Books I Should Have Reviewed Already!

Well, I’m supposed to have reviewed these books, having received them free from Librarything, but it’s hard for me, because I always feel leery giving less than positive reviews of books. (Everything else, I am more comfortable panning, but books, well…)
Anyway, I’m way late, but I’m going to say what I have to say, and [...]

Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind by Gerald Graff

This is, basically, an excellent book. Make a gift of it to those you know who are decision makers in departments. Read it if you want to help make things better for your students. More for those who want details, as well as my reflections on a few of the things I learned reading it, [...]

K-Raelians plus The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World by Thomas M. Disch, and The Men Who Stare At Goats by Jon Ronson

As part of my continuing adventures in figuring out what I want to say in my paper on SF cinema in Korea, this post discusses Raelianism in Korea whilst working through a review of two books on SF and their effects on the world.
I’ve just finished reading Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare At Goats, [...]

Bikeman: An Epic Poem by Thomas F. Flynn

As a would-be writer of epic poems myself, and a once-avid cyclist to boot, I took an interest in what purported to be an “epic poem” about the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center when the book appeared on the Librarything Early Reviewer Program list of books available for review. After all, a modern [...]

On The Eyeball Floor

On The Eyeball Floor. It’s a dark, funny, weird, but very human story by the unstoppable Tina Connolly, up now at Strange Horizons. Go read it.
And yeah, the title made me think of a certain Howlin’ Wolf song, just like it made you do, right? (Mashed with froggie madness here.)

Could I Get a Class To Do This?

I wonder. Saw a link on Boing-Boing for the product of the Stanford Graphic Novel Project, a graphic novel titled Shake Girl which is online for free here. Read it in one sitting. True story. Very sad. Good stuff.
Make me wonder whether I could get my students to do something that good in a [...]

Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge

Whenever people talk about The Singularity, one reaction I always feel in my gut is, “Okay, describe it.” Of course, by its very definition, the Singularity is [relatively] indescribable, since it’s what is as incomprehensible to our minds as our world is to the mind of a goldfish. In this way, The Singularity is, I [...]

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