Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic

Book Review: Gilded Latin Bones by Glen Cook

2012-01-25T15:52:00.000-08:00

Gilded Latten Bones is the 13th book in Glen Cook's Garrett, P.I. fantasy/detective series. Like all Garrett books, Gilded Latten Bones' primary plot stands alone, but I very strongly recommend reading the previous Garrett books before reading this one; the story is enjoyable on its own, but there's a lot about the book that is more effective if you've spent time with Garrett and company

Happy New Year!

2012-01-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everybody! All in all, while Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic was not as active as many other science fiction blogs in 2011, I'm quite pleased with how things have turned out and hope to increase my output in 2012. I hope you've enjoyed reading it, and will continue coming back here in the year to come. I wanted to start this year off on a positive note by thanking some people

The Star Wars Holiday Special teaches us to hate Christmas, life

2011-12-22T14:48:00.000-08:00

Christmas is nearly upon us, so I've decided to cross-post my traditional yearly post on The Star Wars Holiday Special from my other blog, Pointless Side Quest. Please to enjoy, for a certain value of "enjoy." It's the Christmas season once again. To celebrate, this is the time of year when this blog make a foray beyond the world of video games into the larger world of holiday entertainment.

Other stuff I'm up to

2011-11-29T17:57:00.000-08:00

In addition to this blog, I'm also a regular contributor at several other sites, mostly video game-related. If that's also a topic you're interested in, or if for some reason you just want more of my unwieldy-mountain-of-clauses approach to writing, check out: Pointless Side Quest My other blog. Dedicated to the lowest form of geek humor: Jokes about video games. I do occasionally lower

Book Review: Out of the Waters by David Drake

2011-11-15T16:57:00.001-08:00

Out of the Waters is the second novel in David Drake's “Books of the Elements” fantasy series, following The Legions of Fire. I recommend reading the first book before this one, though Out of the Waters is a self-contained story and stands up well on its own. Like its predecessor, Out of the Waters centers on the city of Carce, the capital of a sprawling empire. Gaius Alphenus Saxa, a

Reading books for the first time

2011-10-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

SF Signal had a Mind Meld feature a little while back that asked participants what science fiction or fantasy book they would like to experience reading for the first time again. I don't really have an answer to that. I often get a lot of my enjoyment from a book when I'm not actually reading it- when events or characters or ideas from it are just rolling around in after my head I've finished

Book Review: The Moon Maze Game by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes

2011-09-13T17:38:00.000-07:00

The Moon Maze Game is the most recent collaboration by authors Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. It is the fourth book in their Dream Park series (preceded by Dream Park, The Barsoom Project, and The California Voodoo Game) and part of the same future history as some of their other collaborative works, but it's a self-contained story and stands fine on its own whether you've read the previous books

Interesting new project from Angry Robot Books

2011-08-26T16:28:00.000-07:00

This intrigues me: Angry Robot Books is starting a new project called "Worldbuilder" that actively encourages fans to create their own derivative works based on the universe of one of their upcoming books, Empire State by Adam Christopher. Once it's up and running, fans of the book will be able to upload their own creations to the official Worldbuilder website under a Creative Commons license.

Book Review: Gateways, edited by Elizabeth Anne Hull

2011-08-09T19:22:00.000-07:00

Gateways is a collection of stories by a number of different authors, published in honor of Frederik Pohl's seventy-year career as a science fiction author and editor. Pohl is a special author to me. One of the science fiction novels that really made an impression on me as a kid was Pohl's The World at the End of Time, published in 1990. I was exposed to it by sheer chance- my father would often

Characterization in science fiction

2011-07-16T17:42:00.000-07:00

Ryan Britt has a very good post at Tor.com entitled “Genre in the Mainstream: Does SFF Marginalize Characters?” It's well worth your time. Britt hits on a good point when he remarks that a typical science fiction book simply has more things competing with the characters for attention than a more conventional story- a character who might seem perfectly acceptable in isolation may seem lackluster

Book Review: The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

2011-07-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

The Quantum Thief is the debut novel of science fiction author Hannu Rajaniemi. You can visit his website here. The central character of the story is Jean le Flambeur, a legendary thief with a career that spanned centuries of time and the breadth of the solar system. Now, however, he is only another inmate in the Dilemma Prison, a virtual jail in the outer solar system where the uploaded

Book Review: Orbus by Neal Asher

2011-05-23T22:19:00.000-07:00

Orbus by Neal Asher is the follow-up to Asher's The Skinner and The Voyage of the Sable Keech, and part of his larger Polity future history (Gridlinked and the subsequent Ian Cormac books, The Technician, Hilldiggers, etc.) It continues where The Voyage of the Sable Keech left off and has a number of recurring characters, but while it's not strictly necessary to have read them to follow what's

Book Review: Stonewielder by Ian C. Esslemont

2011-05-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

Stonewielder is Ian Cameron Esslemont's third book in the Malazan epic fantasy setting that he created together with Malazan Book of the Fallen series author Steven Erikson. Like Esslemont's previous Return of the Crimson Guard, it's events are contemporaneous with those of Erikson's books but focused on other parts of their shared universe. Chronologically, it is set after Esslemont's Return of

Book Review: Crossover by Joel Shepherd

2011-04-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

Crossover is the debut novel of Joel Shepherd and the first book in the Cassandra Kresnov trilogy. Cassandra Kresnov is a GI, an artificial person created by the advanced science of the League, one of the two great powers of human space, and used as a soldier in the League's long struggle with its rival the Federation. Like her fellows, Kresnov was built to be far stronger, tougher, and faster

Memories of Borders

2011-04-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

Fair warning: This post involves me getting maudlin and sentimental about the fate of a multibillion-dollar retail chain. I only make the occasional trip to my nearby Borders now, and it's been along time since I did a significant amount of my book shopping there, but I was still saddened to hear that the company had filed for bankruptcy and was closing many of its locations. When I was a

Book Review: De Bello Lemures by Thomas Brookside

2011-03-06T14:57:00.000-08:00

De Bello Lemures, Or The Roman War Against the Zombies of Armorica is a self-published book, about the length of a long novella, by Thomas Brookside. De Bello Lemures is presented as a newly recovered and translated Latin text, originally written in the late 2nd Century AD by Lucius Artorius Castus, a Roman military commander. The story begins in Armorica (Brittany), a minor backwater of Roman

Book Review: Stealing Light by Gary Gibson

2011-02-04T22:47:00.000-08:00

Stealing Light is the first book in the “Shoal Sequence” space opera trilogy by Gary Gibson. Though part of a series, Stealing Light also works very well as a self-contained story. Gibson is an author who is, unfortunately, all but unknown in the United States; I became aware of him by sheer chance and had to track down the British versions of his books. Happily, it was worth it. Five centuries

Book Review: Dust of Dreams by Steven Erikson

2011-01-11T15:29:00.000-08:00

Dust of Dreams is the ninth of the planned 10 books of the Malazan Book of the Fallen epic fantasy series by Steven Erikson. Familiarity with the story up to this point is essential to understanding what's going on; this is definitely not a place to jump in if you haven't been following the series. Unlike the previous Malazan books, which are part of a larger story but meant to have some sort of

Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic... RISE.

2011-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

I've decided to bring Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic back to its original home at Blogspot. I would like to thank the people at BSCreview.com for hosting this blog for the past few years, and for all of their assistance. I've imported everything back, but there are still some kinks to work out and the layout is something of a work in progress, so please bear with me if you run into a broken link

Book Review: The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook

2010-09-14T20:49:00.000-07:00

Though he is much better known for writing fantasy, Glen Cook has also written several science fiction books in the course of his career. The Dragon Never Sleeps is a dark space opera originally published in 1988, and recently made available again in a new edition from Night Shade Books.Far, far into the future, humans are the slowly declining but still unquestioned masters of Canon Space, a

James P. Hogan, R.I.P.

2010-07-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

I was saddened to learn that science fiction author James P. Hogan passed away on July 12th, at the age of 69. Hogan was the author of numerous books, of which I own a great many, including Voyage From Yesteryear, Inherit the Stars, Code of the Lifemaker, and Multiplex Man. Rest in peace.

Book Review: The Legions of Fire by David Drake

2010-06-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

David Drake is among my favorite authors, so I was quite excited when this book arrived. The Legions of Fire is the first entry in Drake's planned four-book fantasy series, The Books of the Elements.The story begins in Carce, capitol city of an empire that dominates the known world. Corylus, a soldier's son with a scholarly bent who grew up on the empire's frontiers, attends a public recital

Book Review: Bitter Angels by C.L. Anderson

2010-05-03T14:20:00.000-07:00

Bitter Angels is the winner of the 2009 Philip K. Dick Award for distinguished science fiction. It's a space opera/espionage story by Sarah Zettel , published under the pseudonym C.L. Anderson.Terese Drajeske is a former operative of the Guardians, the organization tasked by the United Earth Government with countering threats to the peace between earth and her many colonies. She is jolted out

Book Review: Incandescence by Greg Egan

2010-03-04T18:05:00.000-08:00

One of the things I love about science fiction, and especially hard science fiction, is that it rejects conventional presumptions about what it's proper for fiction to be about and treats things like science, logical and creative extrapolation, system-building, and- more generally- reason as worthwhile subject matter in their own right. Greg Egan (Diaspora, Permutation City, etc.) is an

Book Review: Balefires by David Drake

2010-01-25T12:57:00.000-08:00

David Drake is known first and foremost for his importance to the field of military science fiction, and many of his recent books have been space opera or heroic fantasy. However, many of Drake's early publications were in the horror genre, often influenced by the classic pulp fantasy, horror, and "