A Deepness in the Sky, the tragical history of Pham Nuwen
The singularity problem and non-problem
Random Acts of Senseless Violence : why isn't it a classic of the field?
From herring to marmalade : the perfect plot of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
"That's just scenery" : what do we mean by "mainstream"?
The distopic earths of Heinlein's juveniles
Happiness, meaning and significance : Karl Schroeder's Lady of Mazes
The weirdest book in the world
The poetry of deep time : Arthur C. Clark's Against the Fall of Night
Clarke reimagined in hot pink : Tanith Leed's Biting the Sun
Something rich and strange : Candas Jane Dorsey's Black Wine
To trace impunity : Greg Egan's Permutation City
Black and white and read a million times : Jerry Pournelle's Janissaries
College as magic garden : why Pamela Dean's Tam Lin is a book you'll either love or hate
Making the future work : Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang
Anathem : what does it gain from not being our world?
A happy ending depends on when you stop : Heavy Time, Hellburner and C.J. Cherryh's Alliance-Union universe
Knights who say "Fuck" : swearing in genre fiction
"Earth is one world" : C.J. Cherryh's Downbelow Station
"Space is wide and good friends are too few" : Cherryh's Merchanter novels
"A need to deal wounds" : rape of men in Cherryh's Union-Alliance novels
"Give me back the Berlin Wall" : Ken MacLeod's The Sky Road
What a pity she couldn't have single-handedly invented science fiction! George Eliot's Middlemarch
The beauty of lists : Angelica Gorodischer's Kalpa Imperial
Like pop rocks for the brain : Samuel R. Delany's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand
Between two worlds : S.P. Somtow's Jasmine Nights
Lots of reasons to love these : Daniel Abraham's Long Price books
Maori fantasy : Keri Hulme's The Bone People
Better to have loved and lost? Series that go downhill
More questions than answers : Robert A. Henlein's The Stone Pillow
Weeping for her enemies : Lois McMaster Bujold's Shards of Honor
Forward momentum : Lois McMaster Bujold's The Warrior's Apprentice
Quest for ovaries : Lois McMaster Bujold's Ethan of Athos
Why he must not fail : Lois McMaster Bujold's Borders of Infinity
What have you done with your baby brother? Lois McMaster Bujold's Brothers in Arms
Hard on his superiors : Lois McMaster Bujold's The Vor Game
One birth, one death, and all the acts of pain and will between : Lois McMater Bujold's Barrayar
All true wealth is biological : Lois McMaster Bujold's Mirros Dance
Luck is something you make for yourself : Lois McMaster Bujold's Cetaganda
This is my old identity, actually : Lois McMaster Bujold's Memory
But I'm Vor : Lois McMaster Bujold's Komarr
She's getting away! Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign
Just my job : Lois McMater Bujold's Diplomatic Immunity
Every day is a gift : Lois McMaster Bujold's "Winterfair Gifts"
Choose again, and change : Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga
So, what sort of series do you like?
Time travel and slavery : Octavia Butler's Kindred
America the Beautiful : Terry Bisson's Fire on the Mountain
Scintillations of a sensory syrynx : Samuel Delany's Nova
You may not know it, but you want to read this : Francis Spufford's Backroom Boys : the Secret Return of the British Boffin
Faster than light at any speed
Gender and glaciers : Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness
Licensed to see weasels and jade earrings : the short stories of Lord Dunsany
The net of a million lies : Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep
The worst book I love : Robert A. Heinlein's Friday
India's superheroes : Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children
A funny book with a lot of death in it : Iain Banks's The Crow Road
More dimensions than you'd expect : Samuel Delany's Babel-17
Bad, but good : David Feintuch's Midshipman's Hope
Subtly twisted history : John M. Ford's The Dragon Waiting
A very long poem : Alan Garner's Red Shift
Beautiful, poetic and experimental : Roger Zelazny's Doorways in the Sand
Waking the dragon : George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire
Who reads cosy catastrophes?
Stalinism vs champagne at the opera : Constantine Fitzgibbon's When the Kissing Had to Stop
The future of the Commonwealth : Nevil Shute's In the Wet
Twists of the God game : John Fowles's The Magus
Playing the angles on a world : Steven Brust's Dragaera
Jhereg feeds on others' kills : Steven Brust's Jhereg
Yendi coils and strikes unseen : Steven Brust's Yendi
A coachman's tale : Steven Brust's Brokedown Palace
Frightened teckla hides in grass : Steven Brust's Teckla
How can you tell? Steven Brust's Taltos
Phoenix rise from ashes grey : Steven Brust's Phoenix
I have been asking fo nothing else for an hour : Steven Brust's The Phoenix Guards
Athyra rules minds' interplay : Steven Brust's Athyra
What, is there more? Steven Brust's Five Hundred Years After
Orca circles, hard and lean : Steven Brust's Orca
Haughty dragon yearns to slay : Steven Brust's Dragon
Issola strikes from courtly bow : Steven Brust's Issola
The time about which I have the honor to write : Steven Brust's The Viscount of Adrilankha
Dzur stalks and blends with night : Steven Brust's Dzur
Jhegaala shifts as moments pass : Steven Brust's Jhegaala
Quiet iorich won't forget : Steven Brust's Iorich
Quakers in space : Molly Gloss's The Dazzle of Day
Locked in our separate skulls : Raphael Carter's The Fortunate Fall
Saving both worlds : Katherine Blake (Dorothy Heydt)'s The Interior Life
Yearning for the unattainable : James Tiptree Jr.'s short stories
Incredibly readable : Robert A. Heinlein's The Door in Summer
Nasty, but brilliant : John Barnes's Kaleidoscope Century
Growing up in a space dystopia : John Barnes's Orbital Resonance
The joy of an unfinished series
Fantasy and the need to remake our origin stories
The mind, the heart, sex, class, feminism, true love, intrigue, not your everyday ho-hum detective story : Dorothy Sayers's Gaudy Night
Three short Hainish novels : Ursula K. Le Guin's Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile and City of Illusions
On reflection, not very dangerous : Harlan Ellison's The Last Dangerous Visions
Why do I re-read things I don't like?
Yakking about who's civilised and who's not : H. Beam Piper's Space Viking
Bellona, Destroyer of Cities, Jay Schreib's play of Samuel Delany's Dhalgren
Not much changes on the street, only the faces : George Alec Effinger's When Gravity Fails
History inside out : Howard Waldrop's Them Bones
I'd love this book if I didn't loathe the protagonist : Harry Turtledove and Judith Tarr's Household Gods
Screwball-comedy time travel : John Kessel's Corrupting Dr. Nice
Academic time travel : Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog
The society of time : John Brunner's Times Without Number
Five short stories with useless time travel
Time control : Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity
Texan ghost fantasy : Sean Stewart's Perfect Circle
The language of stones : Terri Windling's The Wood Wife
A great castle made of sea : why hasn't Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell been more influential?
Gulp or sip : how do you read?
Quincentennial : Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth
A merrier world : J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit
Monuments from the future : Robert Charles Wilson's The Chronoliths
Trains on the moon : John M. Ford's Growing Up Weightless
Overlodading the sense : Samuel Delany's Nova
Aliens and Jesuits : James Blish's A Case of Conscience
Swiftly goes the swordplay : Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword
The work of disenchantment never ends : Kim Stanley Robinson's Icehenge
Literary criticism vs talking about books.
