All posts by Carl V. Anderson

February Finds


(Image from Laughing Squid)

Increased stress at work (move planning and new computer system implementation) have, not surprisingly, left me feeling more tired than usual. I have been combating that fatigue with reading, a renewed addiction to Fallout: New Vegas, and a voracious appetite for episodes of 30 Rock that I hadn’t watched…but not with blogging. I have several book reviews to catch up on, but in the meantime…

Neither icy rain nor falling snow could stop the intrepid postal workers from delivery goodies ordered from Amazon and Ebay. Nor could it stop me from driving to the local chain bookstores to use their irresistible discount coupons!

And so, here are the books that have found their way inside my home over the past few weeks:

Continue reading February Finds →

A Karass


Image by the amazing classic illustrator Alex Schomburg

I am mid-way through my re-read of Jo Walton’s book Among Others and am at the point where her protagonist, Mori, finds joins an SF book club. On the way back to the boarding school from the first meeting the school librarian Miss Carroll asks, “You don’t get a lot of chance to talk to people about the things that matter to you, do you?” It was a question that resonated with me the first time I read it and it did again this evening.

Mori’s joy at discovering a group of people who love science fiction as much as she does echoes that which I discovered for the first time a little over a decade ago when we moved to Kansas City. I met a small group of friends who were into similar things and over the years our conversations and sharing of books and films has enriched and expanded my life, making up for all those years of solitary reading with no one to share book talk with. (Cue sad music)

They are my karass. But now my karass has expanded and I would like to invite you to be a part of it as well.

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January 2011 Round Up

Instead of sidling up seductively with promises of Valentines to come, February has arrived in the embrace of her wintry sister January. With icy streets covered by a thin layer of snow and predictions of End of Days snowfall to come, I find myself on the receiving end of that rarest of rare things: an actual Snow Day. My company generally laughs in the face of Old Man Winter, but today they chose not to tempt fate and issued orders for warm blankets, hot cocoa, and a good book. Or at least that is the way I heard it. 😉

Though January 2011 plagued us with heavy snowfall and temperatures worthy of comparison to a witch’s bosom, it was also filled with 31 days of mostly great reading, wherein I found warmth and comfort in the cold environs of space, on alien worlds, and in the past and future of good ol’ Terra Firma. Not to mention the incredible imagination of authors and artists whose work found fertile ground in my heart and mind.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful literary month. Here is where my journeys took me:

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The Voice of Robert A. Heinlein

During the month of January I have had the pleasure of experiencing the work of Full Cast Audio for the first time, in their performance of two of Robert A. Heinlein’s juvenile novels, The Rolling Stones and The Star Beast. Both novels shine as examples of entertaining yet intelligent fiction that Heinlein wrote for young people in the 1950’s. I have mentioned in previous reviews that Robert A. Heinlein did not talk down to his audience. Because of this fact, I was rewarded with two rich reading experiences, narrated and performed by a talented and professional cast.

For the following reviews I will first discuss the story itself and then share some thoughts on the performance.

Please, read on.

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How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe ~Charles Yu

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe ~Charles Yu

–published 2010
–Pantheon Books
–239 pages
–8/10

“You had me at ‘Han Solo'”.

If I ever was to meet real-life author Charles Yu, who lent his name to the protagonist in his debut novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, I would unleash my best Tom Cruise imitation and ply him with those words.

You can travel down the lanes of the World Wide Web and find well-known authors, armchair critics and professional reviewers alike unleashing a litany of $5 words praising the literary merit and science fictional prowess of Charles Yu.

And they are right.

If there need be such an animal as “Literary Science Fiction”, Charles Yu’s novel could be the zoo’s most recent prized exhibit.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I enjoyed those aspects of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.

But you had me at Han Solo.

Continue reading How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe ~Charles Yu →