wednesday june 04
Okay, I’m recommending a fantasy novel here, and I know that will have many of you scrolling on past. Apart from the Harry Potter books or maybe Tolkien, fantasy is pretty hard to push. But if you enjoy a writer who can twist familiar storytelling elements into something just a bit different, try Lois McMaster Bujold.
Bujold is best known for her science fiction series, the energetically satiric Vorkosigan Saga (definitely something a bit different), but she has written a few volumes of fantasy, too. I recommended her historical fantasy The Spirit Ring last year, and she’s currently writing a more traditional light-romantic fantasy series, The Sharing Knife.
But I wish she’d find time to do more in the splendid series that began with The Curse of Chalion in 2001. Its mix of old-fashioned fantasy and complicatedly original religious mythology was really intriguing.
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tuesday april 22
Last month, the science fiction community lost one of its great icons when Arthur C. Clarke died at age 90. His passing caused pause for me because of the role Clarke’s work played in my life as an introduction to the world of science fiction, a role Clarke has filled for readers of many generations.
I still have the tattered copy of Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey I bought in the sixth grade at a flea market stall selling used 50-cent paperbacks. I couldn’t say for sure now what compelled me to buy the book, and I probably couldn’t have told you at the time I bought the book why I was making the purchase. More than likely, I had heard of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick’s eponymous film and figured this was the best way to see what all the fuss was about.
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friday march 14
I recently finished reading Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters series and liked it so much that I looked to see what else he had written (check out Westerfeld's blog here). I found Uglies, which stars Tally Youngblood, who can't wait to turn sixteen.
But instead of Tally getting a driver's license on her sixteenth birthday, in this world turning sixteen means going under the knife and getting a life of parties and prettiness. Shortly before her much-anticipated surgery, Tally befriends a girl named Shay, who shocks Tally by not wanting to be made "pretty." The consequence of not going through with the surgery is being Ugly. For life.
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friday november 16
I've had this eerie relationship with apocalyptic fiction ever since I found Nevil Shute's On the Beach as a 11 or 12 year old kid. I'm not entirely sure how to describe what this unbearably grim story did to my young mind. Needless to say I had trouble getting to sleep for a week or two and spent the next year or so worried that the Russians were going to drop the bomb on us before I even got my first kiss. Luckily, after that year the Berlin Wall fell, and soon after that the Soviet Union split up, and then I got my first kiss, so there were a few less worries to plague my young mind. However, my thirst for fiction that proposes the worst began at that point and has never quite left me.
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wednesday november 14
Last week I dug through my piles and files of books and reviews to post about some titles I thought you might have missed.
I got a little bit of response, including a few emails, from people who were curious about what the titles might be (no guesses, though!). No one commented about what kind of books they'd like to see more of in these posts, though, so I just want to repeat--don't be shy if there's something you're looking for. There's always more where these came from!
Anyway, read on if you were curious about any of the little blurbs and what the titles were. Did any of you recognize these titles?
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wednesday october 31
Okay, I know it’s Halloween, but how about some romantic fantasy that’s a little less creature-of-the-night than the current crop of vampire romances?
The authors of these books would describe themselves as fantasy writers rather than romance writers, but I think their books have plenty of appeal for readers of both genres. Whether your heart lies with high fantasy or with grand romance, you’ll find yourself swept away.
I wrote last year about War for the Oaks, Emma Bull’s fantasy about a rocker chick who gets caught up in a faerie war. Here are just a few more suggestions of fantasies with strong romantic elements—lots more where they came from! Teen readers might enjoy these, too.
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friday october 26
Last year I wrote about some stunning pop-up books that adults might enjoy. There have been some new releases that you really shouldn't miss, especially if you are a fan of paper-engineered books.
Matthew Reinhart has come out with Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy (2007), an unbelievable treasure depicting the original 3 movies.
David A. Carter has followed up his terrific One Red Dot (2005) with Blue 2 (2006) and 600 Black Spots (2007), both as much fun as the first.
Alive: The Living, Breathing Human Body Book (2007) from Dorling Kindersley, engineered by Iain Smyth, is a fascinating look at the human body.
This year Robert Sabuda gave us Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Mega-Beasts (2007), a wonderful study in ancient animals. And you shouldn't miss How Many? (2007) by Ron Van Der Meer, an intriguing study in shapes and paper sculpture. The mechanics and complexity of the book make us see things in new ways.
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wednesday august 29
Sometimes it’s worth taking a flier on a debut paperback original. I found this was the case with Plague Year, Jeff Carlson’s post-apocalyptic science fiction thriller.
A small band of men and women cling to survival on a tiny peak in the Sierra Nevada. The group made it through a terrible winter, following the outbreak of plague worldwide. They've done so by eating their dead.
Most of the human and animal life on Earth perished two months after an experimental nanotech virus was stolen from a Sacramento laboratory. The nanotech was developed with the promise of ridding the human body of disease and pollutants – such as cancer – as well as offering greatly extended lifetimes. But the untested, self-replicating machine virus was released into the atmosphere hours after it was stolen. Simply breathing it was a death sentence.
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tuesday august 28
It’s not often that I find myself reading the same book at the same time as my two oldest nieces, ages nineteen and twelve. But recently the three of us have all been looking for a way to fill that Harry-shaped hole in our hearts, now that Mr. Potter has left the building. It turns out that having found how
Harry’s story ends, we have all started rereading the series. J.K. Rowling has written such a memorable set of stories that when you start rereading
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, meeting the characters somehow feels like you are looking at some old family photographs that you are thrilled to rediscover.
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thursday july 12
In all the Harry Potter brouhaha, don't overlook a movie coming out this summer by a fantastic writer, Neil Gaiman. The movie is Stardust, based on the wonderful book of the same name. This is a grown-up fairy tale, with richly spare writing and fantastic imagery.
The story follows Tristran Thorn's quest for a fallen star, which turns out to not quite be what he expected. But then, as we continually find out, things are never quite what you expect in the land of Faerie. As Tristran seeks to fulfill his quest to bring the fallen star to his beloved, he quite naturally finds out whom he really is and what it is that he really wants.
This is again the story of the Hero's Quest, just like Star Wars and Luke Skywalker, The Odyssey and Odysseus, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Dorothy, and so many others, even Harry Potter and all of his adventures.
Stardust is also available as a digital audio book, read by the author.
Neil Gaiman might be familiar to some as a graphic novel author, most notably perhaps being the Sandman series.
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friday july 06
I love a good mystery novel. Likewise, a piece of science fiction, especially one with an anthropological bent, really makes me want to curl up and read all night. Books that straddle the gap between these two genres: pure bliss.
I recently found Paloma, a new book in the Retrieval Artist series by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I was so happy to see a new one is out, because I tore through the other four in the series last summer, reveling in the mystery plots centered around humanity's interaction with various species of aliens and the ensuing political and legal conflicts.
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tuesday june 19
One might think that after my last blog, I might be done with ideas dragged out of the nursery and dressed in adult clothes. Not so! In fact, I continued in the same vein this past week with The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle.
In The Bear Went Over the Mountain, a struggling Maine author loses his first manuscript to a fire, and the briefcase containing his second one to a bear. The author goes into a deep depression. The bear dresses up in clothes, reminds himself not to carry the briefcase in his mouth, and heads off to sell the manuscript in New York.
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thursday june 07
Imagine a novel where Jack comes to the big city to seek his fortune. The twist is, the city is Toy City and populated only with toys and nursery rhyme characters. On the night of Jack's arrival, he's mugged and left in an alley. From there, he teams up with a bear named Eddie to solve the serial murders of Humpty Dumpty, Little Boy Blue, and Eddie's former partner Bill (a.k.a. Wee Willie) Winkie. Along the way he meets a love interest (Jill) and develops a drinking problem (the problem being: the glasses in Toy city are all toy-sized--he solves it by ordering ten drinks at once). This is Robert Rankin's The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalpyse and it is a hilarious diversion for a summer evening.
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wednesday may 23
News of the death of children’s writer Lloyd Alexander last week sent me to the bookshelves to reread his Chronicles of Prydain. It's one of my all-time favorite works of fantasy, whether for children or for adults, a splendid work of high fantasy based on Welsh legend. Have all of you Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter fans discovered it? The first volume is The Book of Three.
In quiet Caer Dahlben, the sheltered farm of the great enchanter Dahlben, orphaned Taran tends the oracular pig, Hen Wen, and helps out in the fields and the smithy.
But what he really longs for is to be a hero. Glory and grandeur fill his dreams—he’s sure he could do noble deeds, given the chance.
So when the war bands of the terrible dark lord Arawn threaten Caer Dahlben, causing Hen Wen to run off in a panic, Taran doesn’t think twice. He dashes off after her, plunging himself into perilous adventure.
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thursday april 26
You're not imagining things if you've been seeing Imperial Stormtroopers at the library.
In conjunction with the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, we're launching GalaxyCon, an out-of-this-world celebration of all things science fiction.
It hasn't even started yet, and already it's a blast. I've had some great conversations with fans of all ages and families who plan to join us for the stellar events we have planned.
Science fiction is such a part of our culture, in fiction, film, and TV. Were you one of the wide-eyed kids who watched Flash Gordon serials on Saturday mornings, or did you stand in line for Spiderman and its sequels? Did you get your kicks from superhero comics or have your consciousness raised by the sociological sf of Sheri S. Tepper or Margaret Atwood? Are you hooked on Heroes or daffy for Dr. Who?
Even if you're not a techie, a Trekker, or a towel-carrying hitchhiker through the galaxy, how can you resist? (Resistance is futile, you know!)
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wednesday april 11
Now that we have a new category, Children’s Books, on our blog, I want to post about an enchantingly different book that adults as well as kids will enjoy. It’s already getting plenty of praise, and you may have to wait in line for a copy, but I promise you it is worth the wait. This thick block of a book looks like something you’d use for a doorstop, but open it up and suddenly you’re transported beyond the clouds.
It's The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick, a story told alternately in words and page upon page of black and white sketches. With the magical, herky-jerky stutter of early film scenes, these stop-motion, cinematic pictures tell a dreamlike story of an orphaned boy, a famous filmmaker, and the fantastic machines and still more fantastic visions that draw them together.
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tuesday april 10
L. Frank Baum's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a lovely memory of my childhood. Outside the bedrooms in the upstairs hallway of my grandparents' house the walls were lined with old glass-fronted bookcases, filled with my mom's books from her childhood. All 14 Oz books were there, and I spent many happy hours reading them.
Robert Sabuda adapted the first book to his magical pop-up format, staying true to the original illustrations and story.
The cast of characters from Oz would happily surprise any Harry Potter fan: Tick-Tock the Royal Army of Oz, flying monkeys, witches and sorceresses, Ozma, Jack Pumpkinhead, and of course Dorothy herself who would give Harry a run for his money in resourcefulness and courage. The stories were written early in the 20th century but maintain a fantastic sense of adventure that is still enjoyable.
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tuesday march 13
The Algebraist, a novel by British science fiction writer
Iain Banks, landed on my desk a few weeks ago. But it's not a new title. It was published in England in 2004. Nominated for a 2005
Hugo Award,
The Algebraist didn't appear in the U.S. until after ballots were cast. So, it had no chance of winning. Who knows what cosmic hazards delayed it's arrival in Cincinnati until 2007? In any case, I was glad to see it.
Critics use the phrase "baroque space opera" to describe the books in Banks' series about a civilization called "the Culture." Fair enough, I suppose, but it falls a little short. Because Banks, for purposes ironic or perversely pleasurable, deliberately betrays the conventions of the form.
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thursday february 01
For the past year or so, millions of children, teens, and adults around the world have been breathlessly waiting for an announcement about the publication date for the seventh (and final) entry in the Harry Potter series. Finally…the moment has arrived! Today, J.K. Rowling posted an announcement on her website that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is going to be published at midnight on Saturday, July 21. Typically, she’s being very tight-lipped about the plot—although there’s been of frenzy of speculation amongst the Harry Potter faithful since Rowling hinted that a couple of characters might die.
Anxious to reserve your copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? Take advantage of the Library's Hot Authors service and a copy of the new book will be automatically held for you!
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saturday january 27
Selling junk from around the house on eBay is fun, but driving to the post office is kind of a drag. When I saw Julian Dibbell's Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot, I thought I might be onto something I'd enjoy. For one thing, when my daughter got sick of Neopets, I took over her account, and I'm glad to report that our oldest pet, Jenifrlopez, is now 1,298 days old. (My daughter's gotten into Runescape: she's the girl with a chef's cap who goes around butchering virtual zoo animals.) Right now on eBay, someone is trying to sell a Runescape virtual Santa Hat for $100. Some virtual items have sold for hundreds of real dollars, presumably to game players who don't want to spend the hours it can take to earn rare items.
There is no market for virtual Neopets stuff on eBay, and my daughter refuses to sell her Runescape items. Neopets is not exactly a MMORPG ("massively multiplayer online role-playing game), and Runescape is not one of the more popular ones. Check the MMORPG Web site or similar ones for an update.
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thursday december 28
For readers of post-apocalyptic fiction, or for those of you who just can’t wait for the world as we know it to end, here are two recent novels of note.
With A Meeting at Corvallis, S. M. Stirling brings to a close a trilogy (cited in a previous posting) set in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, following a catastrophe that renders useless all technology, power generation, and gunpowder. From chaos and brutality, feudal societies emerge with medieval capabilities and equivalencies.
But liberty versus tyranny is the familiar dynamic. The Clan MacKenzie, the Bearkillers, and the city-state of Corvallis form an alliance of communities that withstands dominion by the Portland Protectorate, a fascist-feudal nation led by the ruthless Lord Protector. (A former university educator, the Lord Protector is the worst sort of villain.)
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monday december 11
The two kinds of people, those who say when they hear about The Klingon Hamlet: (1) "Yeah! Great idea!; (2) "Well, I guess anything that encourages people to read Hamlet can't be that bad of a bad idea."
The premise is that for the first time Hamlet or (Khamlet) , by William Shakespeare (Wil'yam Shex'pir) has been published in its original Klingon, after many years of being available mostly in English (aka "Terran"). The English Hamlet--not one of the dumbed-down versions--is included across from its corresponding Klingon page, so if you're a student reading Hamlet and want to annoy your teacher, you should buy or check out this book.
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wednesday november 29
One of my favorite parts of my job is talking to people about what they’re reading. Watching people light up when they tell me about something really, really good, and listening to their voices become urgent when they tell me “you’ve just got to try this”—I find that absolutely irresistible.
And of course, if it’s something I’ve read, we get to do that “isn’t he an amazing writer” and “wasn’t it wonderful when” and even “ooh, if you liked that, you have to read.”
I love writing for this blog, because of course I get to do the “you’ve just got to.” (You can probably tell from some of my much-too-long entries how enthused I can get.)
But it’s not one-way. It just occurred to me that everything I have out on my card right now and everything I currently have on hold was recommended to me personally by a library user or another librarian.
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wednesday november 22
I was reading Publisher’s Weekly’s list of their top 100 books of the year yesterday, and I was surprised and delighted to find C. J. Cherryh’s Pretender on the list. (We won’t go into how surprised I am to find that it’s November already, and best-of-the-year lists are coming out.)
Surprised because Pretender is the eighth volume in a complicated, densely sociological science fiction series. It’s hard to imagine what kind of book would be more difficult to persuade someone to try than a book that can only be read after going back and reading seven other books, all in a genre that tends not to be wildly popular anyway.
Delighted because I love this series. Because I think Cherryh is one of the best writers of science fiction today. Because Cherryh uses the conventions of speculative fiction to tackle big, thoughtful questions about humanity and civilization. And because she writes the coolest aliens around.
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wednesday november 08
Now that Prince is calling himself Prince again, maybe it’s time to revisit this fantasy set in the 1980s music scene of Minneapolis.
Eddi McCandry is a rocker chick in a struggling band when she is unwillingly recruited as a pawn in a faerie war. A handsome phouka (who is sometimes dog, sometimes “human”) explains that she has been magically bound to appear on the battlefield on May Eve, as human blood is necessary to make the ritual combat real. In the meantime, the phouka will be her bodyguard, because the dark side of the faerie court will be after her.
Since Eddi hates being told what to do, how will she cope with her unwanted guard dog, either in his alarming animal form or in his alarmingly sexy human one? And how will she keep body and soul together till May Eve, since her band has broken up?
By starting a new band, of course, with some very unusual musicians. And getting ready for the ultimate battle of the bands.
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tuesday october 31
We tend to think of scary books at Halloween, and I'll take this chance to promote some of my favorite creepy audio books and reading for any dark night.
The Edgar Allan Poe Audio Collection is read by Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone. Poe's work distills all that is eerie, and these two masters of voice bring the recordings to chilling life.
The Shining by Stephen King is a perennial favorite, good at the movies but terrific as the original book.
Peter Straub's Lost Boy Lost Girl is as creepy as it gets, an excellent read along with its sequel In The Night Room.
And don't forget the Classics: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; Dracula by Bram Stoker and the wonderful silent film Nosferatu; and even War of the Worlds by HG Wells, which was a written work long before it was performed as a radio play or movie.
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monday october 23
There are some books I return to over and over. Kate Wilhelm’s Welcome Chaos is one of them—I reread it this weekend, and it pulled me in again, though it’s hard to define why it’s so appealing to me.
It’s a hard book to blog, too, since the plot involves a secret. Do I tell you the secret to convince you to pick up the book? The book jacket does, though the author doesn’t for several chapters.
Let me start by saying that the novel was written when the major threat to world survival was the superpowers’ arms race. That makes it seem almost innocent, dated by our knowledge of all the other dangers that threaten our peace and our planet.
But in ways that makes it even more powerful, as it’s a thoughtful novel about civilized people deciding how far to go, balancing the lives of millions to save the world.
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wednesday october 11
When I finished reading Variable Star for the first time the other day, I gave a long sigh of satisfaction. It’s one of Robert A. Heinlein’s stories but Spider Robinson actually wrote it. The Robert A. Heinlein estate asked him to write this story outlined by Heinlein in 1955.
I have to give Spider Robinson a lot of credit for his work. It could not have been easy. He started with an eight page handwritten synopsis, fourteen 3X5 index cards with extensive notes, his knowledge of Heinlein’s work and his long friendship with Heinlein. The result is vintage Heinlein, or vintage Robinson or both.
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tuesday october 03
Phyllis Gotlieb dazzles with her sheer imagination in world-building in her 1998 science fiction novel Flesh and Gold. ”What if?” is the basic question behind science fiction, and a writer who can imagine an “if” that seems truly different from the here and now yet that still seems vividly lifelike is not to be missed.
In a far-future universe richly populated by a dozen or so alien races and several varieties of humans, we follow the adventures of a small band of characters, the chief of whom is Skerow. Skerow is an interplanetary circuit judge from Khagodi. She is a ponderously slow but deeply honorable being. (One human friend thinks of Skerow’s race as “streamlined baby allosaurs.”) Skerow is shocked and disillusioned to discover that a fellow judge she has traveled with for decades has been taking bribes.
It’s just the first of several shocks this being of great integrity suffers.
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sunday september 03
Every now and then, a science fiction novel gets the attention of people who don’t read science fiction and gives them a chance to discover just how original and thought-provoking the genre can be. (Which is a little annoying for the people who
do read sf, who get that “What am I,
chopped liver?” moment.)
I was emailing the other day with a genre fan about sf as sociological satire. We both loved Carol Emshwiller’s The Mount, for example, and think it works brilliantly as a Swiftian parable of social intolerance, even for readers who don’t care that it’s a “first contact” novel.
First contact and its subgenre alien invasion are actually great choices for non-genre readers interested in social commentary. (Hard to engineer a meeting between humans and aliens without giving thought to what humanity means.)
Which brings me to one of my all-time favorite first contact stories, and it fits our “Rediscoveries” category twice over, since most genre fans missed it, too—God’s Fires, by Patricia Anthony.
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friday september 01
My vacation starts in six and a half hours. So what will I do? Well, having spent all my spare cash remodeling my house, I'm headed off for a fun-filled vacation-week of staying at home. Yes, for the most part I will be finishing some of those remodeling projects, but I've also found something else I want to do with my time. I just ran across a book called The Dragon Charmer by Jan Siegel. The part I've read already is very good, and I plan on picking up the other books of the trilogy and having a fine day or two exploring this fantasy-world.
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tuesday august 22
As noted on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, a new biography of James Triptree, Jr. written by Julie Phillips (James Tiptree, Jr. The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon) has been published. Writing under the Tiptree Jr. pseudonym, Alice B. Sheldon started publishing science fiction short stories and novellas in the late 1960s. By that time, she had led a busy and interesting life, serving as a WAC in the Second World War, working for the CIA, and earning a PhD. in experimental psychology.
As a science fiction writer, Sheldon carefully guarded her identity as a woman, until the editor of a fanzine ferreted out her cover in 1976. With Kate Wilhem and Joanna Russ, Alice B. Sheldon is counted among the preeminent women science fiction writers of her day.
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Abarat (2002) is one of the most engaging books I have ever had the pleasure to experience. It is one of Clive Barker's young adult fantasies that takes the heroine, Candy Quackenbush, to a strange and unexpected world that somehow stands up to logic, in spite of being constructed completely out of Barker's imagination.
The books are filled with Barker's paintings, which were apparently his basis for the books. He says he was inspired by the movies The Wizard of Oz and Fantasia, CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, and by Cirque du Soleil. (information from the Abarat web site)
The sequel, Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War (2004), is every bit as wonderful as the first book. The best news is: This will be a quartet of books. We have two more to look forward to reading!!
Immerse yourself in the world of Abarat. You will never go anywhere like it again.
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tuesday august 15
There is always a stack of novels on my desk, lurking there in the corner, waiting for me to crack the cover and enter their world.
Right now, for example, I have:
- In the Dark of the Night by John Saul; in spite of a few distracting continuity problems and inconsistencies, it's a pretty good story.
- Hawkes Harbor by SE Hinton; wonderful book, bordering on fantasy/horror, and completely unlike her popular teen novels; for a mature reader.
- Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War by Clive Barker; fantasy; total immersion. Look for a future post dedicated to the Abarat books.
- Dark Light by Randy Wayne White; a hurricane exposes an old wreck, which leads to mysterious places and people on the Florida coast.
- The Descent: A Novel by Jeff Long; unwitting explorers discover a vast underworld society.
- Forests of the Night by James W. Hall; intuitive policewoman follows a creepy trail involving an old feud; I picked it up from a display
So, that is part of the stack of dark books on my desk. Maybe you'll find a few of them to be of interest.
monday august 14
I found a copy of Guy Gavriel Kay’s fantasy novel Tigana in the Friends of the Library bookstore the other day. I haven’t read it in years, but it’s on my to-be-read pile again. Those of you who waited so impatiently for George R. R. Martin’s long-delayed Song of Ice and Fire sequel, A Feast for Crows, which finally came out last year, should add it to your pile, too. It’s another splendid (fat!) work of complex fantasy.
Kay’s novels aren’t exactly alternate histories, but they’re set in cultures evocative of historic ones we’re familiar with. There’s one set in a culture much like Moorish Spain, another like the chivalric France of the troubadours, a series set in a Byzantine empire, and so on. Drawing on these cultures to create new fantasy worlds, Kay writes rich, satisfying fantasies.
Tigana has a setting much like Renaissance Italy, where dozens of rival city-states war on a peninsula, fatally leaving the door open to foreign invaders.
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tuesday july 18
Hot enough for you? Afternoon temperatures hover in the mid-90s, but the level of discomfort is minor compared to the experience of the characters in David Hewson's scorching 1999 thriller, Solstice. Scientist Michael Lieberman studies an alarming increase in sunspot activity that is overheating the Earth. Another influence is at work, as well. When Air Force One burns in midair, torched like a paper airplane, eco-terrorists called the Children of Gaia claim responsibility.
Gaia computer engineers have seized control of an orbiting solar power station and its super-weapon, Sundog, that harnesses the energy of the Sun. Lieberman, himself, and French physicist (and ex-lover) Charley Pascal designed the station. Never mind that Charley is insane and dying of cancer. She and her zealots are determined to destroy the modern world and return the air, water, and Earth to a state of pre-industrial purity. Solstice is a gripping, superior, infernally hot technothriller.
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saturday july 15
I just finished Magic Street by Orson Scott Card. In it, Mack Street, a baby found abandoned in a shopping bag grows up and into magical abilities. His ability to see people's most wished-for dreams has a dark aspect however, as these dreams tend to be fulfilled in ways that harm the dreamer or his loved ones.
As Mack discovers more about the peculiarity of his birth, he also finds a house which is a gateway into another world. There he meets Puck and Titania (yes, this book draws heavily from A Midsummer Night's Dream) and discovers how his fate and the fate of the community he lives in depend on how he manages this interaction with Fairy.
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wednesday july 12
I was in the eighth grade in 1968 when I first read Frank Herbert's novel Dune (1965). I told everyone I knew that it was the best book I had ever read, and probably the best book ever written; I am not ashamed to admit that I uttered those words again as recently as last week.
This fabulous Science Fiction story won the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award. It is an ecological cautionary story about dependence on energy and political control, about ecological change and disaster, about people's need for leadership and the temptations of corruption, and mostly about one remarkable man: Paul Atreides, whose fate it is to become Maud'Dib, the leader of millions.
Dino de Laurentis made a truly terrible movie based on the book; the SciFi Channel made a better mini-series adaptation in 2001.
Fremen...Bene Gesserit...House Harkonnen...sand worms...Spacing Guild...planets Arrakis, Geidi Prime, and Caladan. Come join us in the universe of Dune.
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friday july 07
Recently I fell under the spell of an audiobook: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I found it browsing, and am still not entirely sure how I missed hearing about it when the book came out. Reviewers have compared Clarke's novel to Jane Austen and "Harry Potter for Adults" but after hearing it myself I'm not sure an easy comparison exists for this book.
The title magicians, Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, are both given unique strong personalities by narrator Simon Preble. The book explores the "sorcerer's apprentice" style relationship between Norrell and Strange while touching on English history, magical history, and the manners of the 19th century. With a plot that unfurls gradually, this title might not be paced for those who demand page-a-minute action. The characters and landscape, however, are so well drawn that it's well worth a listen anyway.
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monday july 03
At a recent neighborhood potluck I was pleased to meet singer-songwriter
Andrea Dale and her musician friends. They are
Filk performers. Filk is a subgenre of folk music that incorporates the imagery and motifs of the literature of science fiction and fantasy. I've been reading science fiction books all my life, but I was unaware of Filk music.
S. M. Stirling wrote a sequence of post-apocalyptic novels (Dies the Fire and The Protector's War) set in Oregon's Willamette Valley, in a world where all technology has been rendered suddenly useless. Out of savage chaos follows a struggle for survival, wherein those accomplished in the medieval skills of bow, spear, and sword tend to prevail. The farmer, the smithy, and the tanner are people of importance in this new order, which looks to the crafts, rituals, and mythology of the past for structure.
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monday june 26
That's me. The #1 fan of eBooks. The Ohio eBook Project was obviously put together with my needs in mind. OK, I had to buy the MP3 player and a PDA to download the material but sometimes I need to be pushed.
My new car has the built-in MP3 connection.
You only need your library card, your pin number, a home computer, and a couple of electronic toys, i.e., a PDA or MP3 player that's not an iPod.
You can get to the Ohio eBook Project on the Library's Home Page. Scroll down to find the yellow splotch that says Digital Books. All instructions and the software necessary are available on this site.
On my PDA, I read A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, The Birthday of the World and other stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, and a fascinating book by Ann Patchett, Truth and Beauty: a Friendship. My current selection is the most recent Amelia Peabody mystery, Tomb of the Golden Bird by Elizabeth Peters.
On my MP3 player, I listened to Julie and Julia by Julie Powell, Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery, Borrower of the Night by Elizabeth Peters, and an interesting biography, Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinor Pruitt Steward.
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friday june 09
"I like to fiddle with the idea of basic categories of reality, such as space and time, breaking down." (
Philip K. Dick)
As librarians we enjoy categorizing things, and in squirrelly realms such as the work of Philip K. Dick, this endeavor quickly becomes problematic. Do we place him in Science Fiction? Magic Realism? Postmodernism? Speculative Fiction? Was he a hack philosopher/theologian, a “poor man’s Pynchon” as a Village Voice reviewer once suggested, or a “homegrown Borges” as Ursula K. Le Guin opined?
I proclaim PKD to be all of the above and then some. The man and his work have been described as visionary, paranoid, brilliant, and mystical, among many other terms. If you enjoy slippery metaphysical slopes and shifting realities with their attendant philosophical quandaries, I heartily recommend Philip K. Dick’s work. Despite the thematic weightiness, however, he is eminently readable, and his addictive page-turners often feature “common man” characters (even androids) possessing warmth and humor uncharacteristic of the genres he straddles.
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thursday june 08
Read the books. Saw the movies. Listened to the audio books. Waiting for the next Harry Potter appearance. Sigh. 
Good News! There are other authors writing about wizards.
My latest favorite wizard-writing author is Martha Wells. The Fall of Ile-Rien is full of magic, wizards and a quest. Tremaine Valiarde has the last magical sphere that might help the wizards of her country combat the enemy known as The Gardier.
Like many other fantasy novels, a group of varied individuals, slowly form a family unit going outside the bounds of Ile-Rien society. Together they turn the tide of war, culminating in a final battle of wits and wizardry.
I really enjoy reading series that take three or more books to fully explore magical worlds and their rules governing magic. Wells writes a fast-paced and enjoyable fantasy for anyone craving wizards.
I'm still waiting for the Harry Potter to come, but I'm reading and enjoying other wizards right now!
The Wizard Hunters - Book One of the Fall of Ile-Rien
Ships of Air - Book Two of the Fall of Ile-Rien
The Gate of Gods - Book Three of the Fall of Ile-Rien
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friday june 02
There are two types of people in the world: those who love the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, and those who haven't read them yet. If you're of the latter group, I heartily recommend them all! For people who like to read a series "in order", the discworld reading guide is a great visual resource.
Recently, I picked up The Art of Discworld which features Paul Kidby's illustrations of the Discworld and its denizens. Ordinarily I have trouble with other people envisioning my favorite fictional characters, but Kidby's illustrations are very well done, if not always exactly what I pictured. I especially liked the drawing of Cohen the Barbarian which appears on the cover of The Last Hero.
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