In the late 70s, I was wandering the stacks of our local library and came across a book with a dramatic title: Raise the Titanic! I had – like many other people – something of a fascination with the Titanic, so this, along with the cover showing the huge liner rising from the deeps, grabbed my attention. This was the first novel of the genre "techno-thriller" I remember reading; it's possible I read one such earlier, but I can't say for sure. What I can say is that Raise the Titanic grabbed me and held me riveted [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Nero Wolfe
December 28, 2012 By 7 Comments
In a timeless brownstone in New York City, on West 35th Street, there lives a very unusual man. He is moody, arbitrary, arrogant, quite rotund (over 300 pounds) and highly eccentric. He is also the best detective in the world ("Probably not. The best detective in the world may be a rude tribesman with a limited vocabulary.") – all right, one of the finest private detectives in the world… if you can afford him. He's expensive; has to be, as his fees must support his world-class gourmet lifestyle and the upkeep for the brownstone, his [ Continue reading... ]
PORTAL: First Chapter Teaser
December 26, 2012 By 12 Comments
Portal will be coming out in May, 2013. Some time before that, the eARC will become available. Thus, the full-bore snippeting will begin not TOO long from now. I thought I'd give you a first taste! PORTAL By Eric Flint and Ryk E. Spoor Recovery, N: 1. the act or process of returning to a normal condition, especially from sickness, a shock, or a setback; recuperation 2. restoration to a former or better condition 3. the regaining of something lost 4. the extraction of something useful from materials or a [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Jules Verne
December 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Jules (Gabriel) Verne is a household name throughout the Western world, and a well-known one even outside of it. Versions of his stories have been turned into movies, TV series, video games, anime, and any other form of entertainment imaginable. For me, he was one of the original sources of wonder. I first encountered the work of Jules Verne in a hardcover abridged (probably for children) version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Even the abridged version was fairly heavy going (I think I was [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Star Trek: The Original Series
December 21, 2012 By 4 Comments
"Space… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds… to seek out new life and new civilizations… to boldly go where no man has gone before." There is perhaps no piece of science fiction more well-known, more roundly mocked, and more completely loved, than Star Trek, the original series. Today it may often seem quaint, old-fashioned, sometimes even wince-inducing, but in its day it was a groundbreaking and shining example of what [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: When Worlds Collide/After Worlds Collide
December 19, 2012 By 2 Comments
It is often said that "The Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12". It is certainly the case that I remember fondly many books that I discovered at that age; that was in the middle of my Junior High career, and I had been introduced the year before to Doc Smith and Christopher Anvil. Subsequently, I decided to start looking for more science fiction, and went into the library of Shaker Junior High to start looking. Having no better idea, I started looking for books that caught my eye starting at the beginning of the alphabet, and [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Brian Daley’s Coramonde
December 17, 2012 By 5 Comments
Brian Daley was a science fiction and fantasy author with a great talent for painting worlds with words – his own worlds, or those of others. He was probably best-known personally as the writer of three Han Solo novels (I believe the first three published, aside from Splinter of the Mind's Eye), and most successful as one-half of Jack McKinney, the author of the Robotech novelizations. He died, unfortunately, in the middle of his career, victim of cancer at the age of 49. I, however, remember him for two original [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Lords of Dûs
December 14, 2012 By 8 Comments
Some years ago, I belonged to a writer's group, one of whose members worked at a bookstore. On occasion he'd bring in a box of stripped (front cover removed) books for people to take home if they wanted. NOTE: This is an illegal practice, though I didn't know it at the time. "Stripped" books are recorded as "returned" by publishers and are supposed to be destroyed. There are aspects of this practice that I'm unsure of in terms of whether it really makes sense, but I just want to make clear I'm not promoting [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: The Mighty Thor
December 13, 2012 By 5 Comments
As I mentioned in an earlier post on the D'Aulaire's Mythology books, the Norse Myths have always had a powerful symbolism for me; they were the mythology of half of my ancestors and I always liked the myths themselves. Oh, the Norse Gods were far, far from perfect, but overall they seemed more likeable and less, well, dicks than the Greek Gods, which were the other mythology that I was most exposed to. But their stories were, after all, relatively static; their stories were finished, their race was run. But then in [ Continue reading... ]
Musings on Fanfiction Part 2: Fanfiction/Fanworks and Creators
December 12, 2012 By 4 Comments
Prior to becoming an author and interacting with people on Livejournal and some other sites where fanfiction became a major force, I was only aware of "arguments" about fanfiction in a pretty narrow set of senses – whether it fit with canon or not, and whether it was well done, or not. I had really never heard any serious arguments about whether it was right or wrong to do, and the few times I'd heard it I thought these were minority (and very silly minority) opinions. I was … mistaken in that impression. [ Continue reading... ]
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