Category Archives: Books

Edgar Pangborn’s Davy

Edgar Pangborn is one of those early science fiction writers who has been a very quiet legend for decades. Most happily, Old Earth Books some years back undertook to reissue his novels, for which all of us can be very … Continue reading

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Constance W. Hassett’s Christina Rossetti: The Patience of Style

I suppose it’s accurate to say that we live in an archaeological age. We in the West spend a great deal of time investigating and re-evaluating the past, sometimes to our benefit, sometimes not so much. There are, for example, … Continue reading

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Ernest Hemingway’s Under Kilimanjaro [Robert W. Lewis and Robert E. Fleming, eds.]

The name “Kilimanjaro” calls up our most vivid images of Africa, the great mountain rising above the teeming savannas as Gregory Peck struggles up its flanks. That is, indeed, an image that comes to us from Ernest Hemingway, by way … Continue reading

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Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day

Thomas Pynchon has long been one of my favorite American authors, ever since the local librarian in our small town objected to allowing me, all of seventeen years old (and a very skinny, gawky, naïve seventeen, at that), to borrow … Continue reading

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Steven Brust and Skyler White’s The Skill of Our Hands

Call it “slipstream”: it’s not exactly science fiction, although it could be; nor is it fantasy, although it has elements of that, in the gritty, contemporary, urban vein; and anything it takes from mainstream fiction is more from the realm … Continue reading

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Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman and Donald G. Keller’s The Horns of Elfland

Jeannine Gehrmann penned this reveiw. Any seasoned teacher knows better than to answer the question, “Who is your favourite?” in a class of children, and, so, too, does any seasoned reader feel about a good collection of fantasy short stories. Each … Continue reading

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Mike Carey and Glenn Fabry’s Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere

Over a decade after the original televised mini-series and the novel it spawned, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere has found new life in comic form — but not scripted by Gaiman himself. That honor has gone to Mike Carey, writer for the … Continue reading

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Connie Willis’ The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories and D.A.

What can I say about Connie Willis, except that she is one of the most consistently engaging writers I’ve ever run across? The Winds of Marble Arch and D.A. reinforce that opinion: they are, in a word, terrific. The Winds … Continue reading

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Connie Willis’ Blackout

Connie Willis has written some brilliant satires. She has a real gift for taking the routines and the personalities we encounter in daily life and, with just a tweak here and there, holding them up to sometimes merciless and often … Continue reading

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Christopher Fowler’s Roofworld

Naomi de Bruyn penned this review. Have you ever considered that just possibly, there might be another society right under our noses? Actually, in this case, right above our heads? Personally, I’d never really given the matter more than momentary speculation … Continue reading

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