American War is the most timely and poignant novel I’ve read in years. Grim from the first chapter, this isn’t a novel that will make you cry, but it sure as hell will make you despair. Set in 2075, the America of this future has been torn apart by a second Civil War. Three Southern states have broken off from the Union in order to maintain the freedom to use fossil fuels, which have been banned by the Union due to the devastation they have wrought on the continent. […]
Glad I’m Not In Gilead
The odds are good that you’ve already read this book, so I don’t really need to tell you what it’s about. But on the off-chance that you haven’t even heard of it, let’s just say that it’s a page from a future nightmare, a dystopian society where a woman’s role is either a housekeeper, a wife, or a handmaid. Women in this world don’t have jobs outside the house, and have no money of their own. If the woman is the wife of a wealthy man, […]
I Believe the Zombie Children Are Our Future
Or, at the very least, they are the future in M.R. Carey’s book, The Girl With All the Gifts. The book is about Melanie, zombie child extraordinaire. She’s being held, along with several other (albeit less extraordinary) zombie children, at a research facility in England. At the facility, they attend classes, eat grubs and occasionally get dissected, all in the name of science. Dr. Caldwell does the dissecting, and Helen Justineau does the teaching. Below is a song I “wrote” about their adventures (please to […]
The Macaroni and Cheese of Fantasy Books
Peter David writes my very favorite Star Trek books. I discovered his work at some point in the ’90’s when I was still interested in attempting to read all the Star Trek novels related to The Next Generation. The lack of quality of most of the TNG ties-ins made it quite an effort, and then Peter David comes along. I don’t remember exactly which novel of his I read first, but I remember Imzadi being the point at which I decided to go from buying […]