I've written up the other three novella nominees in separate entries, as is my usual practice with books, and now come to the final two.

( 'Palimpsest' by Charles Stross )

Another sf anthology revisited from my bookshelves (though I found I'd left a bookmark at page 402, and don't remember previously reading the last few stories). This is Hartwell's selection of the best stories of 2002: of his 23 choices, I think I count precisely one which made it to the Nebula shortlist, and two which were Hugo nominees (one of ( Read more... )

Latest in my set of Hugo nominees for this year (and Anathem is sitting accusingly on the bookshelf, while I've ordered the paperback of Zoe's Tale for when it comes out later this month). Lots of good stuff here, with the setting a solar system where the robots have taken over after the extinction of humanity, and our narrator a sexbot designed to ( Read more... )

George R.R. Martin, with support from John Scalzi and Charles Stross, on the reasons why the next Song of Ice and Fire volume is late and how the fans are Not Being Helpful. I've been rather appalled by some of the arrogant and rude comments Martin has been getting from drive-by visitors to his livejournal, and am if anything impressed that his ( Read more... )

43) Halting State, by Charles Stross

And so I start my reading of this year's Hugo nominees (and am also now nearly finished Brasyl). I really enjoyed it a lot, though admittedly not every reader's experience will be enhanced as mine was by discussing bits of background for the sequel with the author over the weekend. It's a melding of genres, ( Read more... )

8) The Atrocity Archives, by Charles Stross

I read this in the wrong order, in a sense, in that it was a couple of years ago that I read the sequel, The Jennifer Morgue (in which I even get a small credit in the acknowledgements). And I had read the second, shorter, section of this book, "The Concrete Jungle", in the run-up to the 2005 Hugo voting ( Read more... )

9) Glasshouse, by Charles Stross

And so, continuing with this year's Hugo nominees... I think this is my favourite of Charlie's books so far. In his previous sf books I've tended to find myself overwhelmed by the ideas about far-future post-Singularity existence; those are all still here, but very nicely balanced by the experience of the narrator ( Read more... )

10) Glorifying Terrorism, ed. Farah Mendlesohn ( Read more... )

13) The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt

Have been reading this adventure story, first published in 1919, on my Palm T|X over the last few weeks, really reminded of it by Charlie Stross' use of the phrase "moon pool" in The Jennifer Morgue. The plot is classic enough: on an isolated tropical island, the Moon Pool is in fact the gateway to an underground ( Read more... )

3) The Jennifer Morgue, by autopopeI got this book from the author himself; he very kindly beamed a copy from his PDA to mine across the table at an Indian restaurant in Dublin last month. Just as well, as it won't be out in hardback until the end of this year and the paperback comes out next February. (At work we have an average turnaround between final ( Read more... )