Gather ’round me, everybody, gather ’round me while I’m preachin’ the Wheel of Time Re-read!

Today’s entry covers Chapter 18 of A Memory of Light, in which you’ve got to AC-CEN-tuate the positive, E-LIM-inate the negative… but Gawyn still insists on being Mr. In-Between.

*ear-flick*

Previous re-read entries are here. The Wheel of Time Master Index is here, which has links to news, reviews, interviews, and all manner of information about the Wheel of Time in general. The index for all things specifically related to the final novel in the series, A Memory of Light, is here.

Also, for maximum coolness, the Wheel of Time Re-read is also now available as an e-book series, from your preferred e-book retailer!

This re-read post, and all posts henceforth, contain spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time series. If you haven’t read, read at your own risk.

And now, the post!

[Have faith or pandemonium’s/Liable to walk upon the scene]

Now it is time. Now the curtain can be pushed back on the second half of 2013, and all the books—or at least all those with announced publication dates and online retailer pages—can be spoken of in terms of hot anticipation!

...And I’m going to stop avoiding the personal pronoun now. Dear Readers, let’s talk about what’s to look forward to in the second half of the year. By your leave, I’ll go first.

[Books!]

When the government worries us, it would seem that people turn to literature for guidance: the discovery of PRISM, an online surveillance program developed by U.S. intelligence organizations, has led to a remarkable spike in sales for George Orwell’s dystopian classic, 1984.

[Big Brother very well may be watching...]

Welcome back to A Read of Ice and Fire! Please join me as I read and react, for the very first time, to George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

Today’s entry is Part 32 of A Storm of Swords, in which we cover Chapter 54 (“Davos”).

Previous entries are located in the Index. The only spoilers in the post itself will be for the actual chapters covered and for the chapters previous to them. As for the comments, please note that the Powers That Be have provided you a lovely spoiler thread here on Tor.com. Any spoileriffic discussion should go there, where I won’t see it. Non-spoiler comments go below, in the comments to the post itself.

And now, the post!

[If you miss a payment the APR goes up to 19.99% of your SOUL]

The title of this anthology should really just be “It’s Tough to Be A Gangster.” (Or maybe, “If Your Criminal Life Doesn’t Work Out, Become A Bodiless Monk.”) Because if you ever wanted the secrets behind all those characters in Jabba’s entourage, all you really need to know is pretty much everyone wants him dead. In fact, if he hadn’t given Luke and Leia a reason to come after him, it probably wouldn’t have changed his Date of Expiration by that many dual sunsets.

Also, monks built his palace way before he came to live there? Monks that keep their brains in jars attached to droid spider bodies? I know. It’s madness. But it’s all true.

[Jabba, this is your last chance. Free us, or die.]

Semi-live, from New Orleans, it’s a Wheel of Time Re-read!

Today’s entry covers Chapter 17 of A Memory of Light, in which there are egregious acts of aggressive greenery, and everything else just pisses me off.

Previous re-read entries are here. The Wheel of Time Master Index is here, which has links to news, reviews, interviews, and all manner of information about the Wheel of Time in general. The index for all things specifically related to the final novel in the series, A Memory of Light, is here.

Also, for maximum coolness, the Wheel of Time Re-read is also now available as e-books, from your preferred e-book retailer!

This re-read post, and all posts henceforth, contain spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time series. If you haven’t read, read at your own risk.

And now, the post!

[I swear my name isn’t really Rachel Dratch]

Welcome back to A Read of Ice and Fire! Please join me as I read and react, for the very first time, to George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

Today’s entry is Part 31 of A Storm of Swords, in which we cover Chapter 53 (“Tyrion”).

Previous entries are located in the Index. The only spoilers in the post itself will be for the actual chapters covered and for the chapters previous to them. As for the comments, please note that the Powers That Be have provided you a lovely spoiler thread in the forums here on Tor.com. Any spoileriffic discussion should go there, where I won’t see it. Non-spoiler comments go below, in the comments to the post itself.

And now, the post!

[“I understand regicide as a means of obtaining vengeance for the ruin of our lives, but regicide as a means of obtaining political freedom I could never understand.” ― Pyotr Kropotkin, Memoirs of a Revolutionist]

Holy domesticated South American camelid, Batman, it’s a Wheel of Time Re-read!

Today’s entry covers Chapter 16 of A Memory of Light, in which Rand is baffling, Moiraine is… brief, Loial is unsettling, and Lan WINS ALL THE THINGS. As usual.

Previous re-read entries are here. The Wheel of Time Master Index is here, which has links to news, reviews, interviews, and all manner of information about the Wheel of Time in general. The index for all things specifically related to the final novel in the series, A Memory of Light, is here.

Also, for maximum coolness, the Wheel of Time Re-read is also now available as e-books, from your preferred e-book retailer!

This re-read post, and all posts henceforth, contain spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time series. If you haven’t read, read at your own risk.

And now, the post!

[All those scaly, cannibal llamas]

In the past, we’ve debated the definitions of epic fantasy and sword and sorcery, its social orientation, and what Fantasy Has Done For Us Lately. Well, you know what fantasy has done for me lately? Violette Malan.

In the mists of history—or, well, not actually all that long ago—I scraped up the cash to go to World Fantasy in Calgary. When I was there, I found this book called The Sleeping God, by Violette Malan. And stayed up too late reading it, naturally. This spring, I finally read the fourth, and so far, last published, in a series featuring the same main characters. The Dhulyn and Parno novels, as they’re known, comprise The Sleeping God, The Soldier King, The Storm Witch, and Path of the Sun. And, recently, after Kari Sperring pointed out to me in conversation that she saw Malan’s Dhulyn and Parno novels as natural heirs to the sword and sorcery tradition in the vein of Fritz Leiber, I knew I had to talk about them here.

[Read more]

Welcome back to A Read of Ice and Fire! Please join me as I read and react, for the very first time, to George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

Today’s entry is Part 30 of A Storm of Swords, in which we cover Chapter 51 (“Catelyn”) and Chapter 52 (“Arya”).

Previous entries are located in the Index. The only spoilers in the post itself will be for the actual chapters covered and for the chapters previous to them. As for the comments, please note that the Powers That Be have provided you a lovely spoiler thread here on Tor.com. Any spoileriffic discussion should go there, where I won’t see it. Non-spoiler comments go below, in the comments to the post itself.

And now, the post!

[ALL TEA ALL SHADE HUNTY]

There is some very interesting theological ground to cover where Good Omens is concerned, especially considering that the whole book is basically giving its own spin on the Book of Revelation. Truthfully, there is so much ground to cover that it didn’t fit in the Reference Guide. So without further ado, here are the items in the book that dealt with religions, mythologies, and rituals of all sorts....

[Aziraphale was a Principality...]

Happy post-Memorial Day weekend, WOTers! Spread some aloe on that wicked sunburn, and have a Wheel of Time Re-read to soothe and balm you!

(What, I am totally soothing. Trufax.)

Today’s entry covers Chapter 15 of A Memory of Light, in which we examine, with only a moderate amount of incoherency, my reactions to two very different exhibitionist relationships. With a side note of how context can really really really change what the term “exhibitionist” means. Thank God.

Previous re-read entries are here. The Wheel of Time Master Index is here, which has links to news, reviews, interviews, and all manner of information about the Wheel of Time in general. The index for all things specifically related to the final novel in the series, A Memory of Light, is here.

Also, for maximum coolness, the Wheel of Time Re-read is also now available as e-books,from your preferred e-book retailer!

This re-read post, and all posts henceforth, contain spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time series. If you haven’t read, read at your own risk.

And now, the post!

[You could pretend it was “puerile”! Or “peril”! Or… okay, I can’t actually think of any others, but those were pretty funny]

At the time of writing, my reading’s been on the slow side, involving much rereading in order to refamiliarise myself with the works of Martha Wells and Kate Elliott. Books for review joined books for research in an ever-increasing teetering pile, leaving only a small side-order of fluff to balance the fibre in my literary diet. Since I don’t propose to inflict upon you, O courteous readers, any thoughts on Tim Ingolds and Gaston Bachelard, nor subject you to rewrites of reviews found around Tor.com already, that leaves us with a wee side platter of fluffy fun....

[Books!]

I’ve been writing a lot and not reading much that isn’t research and so not posting much—though if you want to hear about my research books I could go on for a long time! I thought I’d look at some short stories, because they’re shorter.

A long time ago I wrote about five short stories with useless time travel, and today I was thinking about three short stories that are all about stranded time travellers. The first is H. Beam Piper’s “He Walked Around the Horses” which is free on Project Gutenberg, the second is Poul Anderson’s “The Man Who Came Early,” also old enough to be free online, and the third is Robert Silverberg’s “House of Bones.”

[Read more]

My obsessively detailed reread of Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles is over, but we want to keep on talking about the books. I’m going to post the occasional speculative summary of cool things posted since last time. Spoilers for all of The Wise Man’s Fear and The Name of the Wind—these discussions assume you’ve read all of both books, and frankly they won’t make the slightest bit of sense if you haven’t. But we welcome new people who have read the books and want to geek out about them. This post is full of spoilers, please don’t venture beyond the cut unless you want them.

[Read more: speculations, spoilers and human oddities]

Part of what makes Good Omens such a fantastic read is the plethora of referential material that the book offers up in categories ranging from history to art to literature. Here’s a list (though it’s a titan’s feat trying to be comprehensive in this case) of shout-outs this book manages to pack into every crevice, be they sneaky or hammer-worthy on the Obvious Scale.

[Real-life witches to goofy-looking aliens]

And reviewed by yours truly.

The Gist, a novelette by Michael Marshall Smith, is the latest offering from Subterranean Press’s limited but honourable catalogue. To say it is by Marshall Smith—or at least, by Marshall Smith alone—is, however, something of a misnomer. Between The Gist’s covers are three novelettes and one novelette: Marshall Smith’s original, translated once into the French by Benoît Domis, translated again (without access to the original text) back into the English by Nicholas Royle. Two further recensions of the first text: three recensions of a single work.

Yes, I’m of the school that holds every translation to be a fresh recension. Every translation contains the translator’s idea of the text as well as the original author’s. If you’ve ever read translations of, say, the Greek classics from the 19th century and then compared them to a modern translation, the otherwise-invisible person of the translator becomes visible.

[Read more]

The power of the Wheel of Time Re-read compels you! Hopefully!

Today’s entry covers Chapter 14 of A Memory of Light, which features unexpected villainesses, unsolicited movie reviews, and surprisingly lethal applications of standard cartoon gags.

Previous re-read entries are here. The Wheel of Time Master Index is here, which has links to news, reviews, interviews, and all manner of information about the Wheel of Time in general. The index for all things specifically related to the final novel in the series, A Memory of Light, is here.

Also, for maximum coolness, the Wheel of Time Re-read is also now available as e-books, from your preferred e-book retailer!

This re-read post, and all posts henceforth, contain spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time series. If you haven’t read, read at your own risk.

And now, the post!

[“Behind every wall, every window. The world behind the world, and we’re smack in the middle.”]

It occurs to me that this year I’ve spent plenty of time on fantasy, while neglecting science fiction. A trend likely to continue until 2014 at least....

So for today, let’s spend a little time redressing the balance, and talk about hard SF by women.

Defining hard science fiction, rather like defining epic fantasy, is a tricksy business. (Or hobbit.) The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction itself acknowledges the potential impossibility of any rigorous definition, concluding only:

“[T]the most important thing about it is, not that it should include real science in any great detail, but that it should respect the scientific spirit; it should seek to provide natural rather than supernatural or transcendental explanations for the events and phenomena it describes.” [Link.]

[Read more]