"The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. HeinleinA century (or thereabouts) ago, Luna was established as a new colony. Convicts, more convicts, volunteers and convicts were sent there under the stern watch of Lunar Authority to basically mine things and grow crops for the eleventy-billion very hungry people on Earth. Now, three generations later ( Read more... )

"Thud!" by Terry PratchettA dwarf has been murdered and Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch has to figure out the puzzle before all manner of crap hits the fan. Darkness is scary, the anniversary of the Battle of Koom Valley (where a large number of dwarves and a large number of trolls had a historically important barney) is looming ( Read more... )

"The Cyberiad" by Stanislaw Lem

A series of fables ("fables for the cybernetic age") concerning a pair of constructors, Trurl and Klapaucius. The things they construct, the ramifications therein, that sort of thing ( Read more... )

I've really got behind with logging the books I've been reading. I could blather on about lack of time, lack of energy, issues with typing at night keeping other family members awake and all that, but quite frankly I've got a big stack of books on the table next to me and I just want to briefly type them up. So, in approximate chronological order ( Read more... )

Been a while since I tried posting anything. Not sure if this is going to work. ...

"Wool" by Hugh HoweyI've just spent the best part of an hour writing about this, only to have my internet connection disappear during the crucial attempt at posting it. Lost it all ( Read more... )

"The Collapsium" by Wil McCarthy

Bruno de Towaji lives alone on his own, small, private planet in the Kuiper Belt. Here he conducts very very fragile experiments with the ultimate aim of creating the Arc de Fin - a device with which to view the end of time. If not the richest person in the Queendom of Sol (which, if memory serves, may well be the ( Read more... )

Something's up with some kind of combination of my browser (Opera v23) and my LJ's commenting system that means I'm unable to post comments (or more specifically: replies to comments) here.

I get "Unhandled Error", with the helpful description: "Unhandled error description". Which isn't helpful.

Gah.

"The Forge of God" by Greg BearIn the near future of 1996/1997, in moderately rapid fashion: the Jovian moon Europa disappears, a "disguised to be a rock" alien space ship is discovered in the Californian desert with obligatory little green man alien's dying gasps of dire warning, a "disguised to be a different rock" alien space ship is discovered ( Read more... )

Well, firstly let me express surprise that I'm unable to put a closing parenthesis on that subject. I'm guessing some kind of character limit, perhaps, or ... doesn't matter. Gotta concentrate or I'll never get this written ( Read more... )