Currently Reading: Ender's Shadow

Hey, everybody.

First, enjoy the new format of the blog. I may switch back, or I may switch to something else. Either way, I suspect the change is temporary.

Second, I failed to read any short stories last week; I may yet read one this week. It was my intention to read "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" by Ernest Hemingway, but it just didn't grab my attention.

So I picked up a bunch of different books this weekend, and for whatever reason, Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card was what stuck. I read Ender's Game a couple years ago, and it was pretty good. The so-called "Military Sci-Fi" isn't my favorite sci-fi subgenre, although I have been known to partake in it: Ender's Game, Starship Troopers, Aliens (on film) and Battlestar Galactica (on tv). Old Man's War by John Scalzi is currently loaded on the Kindle waiting to be read.

The Ender's series has been turned into a comic book series by Marvel, although I haven't really indulged in it. (Aside: Marvel is supposed to do a series detailing the Formic Wars, which could be cool.) The series also hasn't yet been ruined by Hollywood, so I'm able to enjoy it (strictly) as the written word.

Updates to be posted to Goodreads, Twitter and the Blog as time allows. Enjoy your week everybody, and I'll probably be back with a new post on Wednesday.

The Electric Ant

Well, it is finally January, and I still can't decide what it is I want to read. I've been reading The Stand, and I'm on pace for January with this epic read. Since I finished How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe I've bounced around trying to decide what I want to invest my time in next. I've read parts of Galactic Pot Healer, Transition, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, but nothing seems to hold my interest. And time is running short, the busy season at work is almost upon us, so I don't have a lot of time to invest; ergo I guess it's time to implement my "one short story a week" strategy.

I received The Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick for Xmas, so I read "The Electric Ant."

Take out his spare ribs for $100.

Garson Poole is the protagonist; he just lost his hand in a hovercar accident. He wakes up in the hospital to find out that he can't be treated there, because he's not human at all: he's a robot. And hospitals are for people, not robots, so he moves on to a robot repair shop. Garson winds up being billed for his treatment at the hospital for the time up until they realized he was a robot; just a funny little detail I liked.

What happens when an android changes his programming, especially in regards to how he perceives his own reality? I won't go into detail in my review here; suffice it to say, I had been looking forward to reading this story for a long, long time, and it more than exceeded my expectations. PKD manages to push all of my favorite PKD buttons in a story just 10 pages long or so: robots who don't know they're robots; identity crisis; paranoia; altered reality; twist ending.

Highly recommended.

Check back at the Reader next week when I review another short story. I don't know which one yet, but I'm going to try to (a) read one per week; (b) never read stories in any two consecutive weeks by the same author; and (c) try not to repeat authors within six weeks of a story by the same author.

Now go read something for yourself today!
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Connie Willis

Another favorite author of mine is Connie Willis. Today is her birthday.

She writes mostly science fiction, although I have seen some straight-up historical fiction and a book of holiday stories to her credit. She doesn't shy away from big ideas and the style of her prose makes her works easy to read.

My favorite book by Willis is called Bellwether. It is a science fiction story in the sense that the protagonist - Dr. Sandra Foster - is a scientist who studies fads. Everyone who comes into contact with her seems to be a bit loopy, as she looks for solutions to her personal and professional problems. That's a long way from the laser beams and forehead aliens most people associate with sci fi. It has more in common with 30 Rock than Star Wars.

"Schwartzchild Radius," "The Last of the Winnebagos," "A Letter from the Clearies" and "And Come from Miles Around" are all pretty great. Her short story "At the Rialto" is the perfect blend of story (a PhD finds herself unable to get a room for an academic conference) and subject matter (the instability inherent in the rules of particle physics).

I've read a lot by Willis - mostly the short stories, and Bellwether. The Doomsday Book is what I'd like to read next, but most of her works are on the shelf waiting.

Happy Birthday!

Short Stories

The busy season is almost upon us at work. That means that I will be less likely to be reading novels (except The Stand, of course) between late January and the end of May.

So my strategy the last few years has been to read short stories during that time span. I had the idea a couple weeks ago to gather together all of my books of short stories into one place so I could see what I have to choose from for next year.

I thought I had 3 or 4 books of short stories. It turns out, I have about 20; this includes works by Ernest Hemingway, Ian Fleming, Raymond Chandler, Isaac Asimov, Connie Willis, William Gibson, Robert Heinlein, and Kim Stanley Robinson, as well as anthologies of time travel stories, post-apocalyptic stories, and artificial intelligence stories. Which is to say nothing of the individual short stories I may have accumulated over time.

I was going to stock up, but turns out, I already did.