That Time I Almost Met Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The year was 2006. The city: San Francisco.

I had been lucky enough to get a conference paper abstract accepted by the American Literature Association, the subject being Theodore Dreiser’s collection of stories, A Gallery of Women (1929). It’s a remarkable group of portraits, written with Dreiser’s characteristic sympathy and curiosity.

And I’m not sure if I mentioned this but the conference was in SAN. FRAN. CIS. CO.(!!!!!!!!) A vibrant, energetic, diverse city, filled with bookstores and cafes and trolley cars. I was chomping at the bit to check it out.

Review: Robot Uprisings ed. Daniel H. Wilson and John Joseph Adams

Robot Uprisings ed. by Daniel H. Wilson and John Joseph Adams (Vintage, 2014, 496 pages)


Robot Uprisings had been floating in my peripheral vision for a couple of months before I finally picked it up, but man am I glad that I did. Filled with androids and Roombas, service bots and “minids,” this eclectic and wide-ranging anthology offers us many possible worlds in which humans and their mechanical creations fight, love, outsmart, and kill one another. And if that doesn’t entice you, then allow me to name a few of the contributors: Hugh Howey, Cory Doctorow, Daniel H. Wilson, Nnedi Okorafor, Robin Wasserman, Ernest Cline.

Review: Time Out of Mind: The Lives of Bob Dylan by Ian Bell

Time Out of Mind: The Lives of Bob Dylan (2014) by Ian Bell

[see my discussion of volume one: Once Upon A Time: The Lives of Bob Dylan (2013)]

Picking up where volume one left off, Time Out of Mind explores the (self-)creation that is Bob Dylan from the mid-1970s down to the present. It is a detailed, careful, fascinating chronicle of an artist's evolution through the decades, his years of struggle to produce a worthwhile album after the inspired rush of creativity in the '60s, and his ultimate vindication (beginning in the late '90s) through music that could only have been written by an older, wiser Dylan.

Books to Look For (October): Biography, Literary Fiction, & Mystery

Biography

Ada's Algorithm: How Lord Byron's Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age by James Essinger (Melville House, 272 pages, October 14)

The digital age could have started two centuries ago, had scientists and mathematicians recognized Ada Lovelace's groundbreaking and pioneering work. Here, Essinger chronicles her work with Charles Babbage (credited with inventing the first computer) and that time she wrote the first computer program. Ever. I KNOW. Sounds fascinating.

Steampunk Fiction and the Women Who Write It

Lately, I’ve been exploring my predilection for all things “steampunk.” What is it about books like Perdido Street Station, shows like Battlestar Gallactica and Revolution, and sculptures made out of recycled metal and archaic technology, that excite and inspire me? Why do I swoon every time I watch the “Time’s Arrow” ST:TNG episode in which Data, in his 19th-century getup, builds a 24th-century machine out of the materials at hand? I just LOVE that stuff, like I love those computers that look so very “Victorian” but happen to have a screen and an internet connection.

So I started reading around about the beginnings of literary steampunk and came across a whole bunch of guys but not very many women. So of course I asked my Riot colleagues and bookish twitter people who their favorite steampunk-writin’ women were, and they came back at me with a TON of names. So here are ten women whose steampunk fiction is burning up the book world. Enjoy, and prepare to see your TBR list grow by miles.

In Translation: September Fiction

 Guess what, I looked at your TBR pile/list/etc. and determined that it NEEDS. MORE. TRANSLATED. FICTION.

And so, because I like you, and I know that you’re always looking for interesting fiction, voila! some newly-translated novels coming out in September. Enjoy!

Random Recommendation Guest Post: Shade's Children by Garth Nix

This recommendation comes from Kristian Wilson. Check out her website and follow her on facebook and on twitter @kristianwriting.

Shade's Children (1997) by Garth Nix
 

Nix's novel is "a dark SF story, in the same vein as Ender's Game, but set in a world where no one is interested in---or capable of---preserving the juvenile characters' innocent delusions." An Australian writer, Nix specializes in children's and young adult fantasy novels, which include the Old Kingdom series, The Seventh Tower series, and The Keys to the Kingdom series.