New chapter for Agent Shield and Spaceman

The next chapter for "Agent Shield and Spaceman" is available. Marcus and Spaceman interview Dr. Duchampski about the contents of the Anti-Cerebrist vials and learn about one of the most fearsome of all cryptozoological creatures - the Burmese Tiger Snake.

In other news, Gwendolyn Kiste published an interview with me on her blog yesterday. I have tremendous respect for Gwendolyn's talents as a writer and fan of weird fiction and enjoyed her questions greatly. Check it out if you get a chance and while you're there read some of her work and the other interviews she's posted. Great stuff!

On more of a personal note, I have finally finished the door to my chicken coop. In terms of tool-use, I rank somewhere between an Australopithecus and H. Habilis, but by repeatedly banging heavy objects into slats of wood, this crude contraption some how resulted. Plans to open my own boutique catering to aficionados of crappy post-apocalyptic carpentry are in the works.

To mix things up a little, I'm currently reading one of those "Noir (fill in the blank city)" anthologies. In this case, all of the stories involve Chicago - great stuff. I'm not sure if I'm ever going to get to the Noir Helsinki collection but I am hoping they eventually get to Rochester or Syracuse.

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Review of R. Scott Bakker's The Darkness That Comes Before

First, a word about how I came to pick up the first novel in R. Scott Bakker's The Prince of Nothing historical fantasy series. In short, after finishing "A Dance with Dragons," by George R.R. I googled what should I read next. This series came up. I mention this because it might serve as a usual gauge for what to expect from "The Darkness That Came Before;" people liking Martin's mix of history, in-depth characterization, dark subject matter, and world-building will probably like Bakker's work. People not fond of entire chapters devoted to the Byzantine political maneuvers, a dozen pages of appendices on characters, maps, and language trees, or character names with umlauts should avoid this book. Basically, the story of 'The Darkness That Comes Before," follows a warrior monk by the name of Anasürimbur Kellhus, who during a quest to find his father, becomes entwined with a Holy War against a nation of fanatical monotheists. The story is...

Death's End by Liu Cixin

Having recently finished the last book in Liu Cixin's instant classic "The Remembrance of Earth's Past" series, Death's End, I can only report a feeling of total amazement and awe. There is so much about this novel that blew my mind, that offered different and better ways of viewing the universe. This novel did what I wish more novels would, serve up a new universe entire, evoking beauty and horror, nobility and disgust, in a timeless monument to unfettered speculation. Obviously, in discussing the events of the last of a trilogy books, spoilers are to be expected. I am, however, going to try to avoid discussing much beyond the first 100 pages of the third novel. I read the translation of this novel, as ushered into being by the amazing talent of Ken Liu. Ken has written of a certain prickliness when it comes to translating work. He makes an effort not to anglicize the source material, not smudging away the occasional difficulties in bringing Cixin...

A Reaction to Peter Watts' "Echopraxia"

Peter Watts’ Echopraxia is a side-sequel to his previous hard sf horror novel Blindsight . Daniel Bruks, a biologist in the Eastern Oregonian desert, gets stuck in the middle of a war between a fugitive vampire and a cult of rewired post-humans called Bicamerals, ultimately kidnapped by them as they head towards the sun. The goal of post-human and vampire alike is to investigate a possible alien intelligence gaining strength there, to determine if it poses a threat, or offers a weapon for the two sides as they struggle for advantage. Bruks' goal is simple survival. Reading Watts is a simultaneously bracing and discouraging experience. Bracing because his depiction of the future and the oddities who inhabit it continue to get better and better, his plots more complicated and more involving, his characters less like sock-puppets for his ideas and more like actual human beings (or whatevers). Discouraging because Watts uses his considerable gifts, artistic and academic, ...

Ancient Logic

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