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“For the Moomins’ 65th anniversary next year, reissued and repackaged novels and comics are planned, as are brand-new pre-k board, lift-the-flap, picture and coloring books.” Eek, so exciting! I love everything Moomin, seriously.
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“Are we entering a world where book reviews (not to mention reviewers) are an endangered species? Are authors at risk of losing exposure to general readers? What’s ahead for SF and fantasy, in particular? To look at these questions, Suvudu has brought together five science fiction & fantasy book reviewers from across the USA for a Q&A on this important topic.” (via Tor.com)
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“A globe-spanning U.N. digital library seeking to display and explain the wealth of all human cultures has gone into operation on the Internet, serving up mankind’s accumulated knowledge in seven languages for students around the world.” Awesome! (via HarperLibrary.typepad.com)
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“No one wants to have writers giving empty praise to their cronies, and that’s why for many years in the United States, book critics adhered to a policy of not reviewing books written by their friends, relatives, and colleagues.”
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“In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Steven Johnson weighed in on the digitalization of the book publishing industry. In the article, Johnson made an interesting point about a potential positive benefit of this phenomenon – - the growth of community discussion regarding literature”
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“Heads of some of Britain’s largest and most powerful publishing houses entered into a heated hour-long discussion, all of them of the mind that e-books can’t be ignored, but differing in their ways of dealing with the pitfalls of e-books, namely piracy and pricing.” So, the same-old crap, then.
Apr 232009
Apr 232009
Late again! At this point I suppose you should just expect it, heh.
Thursday Tea is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly. To play along, all you need is some tea, a book, and the will to answer some very simple questions: what tea are you drinking (and do you like it)? What book are you reading (and do you like it)? Tell us a little about your tea and your book, and whether or not the two go together.
The tea: My very favorite cold Starbucks beverage is their shaken iced tea (and lemonades). I particularly like their passion fruit tea with melon syrup– it’s fruity and sweet without being overpowering, and I can polish off a venti (large, for those uninitiated) in about 10 minutes. The melon syrup gives it a little different flavor than the regular syrup does, makes it a little fruitier. DELICIOUS.
The book: I just finished this, actually, but I was reading it for around three days so I’m using it for this post.
Interstellar Patrol is a collection of short stories based around the Federation of Humanity world written by Christopher Anvil. It’s free from WebScription.net and is utterly fabulous. It’s sci-fi but not hardcore, and there’s subtle humor strewn throughout. Here’s a summary from WebScription:
The starship crew was stuck on a planet where the well-meaning schemes of ivory tower social engineers had created a nightmare of battling gangs. So they pretended to be the “Royal Legions” from a distant star kingdom in hot pursuit of an unspeakably evil and nearly all-powerful villain who was hiding somewhere on the planet.
Things went even better than they had hoped, and the planet was rapidly becoming civilized . . . and then the real Royal Flagship showed up. They thought they were doomed, but instead the new arrivals (who also weren’t quite what they claimed to be) thought the crew had shown just the sort of initiative and ingenuity that the Interstellar Patrol was looking for. So they were inducted into the Patrol.
And that was just the beginning. . . .
Do they go together? Um. Not really. But then, the deliciousness of the tea and the awesomeness of the book worked together to make my afternoon better!
What are you drinking/reading this Thursday? Leave a comment with a link to your post!
Doc Sidhe by Aaron Allston
Publication: Baen Books (April 2001), ebook / ISBN 0671876627 (pbook)
Genre: Fantasy, Action
Rating: 
Find free ebook @ WebScription
First sentence: The Smile mocked him.
When I think of 1990′s fantasy, I think of Clive Barker, Power Rangers, and Harry Potter. Doc Sidhe fits nicely into that mold, so I was well pleased.
Summary from AaronAllston.com:
A failed athlete discovers that the world of Faerie really does exist… but today, it’s a rip-roaring pulp-adventure setting with elves, gangsters, submachine guns, weird science and monsters.
Doc Sidhe starts off rather rocky, with one of those present event-flashback shift things I can’t stand. I know why it’s done, but it can be overdone, y’know? Anyway, it pretty quickly past that little bump and from then on it was smooth sailing. I love alternate worlds/histories, and there’s plenty of fascinating differences between the “grim” (human) and the “” (faerie) worlds to learn about. The characters, for the most part, are varied and have layers and are fun to read about, and the plot isn’t too bad, either. The writing is pretty good, though I remember a few snaggles early on in regards to actions taken during a fight, and the ending is supremely happy, which I always love.
There are a few things I didn’t like, mostly the cliched parts. Humans as bad and dirty and violent while elves are earth-loving and super awesome? Yeah, it’s been done. It gets annoying to read that over and over again in so many books, and it would have been more interesting to read something different for once. However, Mr. Allston made up for that slip by saying that all the crappy stuff happened to humans first, because their world could handle it. The faerie world would apparently swoon like a Victorian heroine! I really appreciated that addition to the story.
And the OMG TWIST near the end? Yeah, I totally saw that 20 pages before anyone else, and it wasn’t so much a shock to me. Ha! And also it was, again, cliched. I suppose it’s hard not to be cliched in the fantasy genre, especially in a pulp-ish book.
Doc Sidhe is a fun pulp-ish book, though, and even the cliches can’t keep me from enjoying. I had fun reading it, and it was a quick, easy sort of read at that. It’s not perfect, and it’s no Emma Bull book, but I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who likes action-adventure/alternate world fantasy books– especially since you can get it for free! It’s got a sequel, too, Sidhe-Devil.
What 1990′s fantasy book/movie do you like best?
Other reviews: The Lensman’s Children
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