Orbit is often kind enough to send me review copies of their releases in exchange for impartial and honest reviews. This is often a great deal for me because their track record with books is astoundingly good and it's very rare that I need to do a negative review for them. However, this is unfortunately…
Month: April 2018
Sea of Rust – Get Your Tetanus Booster First
Robots in fiction are intriguing, but except for a few rare cases, they almost always disappoint. They usually feel tacked onto a story, as if to frantically say “Look! There’s A.I.! This must be science fiction.” Alternately, they are the all-consuming antagonist, playing into current anxieties about a robot apocalypse. By no means am I…
Continue reading ➞ Sea of Rust – Get Your Tetanus Booster First
Persons Non Grata: More Like Short Stories Really Great-a? I’m sorry, I’ll be going.
I was having a conversation with the other QTL staff the other day about how hard it can be to sort out the proper cosmic horror from the remainder of the “weird fiction”, and how frustrating that can be for someone who likes cosmic horror so much more than weird fiction. We came to the…
Player Of Games vs. Use Of Weapons – Culture Clash
Last post I talked about Consider Phlebas, the first book in the Culture series. You should check out the review if you haven’t, but the general gist was: a kind of boring book, written by an incredibly talented author, that primed me to dive into Phlebas’ sequels. After finishing Plebas I immediately jumped into books…
Continue reading ➞ Player Of Games vs. Use Of Weapons – Culture Clash
Consider Phlebas – An Exercise In Pointless Excellence
We have been talking about a lot of great new releases recently, so let's take a step back and talk about a classic I just got around to reading: Consider Phlebas, by Iain Banks. Everyone has a number of classics that they mean to get around to reading. For me, one of the big ones…
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A Veil of Spears – Unbe-veil-ably Point-iant
Sand. It’s coarse, irritating, hot, encumbering, and all around unpleasant. I have spent a lot of time in sand, both in reality and in fantasy books. However, despite sand’s difficulties, it often provides settings of profound beauty and wonder. When it comes to books set in the desert, I have been championing one series in…
Continue reading ➞ A Veil of Spears – Unbe-veil-ably Point-iant