Category: Books
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Confederacy of Dunces: Ahead of Its TIme
I recently started re-reading John Kennedy Toole's great comic novel A Confederacy of Dunces. For a New Orleanian, it's kind of like Scotsmen reading Burns. It's our "national literature." It's also a very funny book. And, for the first time, I realized it's a prescient book. The main character, Ignatius J. Reilly, spends most of…
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Wizard Hygiene
This past Sunday I took my family to see The Hobbit at the multiplex. I'm not going to give a full movie review here — the blogosphere is full of self-appointed cinematic geniuses explaining how they would have done things better. (I even do that myself sometimes, just not today.) If you're interested: I liked…
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Radical Evolution, by Joel Garreau
(I've also posted this on Goodreads.) Radical Evolution is a look at how rapid and fundamental advances in technology could produce enormous changes in human life and even in what we define as "human" in a relatively short time. It's by Joel Garreau, a Washington Post writer who wrote two books I enjoyed immensely: The…
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Guest Blogger: Sarah Hoyt!
Today I'm proud to introduce the first guest post on this blog, by the redoubtable Sarah Hoyt (who normally blogs at According to Hoyt). Riffing off my blog title, she tells us what sorts of things she says when it's just the caffeine talking, and her new book: It’s Just the Caffeine Talking About two…
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Tolkien, Kipling, Lewis, and Wells
I recently received, as a birthday present from my talented wife, a copy of the 1909 edition of Rudyard Kipling's "With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 A.D." If you aren't familiar with the story, it's a fascinating — and amazingly prescient — work of early science fiction by one of the English language's…
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Chicon 7: The Final Chapter
On Sunday I ferried Agent X down to the extremely well-run ChiKids program area for Doctor Who Lego building, Jedi costumes, and steampunk Nerf guns. Agent X had a great time at Chicon. I spent the same period watching a panel on screenwriting by Michael Cassutt, Melinda Snodgrass, and the alarmingly overqualified Dr. Harry Kloor.…
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Readercon After-Action Report
This past weekend I was a participant at the 23rd annual Readercon convention in Burlington, Massachusetts. As always, I had a great time. The con (-vention) committee did their usual superb job of keeping everything running smoothly. These are fans who do this for fun, and yet manage to do a better job than many…
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Bilbowulf
I recently made a minor literary discovery, which has been made by others before me, but is still interesting. A little context: a few weeks back I bought a copy of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf — the one that was a New York Times bestseller back in 2000. It's a good read and very…
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Read About Readercon
Just as I do most summers, I'm going to be a participant at this year's Readercon. If you don't know what Readercon is, and you're interested in science fiction or fantasy literature, then you're missing what is simply the best annual meeting of its kind. This year they're working me hard on Friday, then I…
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Ozblogging: The Emerald City of Oz, Part 6
The final battle has arrived! The combined armies of the Nome Axis march through the tunnel toward Oz. As they march, the Nome King and General Guph do a little scheming of their own. It turns out Guph has given some thought to ways of dealing with the terrifying allies he has recruited, and he…
The Cambias Digression 