It’s almost summer again, which means it’s time for me to start assembling that long-running Nuketown tradition: the Summer Reading List. (check out Radio Active #50 for my 2007 reading list, and Radio Active #69 for my 2008 one). The reading list is my chance to catch up on stuff I missed during the rest … Read more
The spring hasn’t been a great time for fiction reading. After my winter reading spree, I fell into back into my video game reviewing routine at SciFi.com, but I did manage to get a few new books in: The New Space Opera, The Open Game Table, and The Space Opera Renaissance. The New Space Opera … Read more
Two big story arcs have concluded in the comics universe over the last few weeks: Marvel’s Secret Invasion mini series, in which the alien, shape-shifting Skrulls attempt to take over the Earth, and Batman R.I.P, in which the Dark Knight dies. Or appears to die, because really, what are the chances that he’s actually dead? … Read more
Star Wars Omnibus: Tales of the Jedi, Vol. 1 reprints Dark Horse Comics’ Knights of the Old Republic era comic books printed back in the early to mid 1990s. It consists of the first three such stories — The Golden Age of the Sith, Ulic Qel-Droma and the Beast Wars of Onderon, and The Saga … Read more
My Christmas Reading List for 2008 went well; I finished two novels (Revelation Space, The Last Colony) on the list and made a serious dent in the third (The Amber Spyglass), while also finishing a hefty graphic novel (Star Wars Omnibus: Tales of the Jedi, Vol. 1) It was great lose myself in books for … Read more
After a long, hard-fought autumn spent coding, organizing projects and reviewing way, way too many video games, I’ve got the urge to read. It’s a compulsion really, a strong desire to find a quiet corner of the house (or even a noisy, chaotic corner of the house) and lose myself in a good paperback.
Halo fans have a new novel through which to explore the video game’s continuum. Halo: The Cole Protocol by Tobias Buckell. The new book chronicles humanity’s desperate quest to erase any and all navigational data that could lead the fundamentalist (and xenocidal) Covenant to Earth. The action takes place in an immense asteroid field near … Read more
I got off to a great start to my summer reading list, but it slowed down significantly after July, when my spring-summer run of work conferences ended (which had given me plenty of time to read on cross-country plane trips), and I had to double-down on my projects to meet start-of-semester deadlines. The other problem? … Read more
In this old article (as in 1998) Tim O’Reilly provides a rundown of his favorite science fiction novels, including Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land, Snowcrash, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and The Stars are Ours.
He prefaces this list by discussing the book The Meaning of Culture by John Cowper Powys and draws the conclusion “a truly cultured person appreciates what has really shaped his world view, and uses literature and the arts as a tool to get more out of life.” He then provides the list as examples of science fiction literature that shaped his world view.
What’s missing from this article is the critical other half that explains how these books informed his world view. It’s all well and good to say that The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but how did a novel about libertarian lunar revolution inform his world view? Was it an appreciation for the merits of a free market economy? The insidious effectiveness of revolutionary cells working in isolation from one another? Group marriages? We don’t know because he doesn’t say.
My good friend (and geeky partner-in-crime at Knights of the Dinner Table) Mur Lafferty launched her the print edition of her superhero novel Playing for Keeps today. Go buy the book. Initially released as a podcast, Playing For Keeps tells the story of Keepsie, a bartender with third-rate superhero powers that kept her out of … Read more