FOLLOWING up on his 2008 bestseller, Your Inner Fish, Chicago biologist Neil Shubin is out to prove that dirt and rocks can be fodder for the same thrilling science writing as neurons and particle colliders.
Read how in my Free Press review.
Tag Archives: books
Book Review: Impulse
Steven Gould has a new novel out in the Jumper series, and I’ve covered it in the Free Press Book Review. This is an author whose career I’ve been following since around ’97, and a couple of his novels can be counted amongst my all-time favourites. It’s easy to screw up a sequel, but he’s in fine form this time around.
Best of 2012
Sleeping Hedgehog, like most art and culture mags everywhere, has been talking about the best of 2012 (with most of the entries running New Year’s Day). I wouldn’t say there were a lot of huge stand-outs this year. What’s perhaps interesting is that a lot of my reading did not come from the usual suspects, or perhaps even that I may not even have any current usual suspects. I did say, and I’ll quote:
As far as brand-new works go, 2012 saw worthy follow-ups to a couple of individuals with very strong debuts in previous years. I’ve quite enjoyed both Hannu Rajaniemi’s and Howard Andrew Jones’ series continuations. But I’d have to give the nod to Jones for best new title for Bones of the Old Ones.
But as good as my best new book of the year was, it didn’t manage to surpass its predecessor, The Desert of Souls, in my mind, which was all the stronger for coming completely out of nowhere from an author I hadn’t previously heard of. In other words, it’s tougher when there are already high expectations of you.
So that’s new titles, of which, despite my myriad review gigs, I haven’t read that many this year. Most of my reviews at AE, for example, were re-releases of Canadian-written SF originally published as much as a decade ago. What of the “new to me” stuff? I’ll quote myself again;
Best new old title? I’ve read a lot of back-listed material that has seen new editions this year. This has included one of the all-time fantasy classics, T.H. White’s Arthurian work,The Once and Future King, which has to take the prize. Runner-up: Robert Charles Wilson’s excellent 2001 novel, The Chronoliths, was a happy discovery.
Besides several from Wilson, this was also the year I discovered (via my editor at AE) Geoff Ryman (whose short stories I soon realized I had read and enjoyed previously). I also finally got around to reading Peter Watts, though only in the last few days of the calendar year (the catalyst being an upcoming essay for AE, which will probably be this month since I’ve already handed in my first draft).
And we can’t forget the non-fiction, of which I’ve ready plenty, but I won’t single anything out at the moment. I’ll do another round-up of my Library Journal science reviews in another month or so, as I’ve already written a couple since the last posting.
Film: I wasn’t really thinking of this, but someone did ask me recently. After a moment’s thought, I cited The Hunger Games and The Dark Knight Rises as my favourites this year. And I think I’ll stick with that gut, on-the-spot assessment.
Care2 Blog Weekly Roundup (12/29/12)
Blurbed
Side-note to my previous post: when my review copy of Bones of the Old Ones arrived, I was pleased to discover that the top blurb on the inside jacket cover was actually mine, quoted from my review of Jones’ previous novel. Though I’m not mentioned by name, I immediately recognized my Green Man Review coverage from early 2011. I didn’t actually see it until after I’d finished the book, when I idly checked out some of the jacket copy.
I probably shouldn’t have been surprised since I had already seen I was the leading blurb on the Amazon page for this latest title (and a longer quotation from that same review is also on the Amazon page of the original book in question). But it’s cool to have it on paper in a book I actually held in hand.
Since I frequently receive advanced reading copies, it is possible, if my reviews are published early enough, to end up on the jacket cover of a first edition, though what’s more likely to happen is for praise for one book to end up on the jacket of a later book, as was the case here. It’s simply good luck that I signed up to cover this one late enough that I received a finished book, blurbing my earlier review, rather than an ARC which would probably have included no jacket copy.
My first time being blurbed? One of Neal Asher’s Polity novels, probably about eight years ago. But I never actually held a finished copy of the book.
Book Review: The Bones of the Old Ones
Novels with fantasy settings breaking the Anglo-Saxon mould (like, say, Lian Hearn’s feudal Japan-inspired Otori series), are a rare pleasure if they’re done well. And Howard Andrew Jones’ ancient Arabian adventure series fits the bill.
My full review ran today in the Winnipeg Free Press.
More on The Quantum Thief
If we were simply looking at Marlowe or Holmes in a genre pastiche, I’d say add it to the pile (though it may well be an excellent pile), but Arsène Lupin as a quantum criminal? That’s a new one on me.
You may recall that I’ve covered both this novel and its sequel during the last few months. Last week my editor, Cat, asked for a write-up on the series-in-progress as a whole. You can read it at the Green Man main page (for the moment), or go directly to my post here.
Tuesday Links (12/11/12)
Beautifully Geeky Book Sculptures: I wish I were a librarian so I could blow the budget on some of these. (For display purposes only — cannot be checked out.)
The Pop Quiz at the End of the Universe: Howard Andrew Jones: His newest book comes out today, and my review will probably run this Saturday. A pretty interesting new writer you may want to check out.
Tuesday Links (12/04/12)
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell to be BBC Miniseries: At nearly 1000 pages, Susanna Clarke’s faux-Victorian alternate-history fantasy novel required a certain degree of stamina. Not everyone is willing to read the equivalent of a full-length novel while waiting for the story to get properly started, so a series might be quite nice for those who gave up before page 250.
Top five regrets of the dying:A palliative nurse has recorded the most common regrets of the dying. What would your biggest regret be if this was your last day of life?
Reading and Writing
I have book reviews due this forthcoming Tuesday (the 4th) and Wednesday (the 5th), for two different publications. But I`ve also been finding bits of time here and there to work on some non-review titles. I`m listening to an audiobook of Cory Doctorow`s For the Win, which is, as always, enlightening. Somehow his fiction packs so much information about politics, technology, and culture, it competes with non-fiction for its educational content.
Speaking of, I`m also reading How Mathematics Happened: The First 50, 000 Years, by Peter Rudman. Not the first book I`ve read about the history of math, and probably not the last. It`s pretty good, and I`m learning something new with each page. I`m also enjoying the “fun questions“ peppered throughout the text. As the go-to book on the subject, I think I would still give Tobias Dantzig`s classic, Number, the nod. But I`m happy I picked this one up.
Lastly, I`m working on Asimov`s robot stories, via his Robot Visions collection. It`s the last of his major series I hadn`t gotten around to reading yet.
As far as writing goes, I have the aforementioned reviews, I`ve agreed on deadlines for two posts for Care2, I`m writing a little something up for Green Man, and that takes me to the end of the week (it`s a busy week). After that, I think what I`d like to do is work on a couple of essays I`ve previously pitched to AE, and put together a pitch or two for a local magazine I`ve been in touch with. Those are things I`ll give myself `til the end of the month for, since there are no impending deadlines attached, and, hey, it`s holiday time. I want to relax at least a little.