Book of the Week: Infinite Stars.

Infinite Stars is a collection of space opera short stories. You got your new Ender’s Game story, your new Lost Fleet story, your new Vatta’s War story, your new Dune story, your new Honorverse story, your new Legion of the Damned, story reprints from Lt. Leary and Vorkosigan and CoDominium and a whole ton of the earlier stuff.  Look, I would have bought it to hear how Black Jack Geary got his name.

And so, adieu to Cycle of the Werewolf.  Which never got any sidebar time anyway, for some reason.

 

Apple e-books forced to make it rain for Amazon customers.

Well, at least make it drizzle a little: “On Wednesday, Amazon sent out another installment of payments relating to its “Apple eBooks Antitrust Settlement”—except this time, it was to settle related lawsuits brought by a group of state-level attorneys general.” I got a little bit less than eight and a half bucks, which I’m gathering is likely to be on the high side of things.  Still, it’s money in my pocket and almost enough to cover that new collection of science fiction short stories that just came out.  Who am I to argue with found money?

Continue reading Apple e-books forced to make it rain for Amazon customers.

Book of the Week: Cycle of the Werewolf.

Man, I hope that I still have Stephen King’s Cycle of the Werewolf — it’s just what it says on the tin, folks; a year-long set of stories about a werewolf in a small town — floating* around in the library downstairs. I remember it being a fun read and now I want to read it.  Ach, well, I suppose that the library has a copy.

And so, adieu to Mindstar Rising. Continue reading Book of the Week: Cycle of the Werewolf.

Book of the Week: Mindstar Rising.

Peter Hamilton’s near-future, somewhat cyberpunk techno-thriller Mindstar Rising is the first book of a trilogy, but it’s a good trilogy, so that’s all right.  You’re probably going to roll your eyes at the global warming stuff — it was written in 1993, and Hamilton assumed that right about now climate change would have gotten so bad that the United Kingdom would have been taken over by a bunch of filthy Stalinist Commies* — but it’s a good thriller and the computer tech holds up pretty well.  The psionic stuff, not so much, but that’s how it goes. Continue reading Book of the Week: Mindstar Rising.

Book of the Week: The Monuments Men.

Ended up never seeing the movie, but Robert Edsel’s The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History was a good read. And, to be fair: rescuing Europe’s stolen masterpieces was a genuine mitzvah. The Nazis would have destroyed all of them out of spite, and the Soviets would have just stolen them themselves. Such is the way of the barbarian.

And so, adieu to Lord of Janissaries.