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  • Fast Times at Fairmont High

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    Ack! Vernor Vinge has done it again! His Hugo award-winning novella Fast Times at Fairmont High is not merely an excellent story (what else would you expect from the Vingester?) but it throws out some wonderful ideas about the future of entertainment and the singularity. The quality of SF writing has increased drastically recently, in…

  • Sum of All Fears

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    Saw The Sum of All Fears(2002) tonight. It was pretty good – much better than the terrible novel, which I tried to read twice, without success. I admit I don’t like Clancy’s novels, but 1040 pages? You’ve got to be joking.

  • Princess Bride

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    Just finished reading The Princess Bride. What a wonderful book! Extremely funny, romantic, adventurous, dashing, with enough sorrow and cynicism to balance it out. I don’t think I’ve read a fantasy story like it anywhere else. It makes me wonder whether this type of story can be adapted for alternate reality games/mmoes. I suspect that…

  • Into the Woods

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    Saw a truly wonderful musical at Oxford called Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim. The first half is a medley of various fairy tale characters including Jack and Beanstalk, Little Red Ridinghood, Cinderella, brought all together by a quest by the baker and his wife. It’s a traditional musical first half with fun songs and…

  • The Years of Rice and Salt

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    Finished The Years of Rice and Salt. As usual, it’s up to Kim Stanley Robinson’s high standards. I’m not going to review the book here, as Salon has already got an excellent review. What I want to do is to talk about my impressions of the book. Firstly, it’s not for everyone, and it is…