You asked for it…

Well, honestly you didn’t but you are getting it anyway. The VOICE of your host, minty fresh off a recording session last Wednesday night with the host of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester, and other guests Paul Weimer, Sarah Chorn, and Aaron Sikes (with John DeNardo lurking in the background).

It was great fun. The topic was “Your Hands Down Favorite Book of 2013 and why Everyone Should Read it NOW”. We also discussed the books we were currently reading.

The show runs close to an hour and given that you probably know my tendency to blather on about things that I like from reading posts over here, my blathering in full stereoscopic sound should come as no surprise. Per usual it is painful to hear my own voice. I listened briefly and did my best not to cringe.

Let me reiterate again how much fun this was. I enjoyed discussing books with such a great and talkative panel and Patrick Hester runs a really professional podcast. I hope to be on again in the future.

Head on over to SF Signal to download the podcast or listen live directly from the site. You can live without hearing my voice, but you will miss out on some good books that you really should add to your reading list.

Today over on SF Signal for Short Fiction Friday I look at a number of genre fiction anthologies slated to drop in 2014.  Thanks in large part to an email yesterday from editor John Joseph Adams, there is news of several anthologies of all-original science fiction that has me excited for events in the new year.

Every bit as exciting, one of those anthologies is the follow up to one of my favorite reads of the year, Edge of Infinity by Jonathan Strahan.

For those of you dying to hear the voice of your host (anyone???  Beuller…Beuller…) I want to let you know that next week the SF Signal Podcast will feature yours truly along with three other great guests as we discuss our hands down favorite book of 2013.  We recorded on Wednesday night and it was great fun.  Looking forward to sharing it with you  next week.

Be careful out there everyone and have a great weekend.  Less than two weeks until Christmas! Better get that shopping done.

In spite of much pontification both in person and online regarding the superiority of the book-as-object, I found myself spending a portion of my work bonus to purchase the newly-released Kindle Fire HD.

That was one year ago this week.

My thinking at the time was that John Scalzi’s new book, The Human Division, was about to be released episodically with covers by one of my favorite artists, John Harris, and that I wanted to experience these weekly releases, and a variety of the current SFF magazines, in a format that was convenient and in color.

Had you quizzed me at the time of purchase I would have stated, with utter conviction, that I would only be using the Kindle for these magazines and would not be reading any “real books” on it.   To track my ebook vs. print book reading I decided to keep track in my record keeping of which format my reading would take during 2013.

What then is the verdict? Have I been converted to 21st century reading or do I remain a happy dinosaur?

To be honest…

Continue reading Kindle Fire HD: One Year Later →

(“Strength and Honor” by Stephan Martiniere, used with the artist’s permission)

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty,
but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”

~Vincent Van Gogh

The sight of the stars makes me dream as well, and has done so for as far back as I can remember. The phrase “littered with stars” was inadequate to describe what my young eyes experienced as I gazed upwards on dark Nebraska nights–the sky untainted by the pollution of city lights. America’s space program was in its glory days and my young imagination was fueled by the reality of space travel as well as the fantastical imagery of shows like Star Trek, Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica. It is little wonder that science fiction became my first love and that my younger years were spent lost between the pages of books by Harry Harrison, Larry Niven, Brian Daley and Alan Dean Foster, dreaming of the days when I too would be “boldly going”.

I will soon be celebrating my 45th year and I have long since made peace with the realization that I won’t be piloting a light freighter alongside a wookie or beaming up any time soon. That has not diminished the excitement I feel when traveling within our solar system or beyond through the pages of a good book or the via the imagination of creators of science fiction television and film. Seven years ago this excitement lead me to invite other readers to spend time together to:

a) Continue their love affair with science fiction
b) Return to science fiction after an absence, or
c) Experience for the first time just how exhilarating science fiction can be.

Thus The Sci-Fi Experience was born, and now it is time to do it again.

Continue reading The 2014 Sci-Fi Experience →

I suspect this is a problem shared by some of you to a greater or lesser degree.  For others this is something that probably sounds quite ridiculous.

I cannot stop starting books.

It didn’t used to be like this.  And once it started there have certainly been years where it was not so bad.  But this year…

Well, this year it is embarrassing.  It would be one thing if I could say this list I am about to present (which I would guess is not completely accurate based on my sometimes selective memory) is filled with books I laid aside because they just weren’t doing anything for me.

Not the case.  Any books I have laid aside this year because of an inability to connect with it are not included on this list in large part because it is possible in the onslaught of acquiring more books that I’ll never get back to them. Often if I don’t connect I am giving away or selling these books to make room.

No, these are all books that I have either not read enough of to make a determination (i.e. read a few pages when I first bought it), which is a very small number, or was really enjoying but got distracted by the next shiny object placed in front of my eyes (in other words, another book).

After a promising first couple of months the year has been feast or famine in the reading department.  That isn’t to say it has been a bad year.  We are two months away from Year in Review posts and I’m already excited about sharing my memorable book-related experiences of 2013.  And there are still two months left in the year, two months in which I’m sure to be able to make a (small) dent in these partially read books.

Continue reading Houston, I have a problem… →