Tralfaz

Tag: science fiction

  • Book review: All the Birds in the Sky

    In the aftermath of the 2016 elections, the lead up to November 8th, I had been reading a lot of political history of the latter half of the 20th century. After The Donald won, I needed a change.

    While I have often found modern SciFi a bit hard to get into, I steeled myself and asked a High School friend, Chuck Serface for a couple of recommendations. First up was “All the Birds in the Sky” by Charlie Jane Anders,  which appeared on my Kindle as if by magic.

    That night, when I picked up my Kindle at bedtime, I fell into a trance, reading the entirety of the first “Book” (the novel is broken into 4 “Books” in a fairly natural divisions). I usually nod off after 15 minutes or so, strong praise indeed.

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  • eBooks – Sony Reader & possibly the BEST SciFi novel of all time

    I am a prodigious reader.  Have been since early in my High School years.  Science Fiction is my chosen escape.  

    I have read most of the genre’s and deeply into some of the authors.  Heinlein, Asimov, Jordan, Pohl, Haldeman, and many many more.

    There is one book that stands out.  Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner.  I have probably 3 copies of this book.  All of them are out of print, and I re-read it frequently.  It is the “near future” type of Science Fiction, and it is chilling in how accurately he predicted society about now.

    The problem with this as an eBook, is that Brunner was a master of using typography as part of the layout of the novel  There are sections where formatting is altered to drive a point.  Tables, coordinated paragraphs and sentences.  All these have fallen flat on the scans I have, um, ‘acquired’ from dubious sources.

    Now there is a real version, with the typographical performance pieces.  I am happy.  It was worth the $9.99.  Now it is on my Sony Reader, and my iPad.  

    Bliss.