West of the Moon

science fiction

this shared dream.

For some books, I’m just not the right reader.  This Shared Dream by Kathleen Ann Goonan was one of those books.  I finished it, at least, but I’m kind of not sure why–no, I do know why.  I kept hoping that I’d find some payoff in the science-fiction-y part of the plot.  And I’ve been [...]

strange horizons, fourth week of february.

Another fourth-week issue of Strange Horizons means no new fiction, but that means I get to pull some stuff from the archives for you, so hurray! February 2001!  Ten years ago!  Wow, I feel old, and even more old as I realize what we published that month. February 2001 marked Alan DeNiro‘s first appearance at [...]

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strange horizons, third week in february

Wow, this week got away from me.  Travel threw off my schedule, and then on my return I went straight into a paper-grading internet lockdown. This week at Strange Horizons, the fiction department presents “The Yew’s Embrace” by Francesca Forrest.  It’s a disturbing fairy-tale like piece about families and vengeance that’s already gotten some very [...]

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friday reads: a feast for crows

You guys.  I am sort of out of patience with these books, and yet I keep reading.  I’ve barely started A Feast for Crows, so I don’t have a lot to say about it.  I have rather a lot to say about the ending of A Storm of Swords, although none of it terribly coherent. [...]

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strange horizons, second week in february

If you only know Gavin Grant through his work with Lady Churchill’s and Small Beer Press, you might not have realized that, in addition to being the tallest Scotsman currently publishing indie SF, he’s a phenomenally talented writer.  We’ve been fortunate enough to publish some of his fiction at Strange Horizons before.  (In 2006, “We [...]

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strange horizons, first week of february.

I’ve been editing science fiction for, what, ten years?  And that’s just at Strange Horizons–if you count the two or three years I put in at Circlet Press, I’ve been reading short fiction semi-professionally for about a billion and a half years.  In that time, I have read multiple thousands of short stories.  When I [...]

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friday reads: a clash of kings

For someone who claims to not really be a fantasy reader, I’m sure reading (and talking about) a lot of it. I read the first two books in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series a few years ago, and even though I liked them a lot, I never made it to the [...]

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wheel of time: the disclaimers.

Let’s be clear about one thing: I’m not actually arguing that the Wheel of Time books are what I’d normally call good books.  They have very serious problems, not least of all the pacing.  (God, the prologue of book eleven actually made me cheer, because something happened.  The plot advanced more in the prologue of [...]

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strange horizons, fifth week in january.

The other new part of the fiction department: when there’s a fifth week of a month, we publish reprint fiction, a story that someone particularly loved and thought should have some more attention.  We’re at one of these fifth weeks, and this week’s reprint is “The Third Wish” by Joan Aiken (selected by our very [...]

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true confessions: the wheel of time.

So about a year and a half ago, Matt and I came up with the idea that we should find an audiobook to listen to together.  There were a lot of reasons–it would keep us occupied on long car trips, it would be entertainment that didn’t tie us to the television, that kind of thing.  While [...]

Tags: wheel of time