It’s difficult to write a bloggable review of a work of academic scholarship, given the nature of blogs and the nature of academic texts, so I’ll just note that this book provided me with a fascinating chunk of discussion on the “prophetic” feature or function of SF through a look at the work of H.G. Wells. Parrinder in this book argues that Wells, in his approach to the utopian novel, breaks with the past in how he the notion of prophecy is handled, in his attitude towards science in the context of SF, and much more. There’s more than just …
Tag: books read 2010
Wraith: The Great War by Bruce Baugh
It was the rainy last day of March 2010 when I began writing this. I am told the winter was “hard” and “cruel,” with altogether more snow than is normal, and though I missed much of that, I got a taste this month. Hard. Cruel. These words draw laughter from the ghosts of the past, which haunt our modern world, whether or not we realize it. “Hard and cruel?” they ask, snickering as they glimpse at my dry, warm apartment, the bucket of beer-in-the-making fermenting on the kitchen table, the shelves full of books, the fridge stocked with food. “You …
The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
Having decided to defer my review of Ian McDonald’s Cyberabad Days until I’ve read his other book in the same world/setting, River of Gods, I have decided to skip ahead and review the next book I read, a nonfiction piece by Steven Johnson. This book was a loaner from my friend Charles, who recommended it highly to me. If I remember right, he picked it up at The Strand, which is one of the most wonderful bookstores I’ve ever visited… so much so that I even got a T-shirt when I was there. Maybe that doesn’t interest readers, but I …
Trotsky: A Graphic Biography by Rick Geary
I remember, when I took a film course as an undergraduate, studying with a professor named Don Kerr. When we watched The Birth of a Nation he read to us from the local newspaper in Saskatoon, an article dating back to the film’s release there. I still recall the amusement shared by all when the author claimed that henceforth, people could not longer criticize films for the decline in morality — “Films like this one can educate!” the article claimed — and that demon liquor was to blame. Huh? Social ills coming from either booze of movies? At a remove …
Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle
It is almost certainly unfair to Guy Delisle that reviewers will compare this book with his earlier Pyongyang, for that latter graphic novel was a major achievement, and for me at least, it represented something new in the world of comics. I read it in wonder, a few years ago, amazed at how Delisle managed to tell the story of a year so smoothly, so engagingly, and so courageously. The newer book is quite different, but this should surprise nobody: we cannot expect an artist or writer to produce work that is like the first work we have encountered from …