Looking back over my Top of the Pile columns, and considering what this week’s might bring, I found that I was in something of a rut — I’ve got my standard comics that I get every month — X-Men, Conan, Ex Machina, Batman — but I haven’t been venturing very far from that core. That’s … Read more
Gaming comics top the pile this week as my copies of Knights of the Dinner Table #125 and Dork Tower #36 arrive, augmented by the sword and sorcery (though mostly sword) of Dark Horse Comics’ Conan #39. Rounding out the picks in this pile is the latest issue of Ex Machina, which sees a mysterious … Read more
I’ve got two vacations lined up for Summer 2007 — one short, one long — and hopefully a few lazy weekends I can spend ready books on the back porch or down the shore. As a result, I’ve slowly started to compile my summer reading list, and I’m looking for suggestions from readers, as well … Read more
The book review web site and blog Emerald City is ceasing publication. I’m sad to see it go — the site featured a wide range of speculative fiction web reviews, and its blog was a useful way to stay up on the scifi literary scene.
Despite the fact that I’ve been buying comics regularly for over a decade, I’ve only rarely reviewed them on Nuketown. That changes starting this week with the debut of my “Top of the Pile” column where I’ll be running down why I’m reading … and in what order. Almost every geek I know shuffles their … Read more
My autumn reading jag, which saw me tear through a half-dozen novels, petered out this winter as I ran into the slow, meandering text of The Difference Engine, a book that promised a steampunk revolution but got bogged down in its own minutiae. I haven’t done much better on the audio front, after a preachy … Read more
For my birthday this year I headed out to Barnes & Noble with my son Neutronlad for an afternoon of browsing books and drinking coffee. NeutronLad, being about 5 months old at the time, was enthusiastic about the outing, as only a baby can be, smiling, gurgling and generally looking forward to flirting with every woman … Read more
After a reading lull brought about by way too much painting in September, I’ve returned to my books with a vengeance. Science fiction dominates my reading list this time around as I return to Ben Bova’s “Grand Tour” of the Solar System with the hard science fiction novel Jupiter then have some fun with Vernor … Read more
As part of our home improvement project, I convinced my wife to turn our large interior foyer wall into a three-print gallery of sorts. The idea is that we’d put literary/magazine inspired prints there, which fits with the theme of our first floor (you can see the large wall-covering bookshelf in the library when you … Read more
In a post-WorldCon entry on his blog Contrary Brin, science fiction author David Brin worries that the grey hairs that dominated the convention are yet another sign that science fiction fandom is aging … and that this does not bode well for the future of the genre. He writes: The number of elderly people, riding … Read more