• more about #bookawards2009 more comments →
    Annalee Newitz: You can definitely order the book now - I just wanted to put in a plug for Pyr, since they do a lot of great books! more »
    steampoweredboy: He is a simply godawful writer. Clunky, leaden prose that feels more like an outline than a story. His characters aren't relatable, mainly SF hipster ... more »
    Grey_Area: Oh, and Charlie, for the inclusion of that "classic" 80s video... DAMN YOU, DAMN YOU TO HELL! more »
    Grey_Area: I liked Little Brother more for it's message than the admittedly clunky writing. Oh yeah, preachy as all get out, but the idea that we as private ci... more »
    Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: 1. Do NOT pay money for this; read it for free first (that's what it's worth, barely). 2. I still can't believe THIS was nominated for a Nebula and An... more »
    greenland: I thought the plot to Little Brother was absolutely brilliant, actually. Just reading your quick summary of it makes me want to read it again. But I w... more »
    Rasselas: Must... restrain... anti-Doctorow... bias... He... can't be... blamed... for his... tedious consumerism... lumpen prose... and... grasping, adolescent... more »
    Pope John Peeps II: "Through his rabble-rousing, Marcus meets the defiant Ange, who's just as radical and brilliant as he is, and they bond over spicy food, loud music, h... more »
    alphanumeric1971: "and gradually grows into far-reaching civil disobedience, and a massive network of young people communicating via hacked xBoxes..." Just quietly shak... more »
    TheHacker: Personally, I think the "Flawed" in the article's title is misplaced, House of Suns certainly is not perfect, but I would not call it flawed. It build... more »
    Mr. Praline: I love the Discworld series because there's such variation within them -- if you want a thoughtful and serious novel, read Small Gods and Reaper Man; ... more »
    termitehead: I could never get into Pratchett books. I tried twice and got maybe 50 or 60 pages in before I just had to put them down. more »
    PipeRifle: You've got an image up there for the audiobook, and I recommend it to any non-readers out there. Stephen Briggs does an amazing job bringing Pratchett... more »
    LittleDragon: Beware the Pratchett. He is worse then cocaine. Once you start you can't stop. My mother forgot to eat for two days while reading Making Money. This m... more »
    Grey_Area: I really like Reynolds even though his pacing can be a tad uneven, oh what the hell, downright confusing. His characters also strike me as rather cold... more »
  • #bookreview

    A Scanner Darkly Meets Brazil, Creating A Fascinating Mess

    I'm surprised Martin Martin's On The Other Side got shortlisted for a Clarke Award. To be sure, it brings a unique narrative voice to the dystopian future canon. But it's also derivative and muddled. Spoilers! More »
  • #bookreview

    Geoengineers vs. The Mafia State in "The Quiet War"

    Eco-political, frantic, and undeniably epic, Paul McAuley's latest novel The Quiet War was nominated for a Clarke this year. It's time to check out this hard science tale of gene wizards and posthuman separatists. More »
  • #bookreview

    Doctorow's Little Brother Shows The Genesis Of Dystopia

    Young-adult authors have conquered science fiction with a mixture of angst, romance, and the discovery that adults are wrong. But Cory Doctorow's Hugo/Nebula-nominated Little Brother puts a geeky, subversive spin on that formula. Spoilers! More »
  • #bookreview

    Terry Pratchett vs. the Global Economic Crisis

    Making Money, Terry Pratchett's Nebula-nominated, thirty-somethingth novel in Discworld series, could be a subtitled, "a comic fantasy on contemporary themes," ie the large-scale consensual fraud that is a banking system. More »
  • #bookreview

    House Of Suns Is A Flawed Far-Future Thrill Ride

    Alastair Reynolds' House Of Suns, shortlisted for the Clarke Award, is a novel of ideas, with all that implies. The space-opera epic throws a dizzying blizzard of concepts at the reader, sacrificing character-development. Spoilers below. More »
  • #bookreview

    The Woman Who Saves Humanity From Itself in "The Margarets"

    In Sheri S. Tepper's The Margarets, nominated for the Clarke, a woman's identity is shattered into seven parts, each going on interplanetary missions to save humanity. This is magical space opera mixed with hardcore eco-politics. More »
  • #bookreview

    Superpowers Is A CW Show On Paper

    With his first novel, David J. Schwartz attempts to imagine ordinary people, in a realistic setting, who gain Superpowers. It's one of the finalists for the Nebula Award. More »
  • #bookreview

    In "Zoë's Tale," It's Hard to Be a Teenage Messiah

    Zoë's Tale, the last book in the Old Man's War sequence by John Scalzi, has just been nominated a Hugo for best novel. It deals with the harrowing complications of interstellar politics and teenage girls. More »
  • #anathem

    Neal Stephenson's Tale of Two Planets

    Neal Stephenson's new novel Anathem comes out next week, and there's something very timely about his tale of aliens on a parallel Earth whose inhabitants are locked into an occasionally-catastrophic conflict between scientific and religious institutions. The planet Arbre, which is very much like Earth in some ways, differs from our world one major respect. Its religious and scientific institutions are essentially reversed. Monks called the avout live ascetic lives studying science in gracious, ancient "maths," while the so called "saecular" world is populated with Deolators (god-worshipers) who are obsessed with religion and technology. Stephenson's world-building skills, honed by the exacting work he did on his recent Baroque Cycle trilogy, are at their best here. Anathem is that rarest of things: A stately novel of ideas packed with cool tech, terrific fight scenes, aliens, and even a little ESP. More »
  • #saturnschildren

    A Sexbot on the Run in a Posthuman Solar System