Somehow in the rush of the week, I went and self-published a book and forgot to tell anyone about it. Well, that’s not technically true, but I didn’t post about it here. The book has its own page on this website, and it is now available in both ebook and print. Below is the book description and front cover, as well as a picture that captures our relationship as adults. If you want to learn…
At WorldCon last month, I was in a session and someone recommended this book. I know that I read it in the 1980s, I’m sure of it. I also remember a certain scene and some certain specific characterizations of the main character, ousted British spy George Smiley, from decades ago. I was excited to revisit the Cold War, and started listening to it in early September. There has been a recent upheaval in the British…
After some tough, long, difficult reads over the last year, I decided to reward myself with a shorter, faster-paced book. I like military SF, and I like spaceships and space battles, and this book seemed like a good fit. It was. I very much enjoyed it, and it ended up being a lot deeper and developed into a much more interesting story as the plot moved along. The book starts with ground forces invading and…
WorldCon was last weekend, in the exotic far-away locale of Anaheim, a convenient 35 minute drive. My wife dropped me off at the hotel on Thursday morning, checked in early, and spent three nights. Was originally planning to stay through Monday morning but real world obligations (such as my wife’s knee surgery) got in the way. This was my first in-person con. I’ve attended the online Flights of Foundry every year, and am planning to…
I am very behind on my blogging. It took me a long time to get through these two books, but I watched the first season of the 3-body problem series and decided I should read the other two books. I read these from June to August and am just getting around to posting about it now as I’ve been quite busy with my real job. This was a challenging read. I’ve had a lot of…
Advanced climate change means that the world is burning, there is looming economic collapse, but a billionaire’s secret and illegal project shipped back hundreds of tons of refined ore from the asteroid Ryugu, and that opens up the possibility of us getting through this and surviving as a species. In book two of this series, we rejoin our protagonists after a harrowing return to Earth after years in deep space, and their main concern is…
It’s been a hot minute since i had time to read. I’ve checked out several audio books and not even start them during the whole 3 week loan period. But I had a quick trip across the country back and forth in 3 days and this book was relatively short, so I was able to listen to it almost all the way through on the flights. This book is very different from what I normally…
I have been super busy at work for the last 5-6 months, and have hardly been reading, let alone writing. However, I saw a call for “fun” stories on Bluesky recently, and I am dusting off a short story to submit in about 10 days. My first submission in almost two years. I have been writing, slowly but surely, documenting my childhood and memories of my brother. He passed last July after a long battle…
A cave diver, a Chinese astronaut, a paraglider, an ex-military jock, and an African computer hacker. What do they all have in common? They were selected and recruited by billionaire Nathan Joyce to do deep space training. This group, along with several more, are recruited and sent on a secret mission to a near Earth asteroid. JT, the cave diver, is our main protagonist, and we spend most of the book with him. Meanwhile, Joyce’s…
This is a collection of short stories. Some of them really stuck with me, some of them dragged on far too long and I wouldn’t have kept listening had I not been on an airplane. I enjoyed the author commentary after each story. Two stories really stuck with me. The first, Exhalation, is about some robots who begin to learn who exactly they are and how their universe was created, due to the fact that…