When I say that space has an image problem, I mean that the common conceptions of space are distorted. The typical person not only doesn't understand space, they don't understand what we do in space. That matters, because ordinary people interact with space technology on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. I don't just mean people like me, who work in the space industry. If you own a cell phone, or use a credit card, you are almost certainly interacting with space technology when you use those devices.
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The Stand Review
I don't read a lot of Stephen King, not because I don't like his writing, but because I'm not a big fan of horror. I actually very much enjoyed one of his fantasy novels, Eye of the Dragon. My own horror writing tends to not remain in the genre for long, as you may recall from reading Zombies, and I don't especially enjoy reading it from others. To me, reading is usually about escaping to a better world of the imagination, not a darker one. However, a friend recommended this book to me, as it was rather topical, and so I figured I would give it a read.
Too Many Ads?
I have recently learned that to other readers, there are significantly more advertisements, and that they are taking away from the reading experience. I would still like to be able to monetize my story-telling using low-impact advertisements, so I will be spending some time in the coming weeks attempting to clean up the site and figure out why there are advertisements showing up on places I didn’t explicitly put them. Hopefully, I will be able to soon provide a cleaner experience for all of you readers, with the focus being far more on the stories being told, and less on the distracting advertisements.
The Lies of Locke Lamora Review
There's a lot of really good new fantasy on the market right now, but some of it can start to seem derivative, especially if you read a lot of fantasy. It's refreshing, therefore, to come across something new that is also original, and that was the case with The Lies of Locke Lamora, at least to an extent. It was definitely one of the more enjoyable and well-written fantasy books I've read in awhile.
Science In Defense of Liberty
This is a website for stories. I make a concerted effort to keep it a writing website, and I work very hard to refrain from using it as a platform to talk about things that don't relate to writing, whether those topics are controversial or not. I avoid talking about current events, politics, or even my own "real" job, because I don't think that it's appropriate to use this platform for something other than what I built it to do: share stories. I don't write stories to have deep messages, hidden meanings, or social commentaries, although some people have taken such meanings from my tales. I write to entertain, to tell stories that I would myself enjoy reading, so I assume that is mainly why readers come here, too.
Futility or Utility?
I have a lot of interests, especially when it comes to learning, which is a large part of why I try to read so broadly. One of those interests that is especially conducive to indulging through books is philosophy. Although I don’t have any philosophy book reviews on the site yet (maybe someday I’ll make … Continue reading Futility or Utility?
Ringworld Review
I love classic, hard science fiction (we've talked about the difference between hard and soft science fiction before). Verne, Wells, Asimov: I've read most of what they wrote. These stories, exploring scientifically rigorous possibilities and ideas, hold a unique place in the huge volume of work classified as science fiction. To use the MICE quotient, these are idea stories, through and through. I'd heard about Ringworld in a few different places, and decided that this was something I needed to read.
Blood Magic Progress
Just last week, we posted the fourth episode of Blood Magic. If you haven’t read it yet, you can find it here, and if you’re not familiar with the series, you should probably start back at the beginning. However, I don’t want to talk about episode 4. I’d really like to talk about episode 5, and where the series is going. As you may recall, the concept for this is one short story released at the end of each month, making for a twelve episode season over the course of one year. That means we’re quickly approaching the halfway mark of the first season (there are currently three seasons outlined).
A Splendid Exchange Review
Or, as I wanted to title this post: A Splendid Review. Unfortunately, I wouldn't go so far as to call this a splendid book. You might be starting to think that I'm just biased against nonfiction, considering that I think the majority of the nonfiction books I've reviewed on the site have all been described as something along the lines of "mediocre," but I promise there are some that I would call excellent. Chernow's biographies of Washington and Hamilton, for instance, or another splendid biography on Lincoln, or several books on theoretical astrophysics...unfortunately, I read those before I started doing book reviews on the site, and it just so happens that the nonfiction books that I've read since I started have been somewhat disappointing.
Word Windows
I don’t remember if this was a comparison I developed, or if I read it somewhere and expanded upon it, but I’ve taken to using windows to explain different styles of writing to others. What I do remember is that it's based on Brandon Sanderson describing his prose as "transparent." This made perfect sense to me, but when I mentioned it to others, they were confused by the idea, and ever since I've been trying to come up with a better way of explaining this metaphor. In other words, I hope that this post is going to make sense to you.
IGC Publishing 