If the world ends, how will it happen? What will it look like? What is the absolute worst-case scenario, and how can we expect it to play out? Ever since the 50s, the spectre of nuclear war has hung over our civilization like the sword of Damocles, double-edged, flaming, and bathed in heaven like the …
Continue reading “Not with a whimper, but a bang… Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen”
So I’ve slowly been reading through all three hundred or so books that have been nominated for the Hugo Award, in order to figure out how I would vote for each year. It’s a useful exercise, not only for producing content for my writing blog, but for judging the evolution of science fiction and fantasy …
Continue reading “Faeries, Zombies, and Wizards: Dead Beat by Jim Butcher”
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I prefer shorter fantasy books over the enormous epic fantasies that have become so typical for the genre—and for the most part, that is still true. However, my recent experiences with Louis L’Amour are prompting me to rethink some of that, or at least to recognize that …
Continue reading “When Longer is Better: The Novels of Louis L’Amour”
Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. Proverbs 29:18, KJV In my last post, about C.S. Forester’s Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, I mentioned how most conservative fiction these days—or indeed, most conservatism generally—is more reactionary than visionary, really only seeking to conserve all the things that …
The most popular modern saga of the days when ships were wood and men were iron. New York Times Book Review That is, perhaps, one of the best blurbs I’ve ever read for a book, and it’s certainly fitting for the Horatio Hornblower books. These are the classics that inspired David Weber to write Honor …
About midway through the third book in the Chronicles of Amber, I came to the realization that these books are the perfect length for me. They’re about as long and as fast-paced as a typical L’Amour novel, which is to say that they’re less than 200 pages and feel like they’re less than 100. If …
Continue reading “This is why I love shorter fantasy novels: Sign of the Unicorn by Roger Zelazny”
I have to be honest: before I discovered the Chronicles of Amber, I had all but given up on Zelazny as an author. All of his stuff that I’d previously attempted to read had won a bunch of major awards, and none of it appealed to me. I honestly couldn’t see what the big deal …
Continue reading “When to give an author another chance: The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny”
I have yet to read a bad Louis L’Amour book. Some of them are more forgettable than others, but they’re all at least pretty good. The best ones, though, are in a league of their own, and I think Last of the Breed may be his best work. It’s a Cold War thriller about an …
Continue reading “Man vs. Nature vs. Man in Last of the Breed by Louis L’Amour”
The Storm Testament is an older series, but it’s quite good. It follows the saga of the Storm family, starting with Dan Storm and his adventures during the Mormon pioneer era. The first two books were a lot of fun, and formed a sort of duology. The third book followed Dan’s son Sam’s romantic adventures, …
The first four Murderbot books make a complete story arc, so this one in a lot of ways felt like a satisfying wrap up to the series, even though of course there are other books. I strongly suspect that Martha Wells wrote these with the intent of self-publishing them, but her traditional publisher gave her …
Continue reading “Joe Reviews: Exit Strategy by Martha Wells”
