Where has C.J. Cherry been all my life?

Where has C.J. Cherryh been all my life? An SFWA Grandmaster since 2016, she has been producing hard science fiction and space operas since 1976, yet — unless some of her short fiction has crossed my path — I am almost certain that none of her novels have until now.

I'm going to blame that reader's omission on the fact she has been published by DAW Books, which for decades was an outfit whose covers somehow read amateurish to me. With very few exceptions, nothing published by DAW ever weighted my shelves.

Pity that, if Cherryh's Foreigner is anything at all to go by.

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There are in this world good books, and there are bad books, but especially, there are mediocre books, novels that briefly entertain and which are then discarded by the reader and quickly forgotten. Nothing right or wrong with them, just disposable products — mind-candy, as some have put it.

And sometimes that is what a reader wants: a distraction, light entertainment to wyle away a couple of hours on a train or bus, when sleep is not to be had but one doesn't have the energy to imbibe something of substance.

If I were a more high-fallutin' reader, I suppose I would disdain mere "reads", but I admit it: I sometimes like to simply distract myself with words and story. What rankles, is when mediocrity is trumpeted as greatness, when light entertainment is likened to Art.

Which brings us to one of Neil Gaiman's first solo novel, one whose blurbs liken it variously to the works of George Lucas, Monty Python, John Milton(!), Douglas Adam, Doctor Who and, most eggregiously, Lewis Carrol's Alice In Wonderland. Does Neverwhere deserve such sometimes lofty comparisons? Read more ...

May 30, 2020 — Some gifts just keep on giving, and this omnibus hard-cover edition of The World of Pooh, which includes A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, is one I have returned to again and again.

I reviewed the book(s) back in 2010 — I see now I posted it on my 45th birthday —, and have re-read the books more than once in the intervening decade, so I can confidently state that I love Milne's masterpiece in my fifties as much as I did in my forties (and thirties, and twenties).

'Well, you know, I just — I was thinkin' that I'd just nip it in the bud. Before it gets worse. 'Cause they were talkin' in health class about how pregnancy can lead to ... an infant.'

Photo of Kim Stanley Robinson by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikipedia.

Sᴜɴᴅᴀʏ, Aᴜɢᴜsᴛ 9, 2020 — Kim Stanley Robinson became one of my favourite writers with his novel, Red Mars and its sequels. His work has been uneven since then, but not to the point where I have stopped paying attention when he releases a new novel.

Galileo's Dream was released in late 2009, and I read and reviewed it shortly after. This review was originally published on Rex on January 19, 2010.

I have recovered it thanks, once again, to The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Click here to read the full review.