After an adulthood avoiding Kurt Vonnegut, I finally read Cat’s Cradle. I immediately wondered what had been wrong with me to avoid Vonnegut. Cat’s Cradle is written in clear, straightforward prose with short, snappy sentences and paragraphs. It’s a little strange and the science fiction part of it is just a little science-y and a…
When a vote was taken at my YA-for-adults book club regarding If I See You Again Tomorrow by Robbie Couch, there was not one person who didn’t like it. It was about half-and-half people who liked it and people who found it “middling.” I was probably somewhere between these two positions, but I raised my…
A truly strange book, The Seep by Chana Porter is extremely short (for long-form) science fiction. In fact, it’s really a novella and has small pages, large margins, and space between the lines. And really, I suppose, the book itself isn’t that strange, but the feeling while reading it is of being among strangeness. It…
I read Androne by Dwain Worrel as an ARC but not really an ARC. It was a copy sent to me by the publisher, but it is not advanced (as in it is not not-yet-published). It came out on September 1st. So almost. The second book of the series, Alliance, is expected in 2024. I…
“Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest.” –Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
This is another book that I read because I was considering it for a ninth grade, homeschool co-op, literature class I am teaching this year. It is the third book I have now approved and I have slated this one for the first novel of the year. While it might not be my favorite book…
It is interesting, beginning any book. You don’t quite feel like you belong, you’re not sure if you’re speaking the right language. And where are you, anyways? What’s going on? Some books invite you in pretty quickly. Other books take a long time to acclimate to, sometimes so long that you give up on them…
We were perusing the children’s section of a Barnes & Noble on a family trip to the mall, when we came across a few featured tables piled high with great-looking books. I did what all modern Americans do, and I pulled out my smart phone to take photos of all the books that I wanted…
I have recently joined a science fiction/fantasy writers group in the area. I thought that since my first novel was magic realism, the second was fantasy, and the third will also be fantasy, it would behoove me to get a little more into the culture, to learn from it and to basically not be totally…
the starving artist 