Various and Sundry

I was on vacation last week and managed to post a few items to my other blog. I wrote about good advice from Nick Mamatas, the new series of Richard Stark comics from IDW, Books editor Oscar Villalon's departure from the San Francisco Chronicle and three new first novels.

Breaking Radio Silence

I haven't been in the mood to blog for quite a while. But that doesn't mean that I haven't been writing.

In July, I contributed to the Barnes & Noble Review for the first time, with a spotlight review of "Saturn's Children" by Charles Stross.

I'm a big fan of Stross, so I wanted to like this novel more than I did. Maybe I'm just not as fond of late-period Heinlein as I should be...

For The Chronicle, I reviewed three trade paperback originals in my last column: Victor Gischler's "Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse," "Dogs" by Nancy Kress and "Superpowers by David J. Schwartz. The Gischler is the standout among those three, but each has its merits.

And last week, the Sunday Chronicle published my stand-alone review of Arthur C. Clarke and Frederick Pohl's "The Last Theorem."

It's unclear exactly how much Clarke contributed to the book, but it's worth checking out.

Now I'm reading a trio of first novels for my August column, including "The Gone-Away World" by Nick Harkaway. And Neal Stephenson's 900-page "Anathem" taunts me from the bedroom shelf. I'm not making swift progress through it.