4 : On the Shadow Side of the Beast - Ruth Nestvold
Apex Magazine 4 : In Memory - Eric James Stone
Apex Magazine 4 : Starter House - Jason Palmer
Apex Magazine 4 : Edison's Dead Men - Ed Turner
Hunters and Strangers.
3 out of 5
And sorting them out.
3.5 out of 5
Falling apart food hunt.
3.5 out of 5
Zombie shock.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Edison's Dead Men - Ed Turner
http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online/2009/01/permuted-press-presents-edisons-dead-men/
Zombie shock.
3 out of 5
Zombie shock.
3 out of 5
Starter House - Jason Palmer
http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online/2009/01/short-fiction-starter-house/
Falling apart food hunt.
3.5 out of 5
Falling apart food hunt.
3.5 out of 5
In Memory - Eric James Stone
http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online/2009/01/short-fiction-in-memory/
And sorting them out.
3.5 out of 5
And sorting them out.
3.5 out of 5
On The Shadow Side Of The Beast - Ruth Nestvold
http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online/2009/01/short-fiction-on-the-shadow-side-of-the-beast/
Hunters and Strangers.
3 out of 5
Hunters and Strangers.
3 out of 5
Nova Swing 1 - M. John Harrison
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780553590869&view=excerpt&ref=news&name=spectrapulse
"At the sound of her voice, the shadow operators unfolded themselves and streamed towards her from every corner of the room, to whirl about her head like ghosts, bats, scrap paper, smoke or old women clasping antique lockets of hair. They recognised privilege when they saw it.
"My dear," they whispered. "What beautiful hands.""
2.5 out of 5
"At the sound of her voice, the shadow operators unfolded themselves and streamed towards her from every corner of the room, to whirl about her head like ghosts, bats, scrap paper, smoke or old women clasping antique lockets of hair. They recognised privilege when they saw it.
"My dear," they whispered. "What beautiful hands.""
2.5 out of 5
The Lost Ones 1 - Christopher Golden
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780553587807&view=excerpt&ref=news&name=spectrapulse
"Oliver Bascombe paced his dungeon cell, wondering when his captors would decide to kill him and how they would do it. Public execution? Swift murder? Torture? Or perhaps they would simply feed him to the Battle Swine and let those filthy porcine warriors bite off his head and strip the flesh from his bones."
3.5 out of 5
"Oliver Bascombe paced his dungeon cell, wondering when his captors would decide to kill him and how they would do it. Public execution? Swift murder? Torture? Or perhaps they would simply feed him to the Battle Swine and let those filthy porcine warriors bite off his head and strip the flesh from his bones."
3.5 out of 5
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Example of DMCA Insanity (IFPI, apparently) presumably not AgonyColumn/Rick Kleffel
Got a takedown notice for this post :-
http://209.85.175.132/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=cache:http://freesf.blogspot.com/2009/01/agony-column-jeremy-lassen.html&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Which was this, basically :-
http://www.bookotron.com/agony/audio/2008/2008-news/123008-lassen_eclipse.mp3
An interview talking about the publishing end of the Eclipse 2 anthology.
4 out of 5
Bankruptcy for these fools can't come soon enough. In actuality, what this does is mean there will be less listeners for that show. Brilliant, eh?
http://209.85.175.132/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=cache:http://freesf.blogspot.com/2009/01/agony-column-jeremy-lassen.html&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Which was this, basically :-
http://www.bookotron.com/agony/audio/2008/2008-news/123008-lassen_eclipse.mp3
An interview talking about the publishing end of the Eclipse 2 anthology.
4 out of 5
Bankruptcy for these fools can't come soon enough. In actuality, what this does is mean there will be less listeners for that show. Brilliant, eh?
Monday, January 05, 2009
Clarkesworld 28 - Sean Wallace
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/issue_28
Usual fiction sort of thing, a 3 and a 3.5. A good multi-interview about doing the anthology thing, and a trip to good old Hilo and Mauna Kea for some astronomy in the articles.
Clarkesworld 28 : Celadon - Desirina Boskovich
Clarkesworld 28 : Teaching Bigfoot to Read - Geoffrey W. Cole
Ghostworm worldshifter.
3 out of 5
Life on the moon sucks mail.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Usual fiction sort of thing, a 3 and a 3.5. A good multi-interview about doing the anthology thing, and a trip to good old Hilo and Mauna Kea for some astronomy in the articles.
Clarkesworld 28 : Celadon - Desirina Boskovich
Clarkesworld 28 : Teaching Bigfoot to Read - Geoffrey W. Cole
Ghostworm worldshifter.
3 out of 5
Life on the moon sucks mail.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 7 - Scott H. Andrews
http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/toc.php?s=all
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 7 : Snake in the Glass - P.E. Cunningham
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 7 : Sand-Skin Man - K.C. Shaw
Ball breaker surprise.
3 out of 5
Kill father's killer. Take sword. Go home.
3.5 out of 5
3 out of 5
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 7 : Snake in the Glass - P.E. Cunningham
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 7 : Sand-Skin Man - K.C. Shaw
Ball breaker surprise.
3 out of 5
Kill father's killer. Take sword. Go home.
3.5 out of 5
3 out of 5
Sand-Skin Man - K. C. Shaw
http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/story.php?s=15
Kill father's killer. Take sword. Go home.
3.5 out of 5
Kill father's killer. Take sword. Go home.
3.5 out of 5
All About the Sponsors - Jeffrey R. DeRego
http://media.rawvoice.com/escapepod/media.libsyn.com/media/escapepod/EP185_UD_AllAboutTheSponsors.mp3
The origin of the Union is told here,via the original founders, some flashbacks, and a funeral.
4 out of 5
The origin of the Union is told here,via the original founders, some flashbacks, and a funeral.
4 out of 5
Temptation 1 - David Brin
http://podcast.starshipsofa.com/podcast/StarShipSofa_Aural_Delights_No_57_Geoff_Ryman_David_Brin_Special.mp3
" The Trinary haiku was expressive and wry. At the same time though, Makanee could not help making a physician's diagnosis. She found her old friend's sonic patterns rife with undertones of Primal -- the natural cetacean demi-language used by wild Tursiops truncatus dolphins back on Earth -- a dialect that members of the modern amicus breed were supposed to avoid, lest their minds succumb to tempting ancient ways. Mental styles that lured with rhythms of animal-like purity.
She found it worrisome to hear Primal from Brookida, one of her few companions with an intact psyche. Most of the other dolphins on Jijo suffered to some degree from stress-atavism. Having lost the cognitive focus needed by engineers and starfarers, they could no longer help Streaker in its desperate flight across five galaxies. Planting this small colony on Jijo had seemed a logical solution, leaving the regressed ones for Makanee to care for in this gentle place, while their shipmates sped on to new crises elsewhere."
3.5 out of 5
" The Trinary haiku was expressive and wry. At the same time though, Makanee could not help making a physician's diagnosis. She found her old friend's sonic patterns rife with undertones of Primal -- the natural cetacean demi-language used by wild Tursiops truncatus dolphins back on Earth -- a dialect that members of the modern amicus breed were supposed to avoid, lest their minds succumb to tempting ancient ways. Mental styles that lured with rhythms of animal-like purity.
She found it worrisome to hear Primal from Brookida, one of her few companions with an intact psyche. Most of the other dolphins on Jijo suffered to some degree from stress-atavism. Having lost the cognitive focus needed by engineers and starfarers, they could no longer help Streaker in its desperate flight across five galaxies. Planting this small colony on Jijo had seemed a logical solution, leaving the regressed ones for Makanee to care for in this gentle place, while their shipmates sped on to new crises elsewhere."
3.5 out of 5
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Dead World - Jack Douglas
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/27631
"And even the mighty United Galaxies needs guards for expeditions to the unexplored galaxies. But they don't like us and they don't want us. They don't cut off our little fingers anymore, but we have to wear our special black uniforms when we go into United territory under penalty of a quick death. Humane, of course, they just put us to sleep gently and for keeps. And they've got a stockpile of ionic bombs ready at all times in case we get out of hand."
3.5 out of 5
"And even the mighty United Galaxies needs guards for expeditions to the unexplored galaxies. But they don't like us and they don't want us. They don't cut off our little fingers anymore, but we have to wear our special black uniforms when we go into United territory under penalty of a quick death. Humane, of course, they just put us to sleep gently and for keeps. And they've got a stockpile of ionic bombs ready at all times in case we get out of hand."
3.5 out of 5
Robowassailing - Allen M. Steele
http://podcast.starshipsofa.com/podcast/StarShipSofa_Aural_Delights_No_56_China_Mieville.mp3
Dozered little singers.
3.5 out of 5
Dozered little singers.
3.5 out of 5
Aftermath - David Conyers
http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online/2007/08/short-fiction-aftermath/
Zebra king neural control bleeding shot, mate.
4 out of 5
Zebra king neural control bleeding shot, mate.
4 out of 5
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Friday, January 02, 2009
SFFWorld.com Interview - Paul Kearney
http://www.sffworld.com/interview/270p0.html
Discussing The Ten Thousand, and how it is not allowed to be SF :-
"The world of the The Ten Thousand is notable for completely lacking magic of any sort. Was there a reason for this? For example, were you concerned that the involvement of magic could detract from the focus on the physical battles and the overall impact of them?
Swift answer; yes. I wanted the emphasis of the book to be on sweaty, muscle-tearing physical struggle, and magic would have just clouded the issue somewhat. I don't like the 'easy' use of magic in books; I prefer it downplayed. Tolkien, again, got it just right, hinting at hidden powers rather than having wizards casting firebolts across battlefields. It was far more effective. I write fantasy, but my main concern is, oddly enough, to make it 'realistic.' Also, if you want to be pedantic about it, The Ten Thousand is actually science fiction. It's set on a planet which is clearly not earth, since it has two moons, and it has alien species co-existing with mankind. In that setting, magic would be out of place. I actually have a full back story for the origins of the Macht, but am forbidden by my publisher from revealing it, because it's pure science fiction!"
4.5 out of 5
Discussing The Ten Thousand, and how it is not allowed to be SF :-
"The world of the The Ten Thousand is notable for completely lacking magic of any sort. Was there a reason for this? For example, were you concerned that the involvement of magic could detract from the focus on the physical battles and the overall impact of them?
Swift answer; yes. I wanted the emphasis of the book to be on sweaty, muscle-tearing physical struggle, and magic would have just clouded the issue somewhat. I don't like the 'easy' use of magic in books; I prefer it downplayed. Tolkien, again, got it just right, hinting at hidden powers rather than having wizards casting firebolts across battlefields. It was far more effective. I write fantasy, but my main concern is, oddly enough, to make it 'realistic.' Also, if you want to be pedantic about it, The Ten Thousand is actually science fiction. It's set on a planet which is clearly not earth, since it has two moons, and it has alien species co-existing with mankind. In that setting, magic would be out of place. I actually have a full back story for the origins of the Macht, but am forbidden by my publisher from revealing it, because it's pure science fiction!"
4.5 out of 5
The Mastodon Virtual Book of (free online) Mega-Astounding Science Fiction
The Mastodon Virtual book of Mega-Astounding Sciece Fiction
3rd Edition - January 02, 2009
edited by H. E. Avenoklewz and I. M. Nutsireus
Mastodon ebooks is an imprint of no-one. You think anyone is that silly?
All rights to all compilations of ancient Tellurian material abolished in the Copyfighter Dktrvian rebellion victory constitution, July 17, 2671.
This is a Virtual Anthology of Tellurian 'science fiction' written entertainment material, which those crazy editor guys think verges on the excellent to outstanding.
Said cheapskate publisher (probably wisely, it must be said given the lack of intellect, experience or knowledge of said editorial staff) has left little space for an introduction.
The editors, however, are competent enough to point out that in the interests of authenticity, the following work is provided in archaic html 'www' technology, and each entry is what was once known as a 'URL' which was accessed via an optical pointing device apparently likened to a rodent.
Many great stories follow after the cut thingo.
Lobsters - Charles Stross
0wnz0red - Cory Doctorow
The Nine Billion Names Of God - Arthur C. Clarke
Catherine Drewe - Paul Cornell
Dark Integers - Greg Egan
The Scab's Progress - Paul Di Filippo and Bruce Sterling
Stories For Men - John Kessel
A Dry Quiet War - Tony Daniel
Privateers' Moon - Terry Dowling
The Walls of the Universe - Paul Melko
The Gambler - Paolo Bacigalupi
The Old Die Rich - H. L. Gold
Retroactive anti-terror - Alex Irvine
Options - John Varley
Biographical Notes - Benjamin Rosenbaum
Roller Ball Murder - William Harrison
Toast A Con Report - Charles Stross
I Robot - Cory Doctorow
Titanium Mike Saves the Day - David D. Levine
Starsong - Fred Saberhagen
Scanners Live In Vain - Cordwainer Smith
Looking Through Lace - Ruth Nestvold
Unsportsmanlike Conduct - Scott Westerfeld
The Cold Equations - Tom Godwin
Wikiworld - Paul Di Filippo
The Juniper Tree - John Kessel
Osama Phone Home - David Marusek
Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog - B. W. Clough
Tourist - Charles Stross
Scroogled - Cory Doctorow
Craters - Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Glory - Greg Egan
Stealing Alabama - Allen M. Steele
Henry James This One's For You - Jack McDevitt
Bag Lady - Walter Jon Williams
The Chief Designer - Andy Duncan
Caught In the Organ Draft - Robert Silverberg
The Children's Crusade - Robert Reed
Overkill - Elizabeth Bear
In the Upper Room - Terry Bisson
Exit Before Saving - Ruth Nestvold
Legions In Time - Michael Swanwick
Incarnation Day - Walter Jon Williams
Mercytanks - Jennifer Pelland
Of Mist and Grass and Sand - Vonda N. McIntyre
Qubit Conflicts - Jetse De Vries
Ice Dwarves - Doug Goodman
Six Lights Off Green Star - Gareth L. Powell
Halo - Charles Stross
I Row-Boat - Cory Doctorow
Omnilingual - H. Beam Piper
Steve Fever - Greg Egan
The Days Between - Allen M. Steele
Survivor - Charles Stross
Anda's Game - Cory Doctorow
Ginungagap - Michael Swanwick
Pulp Alibis - Paul Di Filippo
The Colour Out of Space - H. P. Lovecraft
The Egan Thief - Gord Sellars
Damned If You Don't - Randall Garrett
Approaching Perimelasma - Geoffrey A. Landis
Consider Her Ways - John Wyndham
The People Of Sand and Slag - Paolo Bacigalupi
Sheena 5 - Stephen Baxter
First Contact - Murray Leinster
Kin - Bruce McAllister
The Sledge-Maker's Daughter - Alastair Reynolds
Laws Of Survival - Nancy Kress
Diplomat-At-Arms - Keith Laumer
Unwirer - Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross
Pride - Mary Turzillo
Ship's Eye - Terry Dowling
Shade - Steve Gould
Melancholy Elephants - Spider Robinson
The Green Leopard Plague - Walter Jon Williams
Elector - Charles Stross
When SysAdmins Ruled the Earth - Cory Doctorow
Radiant Green Star - Lucius Shepard
Sergeant Chip - Bradley Denton
Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons - Cordwainer Smith
Division By Zero - Ted Chiang
Exploration Team - Murray Leinster
The Dead - Michael Swanwick
Border Guards - Greg Egan
Who Goes There? - John W. Campbell
Lusts of the Cat Queen: A Dash Manning Adventure - Melanie Fletcher
Ti's Toys - James H. Schmitz
Thunder and Roses - Theodore Sturgeon
Shambleau - C. L. Moore
3rd Edition - January 02, 2009
edited by H. E. Avenoklewz and I. M. Nutsireus
Mastodon ebooks is an imprint of no-one. You think anyone is that silly?
All rights to all compilations of ancient Tellurian material abolished in the Copyfighter Dktrvian rebellion victory constitution, July 17, 2671.
This is a Virtual Anthology of Tellurian 'science fiction' written entertainment material, which those crazy editor guys think verges on the excellent to outstanding.
Said cheapskate publisher (probably wisely, it must be said given the lack of intellect, experience or knowledge of said editorial staff) has left little space for an introduction.
The editors, however, are competent enough to point out that in the interests of authenticity, the following work is provided in archaic html 'www' technology, and each entry is what was once known as a 'URL' which was accessed via an optical pointing device apparently likened to a rodent.
Many great stories follow after the cut thingo.
Lobsters - Charles Stross
0wnz0red - Cory Doctorow
The Nine Billion Names Of God - Arthur C. Clarke
Catherine Drewe - Paul Cornell
Dark Integers - Greg Egan
The Scab's Progress - Paul Di Filippo and Bruce Sterling
Stories For Men - John Kessel
A Dry Quiet War - Tony Daniel
Privateers' Moon - Terry Dowling
The Walls of the Universe - Paul Melko
The Gambler - Paolo Bacigalupi
The Old Die Rich - H. L. Gold
Retroactive anti-terror - Alex Irvine
Options - John Varley
Biographical Notes - Benjamin Rosenbaum
Roller Ball Murder - William Harrison
Toast A Con Report - Charles Stross
I Robot - Cory Doctorow
Titanium Mike Saves the Day - David D. Levine
Starsong - Fred Saberhagen
Scanners Live In Vain - Cordwainer Smith
Looking Through Lace - Ruth Nestvold
Unsportsmanlike Conduct - Scott Westerfeld
The Cold Equations - Tom Godwin
Wikiworld - Paul Di Filippo
The Juniper Tree - John Kessel
Osama Phone Home - David Marusek
Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog - B. W. Clough
Tourist - Charles Stross
Scroogled - Cory Doctorow
Craters - Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Glory - Greg Egan
Stealing Alabama - Allen M. Steele
Henry James This One's For You - Jack McDevitt
Bag Lady - Walter Jon Williams
The Chief Designer - Andy Duncan
Caught In the Organ Draft - Robert Silverberg
The Children's Crusade - Robert Reed
Overkill - Elizabeth Bear
In the Upper Room - Terry Bisson
Exit Before Saving - Ruth Nestvold
Legions In Time - Michael Swanwick
Incarnation Day - Walter Jon Williams
Mercytanks - Jennifer Pelland
Of Mist and Grass and Sand - Vonda N. McIntyre
Qubit Conflicts - Jetse De Vries
Ice Dwarves - Doug Goodman
Six Lights Off Green Star - Gareth L. Powell
Halo - Charles Stross
I Row-Boat - Cory Doctorow
Omnilingual - H. Beam Piper
Steve Fever - Greg Egan
The Days Between - Allen M. Steele
Survivor - Charles Stross
Anda's Game - Cory Doctorow
Ginungagap - Michael Swanwick
Pulp Alibis - Paul Di Filippo
The Colour Out of Space - H. P. Lovecraft
The Egan Thief - Gord Sellars
Damned If You Don't - Randall Garrett
Approaching Perimelasma - Geoffrey A. Landis
Consider Her Ways - John Wyndham
The People Of Sand and Slag - Paolo Bacigalupi
Sheena 5 - Stephen Baxter
First Contact - Murray Leinster
Kin - Bruce McAllister
The Sledge-Maker's Daughter - Alastair Reynolds
Laws Of Survival - Nancy Kress
Diplomat-At-Arms - Keith Laumer
Unwirer - Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross
Pride - Mary Turzillo
Ship's Eye - Terry Dowling
Shade - Steve Gould
Melancholy Elephants - Spider Robinson
The Green Leopard Plague - Walter Jon Williams
Elector - Charles Stross
When SysAdmins Ruled the Earth - Cory Doctorow
Radiant Green Star - Lucius Shepard
Sergeant Chip - Bradley Denton
Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons - Cordwainer Smith
Division By Zero - Ted Chiang
Exploration Team - Murray Leinster
The Dead - Michael Swanwick
Border Guards - Greg Egan
Who Goes There? - John W. Campbell
Lusts of the Cat Queen: A Dash Manning Adventure - Melanie Fletcher
Ti's Toys - James H. Schmitz
Thunder and Roses - Theodore Sturgeon
Shambleau - C. L. Moore
Anthologists Discuss Their Craft - Jeremy L. C. Jones
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/anthologists_interview/
An interview for Clarkesworld that gets into the nuts and bolts of the matter with these editors : -
John Joseph Adams
Ellen Datlow
James Lowder
Jonathan Strahan
Ann VanderMeer
Jeff VanderMeer
5 out of 5
An interview for Clarkesworld that gets into the nuts and bolts of the matter with these editors : -
John Joseph Adams
Ellen Datlow
James Lowder
Jonathan Strahan
Ann VanderMeer
Jeff VanderMeer
5 out of 5
Salt - Adam Roberts
http://www.adamroberts.com/writing/salt/#extract
"We had been traveling for thirty-seven years. Not counting the eighteen months it took us to assemble in Earth orbit, and accelerate slowly with displacement rockets on a capture orbit to grab our comet. Nor the two weeks we spent grappling with that steaming ice-world; to fix our tether (my primary area of expertise); to set up burners in a zodiacal circuit around the central cable, and then to settle our final orientation with thrust-explosives. Then, pointed in the right direction, we began to speed up. Our comet, fuel and buffer, building speed slowly. Us, strung out along the cable behind, eleven little homes like sea-shells on a child's necklace-string. Do you know how long it took us to reach traveling speed? At accelerations of over 1.1g, we accelerated for over a year. A year of gravity, when there could be no hibernation; a year awake, crammed in with our sisters and brothers, our children, our friends and enemies, our lovers and ex-lovers. A year of feeling trapped and heavy, of smelling sweat and shit; of eating recycled food. A year of games, and talk, and meditation, and nothing to do and nothing to be done but hope our comet would lead us on to the brave new world."
3 out of 5
"We had been traveling for thirty-seven years. Not counting the eighteen months it took us to assemble in Earth orbit, and accelerate slowly with displacement rockets on a capture orbit to grab our comet. Nor the two weeks we spent grappling with that steaming ice-world; to fix our tether (my primary area of expertise); to set up burners in a zodiacal circuit around the central cable, and then to settle our final orientation with thrust-explosives. Then, pointed in the right direction, we began to speed up. Our comet, fuel and buffer, building speed slowly. Us, strung out along the cable behind, eleven little homes like sea-shells on a child's necklace-string. Do you know how long it took us to reach traveling speed? At accelerations of over 1.1g, we accelerated for over a year. A year of gravity, when there could be no hibernation; a year awake, crammed in with our sisters and brothers, our children, our friends and enemies, our lovers and ex-lovers. A year of feeling trapped and heavy, of smelling sweat and shit; of eating recycled food. A year of games, and talk, and meditation, and nothing to do and nothing to be done but hope our comet would lead us on to the brave new world."
3 out of 5