No, Thomas Pynchon is not dead. He’s actually still actively writing in his eighties, or at least was doing so recently. Somehow, though, he has been reincarnated in the person of Robin Sloan. Read Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, and you’ll encounter Pynchon’s antic...
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Ross Thomas (1926-95) wrote twenty-five novels between 1966 and 1994, five of them under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck. Thus, he turned to writing fiction only at the age of forty after a career in journalism, public relations, and politics both in the United States and overseas....
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I rarely read political memoirs, because so often they’re one-sidedly partisan and self-serving. They tend to lack any sense of balance. For example, though I didn’t read Hillary Clinton’s book about the 2016 election, I saw enough reviews to know that its primary purpose was to...
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The early years of the twentieth century were a time of extraordinary upheaval. In China, first the Boxer Rebellion, then the 1911 Chinese Revolution. In South Africa, the Second Boer War (1899-02) and, across the globe, the Philippine-American War (1899-02) that came on the heels of the...
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The setting of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga is utterly fantastic, and the circumstances not to be believed. This is, after all, space opera, but it isn’t your grandfather’s space opera. Character development shines here. Of course, the denizens of this far-future...
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Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review,
with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review,
with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.