Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 3,175 entries, all of them here in full.
January 20, 2009 · 219 words
Man of the Year
Can I just pause for a moment and express my relief that we now have a president who speaks my language? By which I mean English. I was not an early Obama supporter (in my hopeless, quixotic way, I liked Bill Richardson, whose campaign has now ended in a grand jury investigation), but my modest […]
Read entry →January 20, 2009 · 152 words
Newly Reviewed
This Is Not a Game has been awarded a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly. Williams (The Rift) weaves intriguing questions about games, gamers and their relationships with real life into this well-paced near-future thriller. Game designer Dagmar specializes in creating “alternate reality” games that muddle the line be
Read entry →January 20, 2009 · 1,217 words
Writer Geeks
So here’s my latest literary complaint.I’ve just finished a book that was written by, let’s face it, a geek. And the geekness was, alas, there for all to see.And let me state loudly and clearly that I have nothing against geeks. Geeks know cool stuff— which is sort of the definition of a geek, someone […]
Read entry →January 16, 2009 · 819 words
Reviews Too Late: Generation Kill
On the recommendation of Ian and others here, I checked out the HBO series Generation Kill, which then inspired me to read the book by Evan Wright, which I was enjoying until I lost my copy before I could finish it. (If you’ve got the book, please return it. The library wants it back. Thank […]
Read entry →January 11, 2009 · 645 words
Reviews Too Late: Sukiyaki Western Django
So what do we call this one? Soba Western, maybe? The only thing I know for sure is that Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest gets another workout. The gore-soaked Red Harvest was first adapted for the screen in Roadhouse Nights (1930), apparently a seriocomic version starring Charles Ruggles. Then Kurosawa stole Hammett’s p
Read entry →January 9, 2009 · 601 words
Capsule Reviews
Brief takes on some media I watched over the holidays.Tropic Thunder: Not only very funny, particularly if you know anything about Hollywood, but the best vehicle for Tom Cruise in ages.Note: the movie got condemned by the politically correct for use of the word “retard.” If this offends you, be aware that the word “re
Read entry →January 8, 2009 · 57 words
I Read
Balticon has released a podcast of my reading from Implied Spaces. There’s some advertising and other stuff at the beginning, but at least you have the pleasure of hearing that this is “One of the most riveting stories we’ve ever presented here . . . “I fear I’m too modest to disagree with this assessment.
Read entry →January 8, 2009 · 51 words
Once More Into the Breach
I’ve begun work on Deep State, the next Dagmar book. Of course since you haven’t read This Is Not a Game, you don’t know who Dagmar is, and therefore the announcement will mean a lot less to you than it does to me.But nevertheless. The book is begun.
Read entry →January 6, 2009 · 1,296 words
Reviews Too Late: Lain
Serial Experiments: Lain (1998) is a kind of philosophical novel lightly disguised as a shojo anime. The frame story suggests it might be aimed at 13-year-olds, but the subject matter is— not more grown-up exactly, but one that deals primarily with existential issues. I’m not sure what an actual 13-year-old would
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