“Not wanting to build a mere clocklike mechanism, you inadvertently – in your own punctilious way – created that which was possible, logical and inevitable, that which became the very antithesis of a mechanism …” “Please, no more!” – Stanislaw Lem, The Cyberiad Three stories. “The universe is infinite yet bounded.” So begins the Seventh…
Tag: sci-fi
CSFF Blog Tour: The God-Hater
(Note: In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.) People don’t like Nicholas Mackenize. And there’s no love lost, because he doesn’t like people. But he saves his real hatred for religion. He is – loudly and proudly – a God-hater. Of all the creatures…
First, Get Your Facts …
Reading, they say, broadens your horizons. So does writing. In fact, it can be even more broadening. Research can take you where your curiosity never would. Historical fiction demands the most research. The genres that demand less – that can appear to demand very little – are modern fiction and science fiction/fantasy. Modern fiction is…
CSFF Blog Tour: Random Notes
This is the last day of the tour, and I’ll close with a few random notes. (1) and (3) have spoilers. (1) The Christianity of The Skin Map is like the secularism of many popular books and movies: It’s there, but a lot of the time you can’t really tell. Every once in a while,…
CSFF Blog Tour: Spoiler Day
Yesterday I gave a general review. Today I have designated Spoiler Day, where I will show no compunction in giving away plot details. One of the best characters in The Skin Map is the villain, Lord Burleigh. He’s a smooth villain – intellectual, polished, handsome, entirely willing to work with those who will work with…
CSFF Blog Tour: The Skin Map
If your great-grandfather, who vanished a century ago, reappeared in a deserted alley and asked you to join him on a mission through parallel realities, would you say yes? Kit Livingstone said no. Then he went to buy bathroom curtains with his girlfriend, Wilhelmina (!). In an effort to convince her he had a good…
Review: Dragon and Slave
Written by Timothy Zahn In the third Dragonback adventure, the quest continues and the ideas get crazier. Jack couldn’t unlock the secrets he was after by becoming a mercenary. Now he tries to do it by becoming a slave. And the “I’ll sneak in, hack their computers, and be gone before something bad happens” plan…
Review: The Cyberiad
Written by Stanislaw Lem Translated by Michael Kandel The Cyberiad is a collection of short stories, “fables for the cybernetic age”. Appropriately, then, they star cybernetic beings. One of the peculiarities of the book is that the characters are robots – a fact never forgotten, and often used, by the author. (In one story the…