Posts under ‘Books’

The multibranched internet strikes again… A digression about books about grass (where, solely to confuse you, I am identified as phialastring), or the lack thereof, led to a struggle to remember a particular science fiction novel that featured a rainbow-hued grass planet, to a Google-fueled discovery of that novel’s place on the Gollancz SF Masterworks [...]

Yeah, I did some of that. Mostly it was a very good writing year, but for one thing: I sold no fiction whatsoever. Science first, since that pays the mortgage. Published: 3 peer-reviewied papers written in previous years 1 peer-reviewied paper written this year 1 peer-reviewied book chapter written this year 2 fact sheets 2 [...]

The Crossed Genres folks, some of my favorite publishers, have a new anthology out today. This is their first anthology of original stories; previous anthologies were from the Crossed Genres periodical (no longer with us; I’m certain that has nothing to do with them publishing my first story). Subversion: Science Fiction & Fantasy tales of [...]

Need something to read this weekend? SFSignal has a wonderful guide to the recent NPR Top 100 SFF books. Me? I’ll be reading this. Or maybe I’ll be reading the books I just got from Elizabeth Bear’s book sale. Or going to SCA events in the rain. Or, just maybe, all three.

This is a clever marketing ploy: CDC disaster preparedness has gotten more discussion today that in the past few months, I’d guess. And you know, it is rather important to be prepared for the zombie apocalypse. Also flood, tornado, earthquake and fire. And the rapture, since it is happening Saturday. The rest of us may [...]

A final note on the wonder that is Powell’s customer service. Nick wrote this in a comment on my last Powell’s post, and I reprint it here so you can all appreciate it and go forth and purchase books from Powell’s. Powell’s has indeed: Replaced the lost books that they could find another copy of, [...]

Yesterday I was sad. My books were lost. Losing books is always traumatic. It was too late to do anything official, and Nick had the credit card receipt with the info on it, so instead I blogged and whined on twitter. (You know what? My online friends are all bibliophiles. They completely understood why this [...]

Portland: Science museum, zoo, friends, family… Powell’s. World’s biggest used bookstore. Hours of entertainment, piles of books I’ve been looking for. Or even more fun, didn’t know existed. Best of all, they ship! The Chaz Brenchley that’s long out of print, the fantasy novels by Adam Stemple… I’ve seen him play guitar, but had no [...]

Hugo-winning author and Shadow Unit co-founder Elizabeth Bear, author of some of my favorite books, has a new book out today, Grail, third in a science fiction trilogy (Dust and Chill being its predecessors). I may have gone on a bit of a Bear-book-buying binge. When I went looking for a copy of Grail for [...]

A very full October has concluded. I still haven’t written much about Viable Paradise, but I will. I’ve been gone every weekend in October, and weekends are when I usually get blogging done. Also fiction writing and many other useful things. October was very good in many ways, but I’m glad it’s over. November won’t [...]