Beukes has positioned her brilliant first novel ten years or so in the future, somewhere between the real-world present and nearly any technologically-based dystopia you care to name.
Category Archives: Books
Twilight Conventions Coming
Residents in the following cities are advised to take the necessary precautions which include, but are not limited to: Evacuation, boarding up windows, flamethrowers, and marathon viewing sessions of either Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Blade movies, or any other vampire movie that does not involve SPARKLES.
Hugo Nominees: Novelettes
As the deadline for Hugo voters looms, this voter takes a look at the nominees for best novelette.
Novel Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife
I purchased this novel for my wife’s birthday, back in 2003 or 2004, when Niffenegger’s debut first appeared to general acclaim. With the film adaptation arriving later this summer, I decided to read it.1
2009 Hugo Nominees: Short Stories
We’ve reviewed all of the Hugo-nominated novels and many of the dramatic works. I may get to novellas and novelettes in the near future. Meanwhile, I encourage you to read and discuss the short fiction, available online.
This seems to be Hugo’s Year of the Monkey.
Book Review: Little Brother
In the wake of a near-future terrorist attack, some teens run afoul of the Department of Homeland Security—and become American revolutionaries in the process. Cory Doctorow’s novel, one of three YA books nominated for best novel at this year’s Hugo Awards, also serves as a primer of sorts.
Novel Review: Saturn’s Children
Today is the two hundredth anniversary of the final extinction of my One True Love, as close as I can date it.
In Charlie Stross’s space opera, nominated for a 2009 Hugo, the future brings wild adventures, interplanetary espionage, intelligent spaceships, and floating cities. Earth has established colonies throughout the solar system, and its inhabitants are now reaching for the stars.
Pity no human beings have survived to see it.
Book Review – The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
The anime series of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has become perhaps one of the more popular anime series to make the jump to the US, and one of the few anime series based off books to have the original source of the series get translated into English. I have already seen the series (and a review is forthcoming, once I finish with Patlabor), the question is, how does the book hold up?
Podiobook Review: Chasing the Bard
Many people feel William Shakespeare’s work is magical, but what if we take that one step further?
Novel Review: The Graveyard Book
Neil Gaiman has written another book for all ages. Despite its obvious antecedents, it ranks among his most creative and inventive works—and that is saying quite a lot.