Illuminatea

Recently, we decided to do something about a problem we've been noticing with our kids. While they're both avid readers, they both tend to re-read the same books -- tens of times serially if we'd let them. Alaric was not happy when we temporarily banned him from yet another end-to-end re-read of the Harry Potter series (by this point, he's easily ...

First, I would like it to be known that I am only doing this under protest. I don't usually participate in blog memes, because most of them are damned silly. However, I got tagged on this one by Paul in what looks like a fairly typical spree of spreading the love, so I'll go ahead and do it. So here's the meme, in Paul's words: ...

I'm still chuckling about the words that passed my wife's lips fifteen minutes ago: ''I try not to read books that encourage my homicidal tendencies.'' You see, I've finally gotten around to getting A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4) from the library and have just started in on it, after re-reading the first three volumes. ...

I had a pretty nice weekend than has gone a long way toward getting my attitude back close to being fit for human consumption. On Saturday, despite the now-standard insomnia and sleeping in late, we got out of town up into the mountains to a party at a friend's house. They've got a lovely place right out in the middle of nature, with a ...

Every now and then, I look up from the keyboard and wonder why the heck I'm blogging. I've been blogging for work for 14 months, and I still don't have any really good feel for how many readers I have. Some days, it feels like five or six. Well, this morning I'm feeling pretty good about my blogging. When I do a review of a book on this blog or ...

If anyone other than my family knows where the title of this post comes from, I'll be impressed. I have belonged to a certain online community for many years, the only one that I've joined that requires a subscription payment. While there have been occasional downsides, it has been a mostly positive experience and I have made a lot of what I ...

Charlie Stross goes posthuman. My favorite line is the crack about the temporal vortex and needing the combined efforts of Stephen Baxter, Vernor Vinge, and Greg Bear to free him, and not just because I've met Vernor Vinge in person (although he is my favorite science fiction writer and one heck of a nice guy.)

I love Saturdays, especially today. I got a decent amount of work done last night, including turning over two papers that came back yesterday for edits. Additionally, Robbie (my O’Reilly editor) got Chapter 7 edited and passed it back to me last night, so I’ve got some rewrites to do on that. But first, I need to finish up Once Upon a Time in ...