Category Archives: Book Reviews

On Rereading Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More From 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop by Kate Wilhelm

My rereading this book is a result of my reaching out to the Clarion West community here in Seattle after moving back into the area.  Personnel have changed, of course, since I attended Clarion West over forty years ago in … Continue reading

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Book Review: Fault Line by Barry Eisler

Casting about for a good fiction book to take away the bad taste of the business self-help book I’d read that turned out to be like eating too much sour cotton candy at a fair, I perused my to-read stack … Continue reading

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Book Review: Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future by Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer, and Paul B Brown

There’s an old antacid commercial I used to come across as a kid sometimes – maybe they still run it but I never watch network TV anymore so I don’t know – where a guy burps, thumps his stomach with … Continue reading

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Book Review: Quest of the Three Worlds and Stardreamer by Cordwainer Smith

Cordwainer Smith is an anomaly in the science fiction field.  The closest analogy I can think of to his singular work and career is that of James Tiptree, Jr. Both writers came out of the intelligence community, adopted pseudonyms to … Continue reading

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Book Review: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

This book gives us a bird’s eye view of all of human history.  Really.  The writer starts way back at the beginning, hundreds of thousands of years ago, and works his way through hunting and gathering societies, tribes, chiefdoms, and … Continue reading

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On Rereading The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany

“The Einstein Intersection” is undoubtedly a strange book.  It posits a far future in which humans have been destroyed in some sort of apocalyptic event, and an alien race that has colonized the Earth is attempting to come to grips … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Best of Robert Silverberg

This is a 1976 publication I found in a used book store.  I picked it up because I hadn’t read any Silverberg for a long time, and he’s one of the best science fiction short story writers ever. His collection … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Unfinished Odyssey of Robert Kennedy by David Halberstam

I’ve been wanting to read this book for years, but I’ve never been able to find it at a price I could afford.  It’s the only Halberstam book I know of that’s out of print.  I’m not really sure why.  … Continue reading

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Dangerous Visions and Again Dangerous Visions Edited by Harlan Ellison: A Perspective

Out of the blue, “Dangerous Visions” and “Again Dangerous Visions” returned to me.  I had wanted to get my youngest son out of the house for a while on a Saturday, seeing that I spend so much time working at … Continue reading

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Book Review: Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller by Mary V. Dearborn

Although Henry Miller is notorious for the explicit sex in his novels, I was drawn to his work because of his literary exuberance, the celebration of his life despite his poverty and hard circumstances, and his use of his own … Continue reading

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