Category: Literature

BOOKHUNT: Better Book Design

I’m on the 3rd book of Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen Series.  The first two books, Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates were rich reading experiences.  But the books are long, and a lot happens in them.  They are the kind of books where you can figure out what else happened or…

BOOKS: Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury

I’d been holding onto this book for quite some time.  I’m fond of Bradbury — I enjoyed the Illustrated Man, the Martian Chronicles, and Fahrenheit 451.  But it was a 2012 Fringe show (Bookworm, by Corin Raymond) that got me to give him a more careful look, and which prompted me to read Something Wicked…

BOOKHUNT: Obvious Titles and Awkward Authors

You know when you’re in a proper bookstore – one of those shops where the shelves are full, and overflow piles everywhere?  And you notice someone else in that bookstore, and you wonder:  “What is that person looking for?”  And you kind of keep on eye on them, and possibly even follow them around, to…

anastasia's flying saucer

BOOKS: Anastasia, by Vladimir Megré

In search of a method of how to extract a valuable nut oil found in the Russian taiga, the author comes upon a young beautiful forest recluse named Anastasia. She has been living there alone since she was a child, because her parents’ brains exploded when they got too close to a tree.

BOOKS: Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson

“To be 21st Century scientists on Mars, in fact, but at the same time living within 19th-century social systems, based on 17th-century ideologies. It’s absurd, it’s crazy, it’s – it’s- … it’s unscientific! And so I say that among al the many things we transform on Mars, ourselves and our social reality should be among them. We must terraform not only Mars, but ourselves.” -Arkady Bogdanov, in ‘Red Mars,’ by Kim Stanley Robinson (pg 89)

Red-Mars-with-$20

Gentle Ways to be Encouraged to Pay your Library Fine

I was back in Vancouver, and making my rounds through the libraries to snatch up books I’d put on hold while I was away. It was going pretty well — #1 on the list was The Vital Question in preparation for a book club meeting I had in a few days — but it was…

[Astro Boy - "Here you go with some more energy!"]

Robot Design Considerations in 1957, Japan

This gem of a panel is from the story Ghost Manufacturing Machine in Astro Boy Omnibus 2 by Osamu Tezuka; pg 91, panel 2 (first published in a 1957 supplement edition of Shonen magazine).  This was one of only two English books in my hostel’s library.  The other was War and Peace.  It did not…