Tim's Bits and Pieces

According to Lazarus Long love is what happens when you're not having sex. Having now read Time Enough for Love, apparently "love" primarily consists of talking about sex, and making-out with teenage girls.

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I was recently on holidays for a few weeks, and while I was away I finished off a couple of SF anthologies: The Mammoth Book of Best New SF #23 edited by Gardner Dozois [2009] (confusingly this is the same book as The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection), and Destinies Vol 1 No 2 edited by James Baen [1979]. A couple of months ago I also read L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XXIV edited by Algis Budrys [2008]. And I thought a comparison of the three collections might offer some interesting insight into the current SF marketplace.

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A review of A Throne of Bones by Vox Day. (Also available from Smashwords: A Throne of Bones by Vox Day)

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Jonathan Moeller has a few free ebooks that I read a while back, and rather than writing up separate reviews for them all, I'll just put them all in this one post. So, here goes, (in the order I read them):

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A review of Iron Kingdoms Excursions Season One: Volume Two by Larry Correia, William Shick, & Howard Tayler

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A review of Wes Parker: Monster Hunter by C.J. Pike

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A review of More Than Meets the Eye by Wendy Cooper.

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Baen Books has a large number of free ebooks available for download, which is cool. I quite like most of their sci-fi and fantasy books, so I strongly recommend checking it out. Also the rant on the front page about why they are doing it is worth reading for it's own sake.

I just realised that I'm not actually that big of a fan of Robert A. Heinlein. Sure I liked Starship Troopers, but I've read a few of his other books (The Cat Who Walks through Walls, Orphans of the Sky, and Revolt in 2100) and none of them of them where that great, they aren't bad, they just aren't that good for the reputation Heinlein has. (I think I might have read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as well, but I can't remember it very well)

I saw a book in a bookshop I was walking past Today called "The Meaning of Waking Dreams". Now I know this may surprise some of my readers but I actually agree with the author/s of this book. It's a little known fact that waking dreams are the Universe sending you a message. Often times the consequences of ignoring or (perhaps even worse) misinterpreting these messages can be disastrous. Where I must complain though is the idea that an amateur with a book, not matter how well written, interpreting their own waking dreams is a good idea. It takes considerable training and skill to successfully interpret a waking dream. For instance how many of us could recognize the subtle differences between the universe telling us to "lay off the drugs, you moron" and the similar, but distinct message that "you really shouldn't have licked that frog; seriously what where you thinking?"