An anthology of authentic and realistic hard science fiction
People either love or hate Dhalgren. This is not all together surprising – it’s an experimental novel, it’s pornographic in parts, and it’s only peripherally science fiction. On its publication in 1975, some sf commentators hated and condemned it. Harlan Ellison said, “When Dhalgren came out, I thought it was awful, still do… I was [...]
Filed under: 2007 reading challenge, book review, books, samuel r delany, science fiction | 8 Comments »
It’s been a fun exercise rereading a favourite sf novel each month this year, although there have been disappointments. But there have also been pleasant surprises – such as Colin Greenland‘s Take Back Plenty. I remember the buzz when the novel was published back in 1990. It “reinvented” space opera. Arguably Iain M Banks had [...]
Filed under: 2007 reading challenge, book review, books, colin greenland, science fiction | 5 Comments »
Some people have The Lord of the Rings, some people have Dune. They reread one of the two books on a regular basis. While I don’t read Dune every year, it’s the sf novel I’ve probably read the most times (and I haven’t reread The Lord of the Rings since I was about nineteen). This [...]
Filed under: 2007 reading challenge, book review, books, frank herbert, science fiction | 8 Comments »
I’ve still been reading a favourite book each month. But I was a bit too busy in August to write up something on that month’s book, Metrophage by Richard Kadrey. So I decided to roll it into the write-up of September’s book, Paul Park’s Coelestis. And here they both are… Richard Kadrey’s Metrophage has been [...]
Filed under: 2007 reading challenge, book review, books, paul park, richard kadrey, science fiction | 3 Comments »
I’ve been a bit random as to which title I choose to read next from my list of favourites. I wonder if this has affected my response to the various novels? I mean, going straight from the grim and political near-future of Gwyneth Jones’s Kairos to the slight but fun space opera of Iain M [...]
Filed under: 2007 reading challenge, book review, books, iain banks, science fiction | 5 Comments »
Kairos I did not expect to disappoint. If anything, I imagined I would get more from the book on this reread – it’s been over a decade since I read it last and I hope I’m a more discerning reader now than I was then. Which also means, I suppose, that I had higher expectations [...]
Filed under: 2007 reading challenge, book review, books, gwyneth jones, science fiction | 6 Comments »
After Soldier, Ask Not, I decided to expand the challenge to include an “also-ran” each month… just in case the favourite failed to make the grade. For June, the favourite was Gwyneth Jones’ Kairos, and the also-ran was Time and Again by Clifford Simak. Time and Again was first published in 1951 under the title [...]
Filed under: 2007 reading challenge, book review, books, clifford d simak, science fiction | 1 Comment »
When I resolved to read one of my favourite science fiction novels during each month of this year, I hadn’t realised quite how prevalent in the blogosphere was the idea of a themed year-long reading list. Admittedly, I saw it as more of a “resolution” than a “challenge”. After all, where’s the challenge in rereading [...]
Filed under: 2007 reading challenge, book review, books, gordon r dickson, science fiction | 3 Comments »
Whenever people asked me what were my favorite science fiction novels, I always had a list of ten titles ready to trot out. Some of the books are novels I’ve returned to again and again; others I’ve read only once – but that was enough to deem it a “favourite”. It occurred to me several [...]
Filed under: 2007 reading challenge, ae van vogt, book review, books, john varley, michael swanwick, robert holdstock, science fiction | 7 Comments »
