It must be my inner game-show-geek coming out, but I get a small thrill any time I can recognize the work of an illustrator, particularly in the SF/F field. So I couldn’t help but smile at my small victory when I came up the steps after returning from my afternoon run Friday to see the merest sliver of an image peeking out of my mailbox. I said aloud, “that looks like a Michael Whelan cover” and was rewarded to see his cover image for Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles on the January 2013 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine as I extracted my mail.
I am not the most constant of readers. I have subscribed to Asimov’s in print form for the past year and most of the issues sit unread, awaiting my attention. That fact hasn’t lessened my enjoyment of seeing them arrive in the post. The thrill of wondering what the next cover image will be and which authors will have stories included makes it fun to be a subscriber.
Maybe it was the recent passing of Ray Bradbury and the fact that he has been on my mind, or the Whelan cover image, but I determined right then and there that I would sit down and start my Asimov’s year 2013 with a weekend read. I’ve read some really good issues of Asimov’s and others in which the stories were geared for readers with other tastes than mine. This was a good one. A really good one.
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted – nevermore!
(from The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe)
A Happy Halloween to you all! On this All Hallow’s Eve our adventure of the past two months comes to its end. Seven years of sharing gothic goodness and reveling in mystery and fright have come, and seven years have gone, and now we part each to our own revels, destined to return nevermore….until September 2013, that is!
Last year around this time Andrea of Little Red Reviewer posted her thoughts on her first Andre Norton experience, Star Born. Her review coupled with the wonderful Dean Ellis cover combined to ensure that this would be my first Andre Norton experience as well. I quickly snagged a nice copy of the book off of ebay and this past week I could resist the lure no longer.
Star Born packs quite a lot of storytelling punch in its brief 187 pages. Andre Norton’s 1957 story examines such issues as slavery, racial prejudice, apocalyptic warfare and governmental oppression and wraps it all up in the kind of adventure-filled story that was a pleasure to read as and adult and would have had me gazing heavenward as a child. Star Born is an example of fine world-building and classic space adventure that remains accessible and surprisingly relevant 55 years after its release.
My friend Theresa and I were the only members of team Insane in the Membrane rugged enough to actually follow through with this year’s Rugged Maniac 5K Obstacle Race, Kansas City edition. Lest you be unaware of what it means to be a Rugged Maniac, here is a quick peek into what our day looked like:
It is John Scalzi’s fault. (I bet he hears that a lot)
Six years ago, almost to the day, John Scalzi reignited what I didn’t even realize was a flagging passion for science fiction with his novel Old Man’s War. Science Fiction is my first love but I hadn’t consciously noticed that most of the time I spent with her was in revisiting novels I cherished from my youth and or classics from the past–both admirable ways to spend my reading time. I rarely took any forays into the works of contemporary authors. Old Man’s War made me feel that nervous-energy, can’t-wait-to-get-home-and-read feeling that science fiction did in my younger years. It was sense-of-wonder done 21st century style and it has influenced my reading since that day. The sequels were all equally exciting to me.
And the Tor Art Department choosing heart-stopping covers by artist John Harris was icing on the cake.
