I recently came down with a touch of that pernicious malady sweeping the globe. Not COVID-19, thank goodness, but Lockdown Languor. It’s not the social distancing that bothers me: for a disciplined moonlight novelist with a deeply introverted partner, the normal pattern is to avoid people and stay home. The problem is that we don’t … More Book Review: “The Ear, The Eye and the Arm” by Nancy Farmer
My father and I call and text like typical 21st century family, but we also maintain written correspondence like 19th century intellectuals. (Occasionally we even write like them: planning a holiday visit might be phrased as “Cherished father, I propose myself the pleasure of waiting upon you and my mother this Michelmas…”). We’re both English … More Recent Reads: “No Time To Spare”, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Despite his popularity as a science fiction writer, the late author Douglas Adams championed the value of planet Earth. In the late 1980s, he teamed up with zoologist Mark Cawardine for a BBC radio series called Last Chance to See, in which the pair tracks endangered species around the globe. Adams’ 1990 book chronicling the … More Last Chance To See Our Planet: 30 Years, 2 Reviews, 1 Earth
Rise of the Rocket Girls promised an intersection of two of my favorite non-fiction genres: science, and the too-often-overlooked impact of women in history. I expected a book comparable to Radium Girls, which portrays its subjects as memorable personalities in a suspenseful narrative; or Code Girls, the captivating account of female cryptologic analysts during WWII. … More Book Review: “Rise of the Rocket Girls” by Nathalia Holt
“I feel a bit unqualified,” I confessed to my dad. “A lowly indie author criticizing a Nebula award winner?” The man who always provides unflinchingly candid feedback on my manuscripts observed that acclaimed works don’t always stand on their own merit. “Call it like you see it,” he advised. So I will. Ancillary Mercy let … More Review: Ancillary Mercy
The new year brought zombies down upon us. My Laddie, desperate to fill the void left by finishing Fallout 4, started playing Dying Light and scampers off to his computer after dinner, chanting “zombies, zombies, zombies!” My monsters are pagebound, re-animated only in my imagination: after letting it languish on my reading list for years, … More Review: World War Z
Wild Type 