realthog

Spotted as an exhibit in the new British Library exhibition about science fiction: Earthdoom, by David Langford and John Grant.

The exhibition's all, like, me an' Dave an' that H.G. Wossname . . .

Incidentally, the book is (over)due to be re-released by Dark Quest Books. I'd say run and place your orders, but I see it's not yet listed on the website.

Current Music: Popov: Symphony #2

. . . and very handsomely, too, by David Hebblethwaite (

thisplacehere). He's treated it in a joint review with China Mieville's The City & The City; his longish essay on China's book comprises one of the best bits of book reviewing I've seen in quite a while -- first-rate stuff, so you should follow the link even if, incomprehensible though this might seem, you don't want to read Hebblethwaite saying nice things about moi.

Besides, you can read some of the nicest of them here! (How considerate of me, you may be thinking, to offer this handy service.)

There’s no need to be familiar with McBain’s work, though. For one thing, the style of prose Grant uses here is a joy to read; rapid-fire, with tongue nicely in cheek [. . .]

The City in These Pages swings from humorous police procedural to grand cosmic speculation — as I kind of expected it would. But, just when you think you’ve got it pinned down, it wriggles free of your grasp and does something else. Even now, having read it, I can’t decide on a definitive interpretation of what happens. The novella offers many ideas to fire the imagination, of which I’m prepared to reveal one: you know all those brief period of life that you can’t recall in detail — boring journeys to work, and so on? What if those periods of time ‘escaped’ and someone else could live in them? Grant’s skill in juggling ideas like this, and all the other elements of his story, makes for a remarkable novella.

Current Music: Moby: Wait for Me

There's another long and very favourable review -- a near-rave, I'd say -- of Ellen Datlow's (

ellen_datlow's) anthology Inferno, this one posted by

csecooney. The best bits:

On most of my train rides I end up staring out the window, hoping to cultivate what my father calls, "a fertile boredom," that will eventually chafe me into a restless act of creation. But some days, I'm in a fever of productivity. And some short stories, I find, rather than making me want to kick something in unfulfilled frustration, can instead create perfect sinkholes in reality, sucking you down into infinitesimal and terrible worlds that last the length of a nightmare.

So with Datlow's INFERNO. [. . .]

LIVES was just... lovely. Cold, sick and lovely.

If you don't have time to read the first two quoted paras above, just read the last one.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

Entries tagged with insufferability quotient now exponential

the company I keep

The City in These Pages reviewed . . .

Datlow's Inferno -- yes, it's another review

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March 2013

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