Ender’s Game is a science fiction classic written by Orson Scott Card. It’s also a favorite young adult book, and nearly topped NPR’s list of favorite science fiction and fantasy (beaten only by Lord of the Rings and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). It’s hard to write about a book loved by so many…
Tag: science fiction
NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy
If you’re a fantasy or science fiction reader, you’ve probably already seen NPR’s top 100 list of science fiction and fantasy novels. This list is based on nominations from the public, with some review by a panel of three experts to ensure that a consistent definition of science fiction and fantasy was applied. To that…
Review: Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi
Fuzzy Nation reminded me a little of The Firm by John Grisham. Not because it has some elements of a legal thriller (though it does) but more generally because it’s a fast-paced, engaging read and what it does it does very well. It draws you in and is hard to put down. It’s a…
Review: WWW.Wake and WWW.Watch by Robert Sawyer
These books are the first two in a trilogy by Robert Sawyer. Sawyer writes what my husband calls “hard” science fiction, which means that there’s an emphasis on the technical aspects of science and engineering, as opposed to “soft” science fiction where the story is set in a futuristic time but the science isn’t really…
Review Part II: Dust by Elizabeth Bear
Hi! I’m CurlyGeek’s husband, SciFiGeek72. Before I start my review, I should probably give a little background on what I like to read so you can see where I’m coming from. Unlike my wife, I’m a more traditional science fiction reader, and for pleasure, I largely stick to sci-fi with a little historical fiction thrown…
Review Part I: Dust by Elizabeth Bear
I picked up Dust for the Women of Science Fiction Book Club. I want to read more science fiction; I definitely want to read more science fiction written by women; and this was a book club I could get my husband to join. But this book didn’t work for either of us. I stopped about…
Review: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
In The Year of the Flood, Atwood does something unusual: she writes a book that’s set in the same time and place as her previous book, Oryx and Crake, but from the perspectives of different characters (see my review here). In an interview on Amazon, she says that one reason for this was to address…
The first Literary Blog Hop, and what it means to be literary
I’m excited that the Blue Bookcase started a “Literary Blog Hop” this week. Of course whether a blog is “literary” is a little bit subjective. I read a mix of books, as do most of us, some literary and some not. What makes a book literary? I think that’s a question many of us wrestle…
Old memories, new challenges, and a mini-review
This weekend I traveled to sunny California for my husband’s 20th high school reunion. I haven’t gone to my own reunions, so this was a strange experience. Even without knowing anyone, I couldn’t help but flash back to my own not-so-pleasant high school experiences – it’s hard not to when surrounded by 80s photos, 80s…
Review: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
For me, there are two indicators of a good book. One is that as soon as I finish it, I want to go back and reread the first few chapters. Two is that I find myself thinking about the book days after I’ve put it down. Oryx and Crake was that kind of book. The…
Which Fantasy/SF Books will become Classics?
Jessica from On A Pale Star has posted a cool link to a couple of recent posts on the SF Signal. They asked fantasy and science fiction authors to answer the question: Which science fiction and fantasy books written in the last ten years will become classics? This isn’t a poll or a literary critique;…
The Book Stop 