Browsing at Barnes & Noble. Colin Wilson's "The Outsider" is in stock. Alastair Reynolds' new one, the conclusion to the "Revelation Space" trilogy, is out in hardback.





I bought a "collector's edition" of T.C. Boyle's eco-dystopian "A Friend of the Earth" for $4.00 and spent several minutes trying to figure out what was so "collectible" about it. There's a somewhat candid preface by the author in which he does his best to belittle genre fiction, intimating that "A Friend of the Earth" is somehow "different" than all that "other" science fiction.

Don't be too sure, T.C. Most of the time when a respected "literary" or mainstream author detours into SF the book is pretty obvious for what it is: a novelist's first crack at a genre he or she pretends to loathe. (Of course, there are exceptions; John Updike's "Toward the End of Time" is an example.)

The Moon is full and so bright it verges on the metallic. Over at Chapel Perilous, Bsti wonders why all the other natural satellites in the Solar System have cool names while our own moon is simply "The Moon." This is indeed puzzling. Why not "Luna"?

Books I really need to finish:

1.) American Gods (Gaiman)
2.) Futureland (Mosley)
3.) Across the Sea of Suns (Benford)
4.) Flesh and Machines (Brooks)