Books

As you know, Bob, the Hugo Awards are one of the top literary honors in the field of science fiction and fantasy. They're voted on by the attendees of each year's Woldcon, held in August or September, and include awards for Best Novel, Novella, Novelette, and Short Story. I posted about the Best Novel nominees back in March when they were announced (I don't read much short fiction, so I have nothing to say about the other categories). If you're thinking to yourself, "Yes, we know what you think, but what about everybody else?", well, have I got a URL for you. Nicholas Whyte has posted a giant…
Well before I was a footnote in a list of popular science blogs, I started out into the world of weblogging by starting a book log, which I still maintain, sort of. I haven't posted anything to it in a few months because, well, this site takes up most of my blogging energy, and I do have a day job, you know? I occasionally feel a little guilty about this, especially since I've got big piles of books here that haven't been shelved in order to remind me to booklog them... Which is silly, because it's just a damn hobby, but there you go. Anyway, as a reminder that I do read things other than…
One of the perks of my job is that sometimes people send me books for free. Granted, these are mostly introductory physics textbooks, which tend not to be page-turners, but I'm a big fan of books, and I'm a big fan of free stuff, so free books are great. Thus, when I was contacted by someone from Houghton Mifflin offering me a free copy of their new 100 Science Words Every College Graduate Should Know if I'd say something about it on the blog, of course I agreed. The specific book almost doesn't matter-- this is the sort of behavior I want to encourage among the publishing community: send me…
Teresa Nielsen Hayden, writing about the phenomenon of fan fiction: Personally, I'm convinced that the legends of the Holy Grail are fanfic about the Eucharist. One of the most peevesome things about the hectic period I'm in at my day job is that I no longer have time to follow Making Light comment threads-- I saw that post go up yesterday, but by the time I got around to looking at the comments this morning, there were already 245 comments. I can either read those, or prep for my morning classes, but not both... My personal feelings on the fraught subject of fan fiction, below the fold: I'm…
As someone who reads a lot, I have a certain amount of interest in the way publishing works. It's sort of fascinating to get to hear about the day to day operations, and how a manuscript becomes a book. In that vein, alg on LiveJournal (I'm hazy about whose names are public and whose aren't, so I'll stick with the username) has a discussion of book finances, complete with made-up numbers, part of her ongoing series of posts about the publishing business. It's an interesting look at what goes into a failed mass-market book. In a vaguely similar vein, there's some interesting stuff about the…
Over at Bookslut, the Specfic Floozy takes another look at the subgenre (or possibly sub-subgenre) of "steampunk," which she defines thusly: For the uninitiated, steampunk, a term that is prominently tossed around in the late '80s. is one of the many subgenres of cyberpunk (others -- some more tongue in cheek than others -- are sandalpunk, bronzepunk and stonepunk). Nikola Tesla and/or Charles Babbage frequently pop-up as characters, as do set pieces involving dirigibles, steam engines and, inexplicably, the Japanese. While the idea of meshing Victorian-esque machinery with future…
The New York Times Book Review section this week features a big two-page ad for the Penguin Classics/ NBA cross-promotion. This involves a handful (well, four-- a shop-teacher handful) of NBA/ WNBA stars promoting books in the Penguin line, the best of the lot being Dwyane Wade talking about Pride and Prejudice. You can get poster versions of the ads from the site, featuring tasteful black-and-white shots of the players reading their chosen books. Of course, it looks sort of like they're promoting new editions of the books read by the players, a cross-marketing opportunity that, alas, still…
Over at the new Seed blog, here on ScienceBlogs, Katherine Sharpe asks about the best science books ever (a topic that was also discussed at Cosmic Variance some time back. I've been sort of swamped this week, but that's only part of the reason why I haven't responded. The main reason is a shameful secret: (Below the fold... Isn't this suspenseful?) The fact is, I don't read many pop-science books, and I never really have. I'm not sure why that was in the past, but these days, it just seems too much like work. Not "work" in the sense of being difficult, but "work" in the sense of "this is how…
Last Friday, before descending into fluff topics like a serious scholarly treatment of Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science, Henry Farrell of Crooked Timber posted about something really important: The Hugo Awards. Weirdly, I find myself in the position of having read all of the Best Novel nominees, and this months before the awards themselves are announced. This is unprecedented-- even the year that I voted for the Hugos, I didn't read all the nominated works. (I've read basically none of the short fiction nominees-- of which there are many-- but this is nothing new.) This obviously…
Via a mailing list, the Top 1000 Books in the US, ranked in order of library holdings. The Top 25 (after the cut): Bible [various] Library holdings: 796,882 Census [various] United States Library holdings: 460,628 Mother Goose Library holdings: 67,663 Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri Library holdings: 62,414 Odyssey Homer Library holdings: 45,551 Iliad Homer Library holdings: 44,093 Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain Library holdings: 42,724 Lord of the Rings [trilogy] J. R. R. Tolkien Library holdings: 40,907 Hamlet William Shakespeare Library holdings: 39,521 Alice's Adventures in…
At the Tor party at Boskone, Teresa Nielsen Hayden introduced me to Jim Kelly as "a reviewer." While technically somewhat accurate (I do occasionally post book reviews), and a better answer to "Why are you at this party?" than "I'm a guy with a web site," it made me feel a little guilty for shamefully neglecting my book log these past few months. Guilt is a wonderful spur to action, so I've posted a bunch of reviews over there this weekend, all of them at least vaguely related to Boskone: The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell Permanence by Karl Schroeder The…
The 2006 Locus Reader's Poll is now up, with a convenient on-line ballot for you to vote for your favorite books and stories of the year. For those not in the know, Locus is sort of the trade magazine of the science fiction field, publishing extensive reviews, and also all manner of publishing news and fannish gossip. If you're not into science fiction or fantasy books, skip the rest of this post. (After the cut.) The on-line poll comes with pull-down menus to aid you in voting for the books recommended by the Locus staff, so you know it's completely scientific. The lists are pretty…
I'm sort of marking time for a couple of days here, for reasons that will hopefully be explained soon. There are some interesting posts in the works, but I want to wait for a few more days. Of course, I need something to fill the time, and indirectly via Drink at Work, I find that Foma* has the answer: National Just Read More Novels Month. I hereby, unilaterally and with no other authority that which I have granted myself, declare January to be National Just Read More Novels Month or NaJuReMoNoMo, pronounced Nah-JOO-REE-Moe-NO-Moe if you really think you are going to have a chance to say it…