Man Plus by Frederik Pohl My rating: 3 of 5 stars Read for the 12 Awards in 12 Months Challenge and the SF Masterworks Reading Challenge and Science Fiction Masterworks Reading Club here on Goodreads. This novel won the 1976 Nebula Award. Some books stand up to the vicissitudes of time better than others. I’m […]
Read More Book Review: Man Plus by Frederik PohlThe Dark Tower by Stephen King My rating: 5 of 5 stars Read for the 12 Awards in 12 Months Challenge, the Apocalypse Now! Reading Challenge, the High Fantasy Reading Challenge, and the Read the Sequel Reading Challenge. This novel won the Derleth Award in 2005. The conclusion of the Dark Tower series is probably […]
Read More Book Review: The Dark Tower by Stephen KingBy Josh Gabbatiss An international team of physicists has “stumbled upon” an entirely new material, which they have called “Weyl-Kondo semimetal”. The “semimetal” belongs to a category of substances known as “quantum materials”. Quantum materials have various quirky properties, some of which could contribute to future technological innovations like quantum computing – regarded by many […]
Read More Scientists Have Accidentally Discovered a New MaterialBy Kelly Robson I’ll always be grateful to Steven Barnes. At Orycon 2012, he passed on advice that made a huge difference to my writing. Steven said, when we get a story idea, we usually know either the character or the problem. To develop the story, we can ask ourselves the following questions: If we […]
Read More 2 Simple, Awesome Pieces of Characterization AdviceBy Nicole Mortillaro When we think of Mars, we think of a dry, desolate planet. But beneath the dust of Mars lies frozen water, and a new study has found that erosion is exposing that water ice. Researchers using several satellites, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), have […]
Read More Erosion on Mars Reveals Water Ice: LOTS of It!By Shane Snow The other day, a friend and I were talking about becoming better writers by doing a “reading level analysis” of our work. Scholars have formulas for automatically estimating reading level using syllables, sentence length, and other proxies for vocabulary and concept complexity. After the chat, just for fun, I ran a chapter from […]
Read More Reading Level Analysis Will Change the Way You WriteBy Morgan Daimler It’s generally assumed in Western culture today that elves, and more widely many types of fairies, have pointed ears and the image has become so ingrained in popular culture as to be a trope. Yet why do we picture elves and fairies with pointed ears, when most descriptions from European folklore^ emphasize […]
Read More Why Do Elves Have Pointed Ears?Song of Susannah by Stephen King My rating: 3 of 5 stars Read for the Second Best Reading Challenge, the Apocalypse Now! Reading Challenge, the High Fantasy Reading Challenge, and the Read the Sequel Reading Challenge. This novel was nominated for the Locus Award. I’d almost forgotten all of this one in my re-read. This […]
Read More Book Review: Song of Suzannah by Stephen KingBy Doris Elin Salazar If you’ve ever wondered what kind of weather Jon Snow faces as he fights against White Walkers in the hit television fantasy series “Game of Thrones,” the conditions are about the same as they are in Fairbanks, Alaska, according to a new climate simulation of the fictitious realm. Plus, dragons scorching up Westeros […]
Read More ‘Game of Thrones’ Climate Simulator Explains Crazy Weather of WesterosShards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold My rating: 5 of 5 stars Read for the Military Spec Fic Reading Challenge, the Second Best Reading Challenge, the Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge, the Hard Core Sci-Fi Reading Challenge, and the Space Opera Reading Challenge. This book was nominated for the Locus Award. My opening […]
Read More Book Review: Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
