Dreamer Easy

Anne Donovan. Buddha Da.
Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth. Before the Universe.
Lloyd Rose. The Algebra of Ice.

( Books bought and borrowed )

Paul Bowles. The Sheltering Sky.
August Derleth (ed). Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Richard Hammond. As You Do.
Tanith Lee. Drinking Sapphire Wine including Don't Bite the Sun.
Anna Sewell. Black Beauty.

( Books bought and borrowed )

My recommendations from the year's reading:

Ben Aaronovitch. Genius Loci. I can't believe how long to took me to get around to reading this. Ben writes one of the rarest kinds of Doctor Who-related stuff: honest-to-God SF. Plus it's as funny as hell.

Christine Pevitt Algrant. Madame de Pompadour: Mistress of France. I rarely read history; this was a terrific read.

Pierre Bayard. How to talk about books you haven't read. Cheeky little book full of serious insights on writing, reading, and publishing.

Russell T. Davies. The Writer's Tale. Entertaining and enlightening - plus hopeful writers (and old hacks like me) get an invaluable glimpse of a master works.

Charles Dickens. Bleak House. My first ever Dickens! Now I see what all the fuss is about! I hope to give Our Mutual Friend a stab this year.

Kate Fox. Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour. Suddenly so much makes sense that never did before. (Don Watson's On Indignation was similarly enlightening. :)

Gita Mehta. Karma Cola. Knockout collection of anecdotes about clueless Westeners visiting India in the sixties, with no idea of what was waiting for them. I picked this up completely by chance in an op shop. I would read a shopping list written by this woman. Instead, though, I'll read her novel Raj.

Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. Death Note. So clever, so funny, so twisty.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Holy flaming cow. I'm still reeling from the final line. Cancer Ward is on the shelf for this year.

( 42 books )

Dear Cracked.com,

Regarding your recent item, The Best (Worst) Fantasy & Science Fiction Book Covers:

1. The war between jocks and nerds is over. The nerds won. Try to keep this in mind.

2. Now, let me see. What section of your audience is most likely to be interested in an item on F&SF book covers? Could it be F&SF readers? The people you unimaginatively insult at the top of the article?

3. For an article about bad specfic book covers, surely a limitless source of material, you spend an awful lot of time making jokes about the titles, the taglines, the (presumable) content, etc. In fact, most of the covers are merely a bit crummy.
     3a. Although the cover of Raven 3: The Frozen God deserves some sort of award for terribleness.

4. There are half a dozen genuine lols in the article, so it's still worth a glance, but geez. Must do better.

No love,
- Kate

Iain M. Banks. Matter.
Frank Close. The Void.
Neil Gaiman. Anansi Boys. (Thanks, shellshear!)
Gita Mehta. Karma Cola.
Clive Moore (ed). The Forgotten People: a history of the Australian South Sea Island community.
Oliver Sacks. The Island of the Colour-blind.

( Books bought and borrowed )

"Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan said the team of nearly two dozen staffers at the opposition headquarters will be "fact-checking" statements made by the Obama campaign and by speakers during the convention.

"Just consider this the Ministry of Truth," quipped Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party."

http://www.politicswest.com/28818/republicans_set_war_room_near_downtown

(Found this at the awesome alas_entries, the LJ syndicated version of Alas, a Blog.)

YADDA, YADDA, YADDA: OH, PULLEEZE, SAVE US FROM CHOKING ON MEDIA-MARINATED CATCHPHRASES, Time 16 December 1996

SF drabble: MAD AS HELL by Andrew J. Solberg

It's International Blog Against Racism Week! For more info, visit ibarw.

UFO was a British TV series first screened in 1970, but set in the 1980s. A secret organisation, with one base hidden under a film studio and another on the moon, protects Earth from aliens who hatch all sorts of improbable schemes in their quest to harvest human organs. Jon, who'd watched the show as a kid, recently got the boxed set and we worked our way through the 26 episodes. It was lavishly made and surprisingly credible and adult, not to mention having the grooviest opening credits of any series ever.

UFO touches on race and racism now and again in a well-intentioned way. Rather than looking to laud or condemn the show - bit pointless nearly 40 years later, really - I'd like to just note some of these moments... although I do want to pimp to you the character of Lieutenant Nina Barry, sort of UFO's version of Uhura.

( Warning: lots of text, lots of images )

So I'm reading The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. Guy has amnesia, same old same old, but good prose so I keep going. And then suddenly in chapter 6 it's HEAD FIRST INTO ALFRED BESTER LAND. Holy crap!

"The Grand Zamerin bristled his antennae as though lost in wonder at the view, which he wasn't."
- p 58

"Informed speculation on the matter is unusually diverse, indicating that no-one really has a clue at all."
- p 272