Book Review: Uncle Sam’s Attic: The Intimate Story of Alaska by Mary Lee Davis There was a time, not so long ago, when Americans knew little about the territory of Alaska. In the popular imagination, it was a desolate land of perpetual ice and snow, inhabited mostly by gold miners and “Eskimos.” Indeed, many people… Continue reading Book Review: Uncle Sam’s Attic: The Intimate Story of Alaska
Tag: weather
Open Thread: Minicon 53
Open Thread: Minicon 53 As noted in my previous con reports, Minicon is a yearly science fiction convention set on Easter weekend. While Minicon 50 was a few years ago, this year is the closest to the Fiftieth Anniversary of the first Minicon, so it had the subtitle of “The Pedantic One.” This year the… Continue reading Open Thread: Minicon 53
Book Review: A Force So Swift: Mao, Truman and the Birth of Modern China, 1949
Book Review: A Force So Swift: Mao, Truman and the Birth of Modern China, 1949 by Kevin Peraino In 1949, Chen Yong was an idealistic boy in his teens, his military uniform too large for him, cheering in Beijing as Mao Zedong declared that the People’s Republic of China was born. Now, he is an… Continue reading Book Review: A Force So Swift: Mao, Truman and the Birth of Modern China, 1949
Magazine Review: Fantastic Universe October 1955
Magazine Review: Fantastic Universe October 1955 edited by Leo Margulies Fantastic Universe was a digest-sized science fiction and fantasy magazine that ran from 1953 to 1960, originally coming out from King-Size Publications. Its quality is considered to have fallen off after 1956, with lesser stories and more emphasis on pseudo-science articles, but this particular issue… Continue reading Magazine Review: Fantastic Universe October 1955
Book Review: Wintersmith
Book Review: Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett Tiffany Aching is a witch in training. She in some ways is already a very powerful witch, and has endured some hard lessons that required growing up fast. But she’s also very much a girl who’s almost thirteen. Miss Treason, on the other hand, is over a century old… Continue reading Book Review: Wintersmith
Book Review: Slow Dancing Through Time
Book Review: Slow Dancing Through Time by Gardner Dozois in collaboration with Jack Dann, Michael Swanwick, Susan Casper and/or Jack C Haldeman II. The art of collaboration is an interesting one; two authors (rarely three) blending their skills to create a story neither could produce individually. Ideally, the reader should be able to see the… Continue reading Book Review: Slow Dancing Through Time
Book Review: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
Book Review: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson One hundred years ago this month, May 7, 1915, the Cunard Lines ocean liner Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine, the U-20, killing over a thousand crew and passengers (and three German stowaways whose true identities were never determined.) 123 of… Continue reading Book Review: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
Book Review: The Beauty of Grace
Book Review: The Beauty of Grace edited by Dawn Camp Disclaimer: I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway in the expectation that I would read and review it. God’s love is a wonderful thing. It is not dependent on our earning it, it comes to us free of charge and all we have to… Continue reading Book Review: The Beauty of Grace
Book Review: Death on a Warm Wind
Book Review: Death on a Warm Wind by Douglas Warner (also published as The Final Death of Robert Colston) When newspaper editor Michael Curtis witnesses a man being gunned down in front of the Evening Telegram office, he’s startled to realize that it’s Robert Colston, a man who’s already been declared dead twice. Robert Colston, who has… Continue reading Book Review: Death on a Warm Wind
Magazine Review: Detective Yarns April 1939
Magazine Review: Detective Yarns April 1939 This is a facsimile reprint by Adventure House of a pulp magazine. Pulp magazines tended to stick to one genre, so you knew what you were getting from the beginning; in this case action-mystery. Great literature was rare, but they really got the blood pumping. And a dozen stories… Continue reading Magazine Review: Detective Yarns April 1939