Tag Archives: science fiction

George Alec Effinger’s Audran Trilogy: When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, The Exile Kiss

Just to get it said, and because I think it has larger implications in discussing these works by George Alec Effinger (although maybe not, but it needs to be said anyway): I seldom comment on the design of books, mostly … Continue reading

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Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun

Science fiction, like any other genre, has its landmarks, those works that stand above their cohort and may, all else being equal, stand above most works from other genres as well (and I include so-called “mainstream” literature among genres). Gene … Continue reading

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Robert Silverberg’s To Be Continued: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume One

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that Robert Silverberg was one of those writers of the 1950s and 1960s who was regularly turning out interesting and workmanlike stories. Then came a series of novels that rocked readers of science fiction back on their … Continue reading

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Robert Silverberg’s Star of Gypsies

Speculative fiction, by which I mean that category that includes both fantasy and science fiction and their hybrids, has accumulated over the years a group of larger-than-life characters: Ralph 124C41+, the cat girl C’Mell, Jubal Harshaw, R. Daneel Olivaw, the … Continue reading

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Elizabeth Bear’s Hammered, Scardown, and Worldwired

It’s rather odd, from my point of view, to be sitting here after an intensive course in the works of Elizabeth Bear and finally have a chance to consider her first published novels, Hammered, Scardown, and Worldwired. These were greeted … Continue reading

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Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren

Samuel R. Delaney’s Dhalgren was originally published in 1974. It was brash, it was overtly experimental, it was greeted with everything from wild hallelujahs to roars of outrage. It was in many ways the culmination of science fiction’s New Wave: … Continue reading

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Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele’s The Surrogates: Flesh and Bone

Flesh and Bone is a prequel to The Surrogates, taking the story back fifteen years to the anti-surrogate riots of 2039. The incident that sparks the crisis is the beating death of a derelict by three teenagers who are using … Continue reading

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Reger Zelazny and Steve Grant’s Isle of The Dead audiobook

If you started listening to audiobooks over the past ten or so years, consider yourself to be extremely lucky, as you’re living in a true Golden Age where narration, production, and ease of use are extremely good. But long ago, … Continue reading

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Edgar Pangborn’s A Mirror for Observers

About 30,000 years ago, the Martians fled their dying planet for Earth, where they took up a hidden residence, waiting for humanity to progess to the point where it could accept them. They send their Observers out into the world, … Continue reading

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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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