The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Science Fiction, Gatekeeping, And Why Awards Are Useless

— by Wombat-socho First, let me give a shoutout to Son of Silvercon‘s Guest of Honor, Maggie Hogarth, who has a new book dropping at the end of July, An Exile Aboard Ship. It’s the start of a new series set in her Peltedverse, which has a lot of cool aliens in it, and if […]

Gone To The Dogs

— by Wombat-socho O, the shame. O, the embarrassment. While compiling the last book post, I inadvertently omitted The Best Tweets From Actuary Problem Dog, originally recommended by In The Mailbox’s Favorite Actuary, Mary Pat (“Meep”) Campbell. While this may seem to be an extremely niche joke book, a lot of what Actuary Problem Dog […]

A Book Post For Hanukkah

— by Wombat-socho You know it’s been too long since the last book post when you have to go back and look at the archives to see when you did the last one and what you covered. I’ll try to do better next year, if I can pry myself away from the damn video games… […]

The Annual Admiral Of The Ocean Sea Appreciation Post

— by Wombat-socho Well, actually, Stacy did a damn fine job already talking about Almirante Colombo and why he still triggers the uneducated wokies among us, so I’ll confine myself to posting some pertinent memes by folks on the Intertubes, recommending some books, and mourning a couple of folks who are no longer with us. […]

Fantasy & Other Annoyances

— compiled by Wombat-socho Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam. As a general rule, I don’t care for fantasy. Far too much of it is derivative elf & dwarf crap, written by people trying to rip off Tolkien for a quick buck while having all the grounding in the other classics of your average […]

Annual Bruce Catton Appreciation Post

— compiled by Wombat-socho For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the […]

A MIDWEEK BOOK POST APPEARS!

— by Wombat-socho Usually I do these on the weekend, because the workdays are usually full of other things that need doing, but Hans Schantz is hosting a humongous book sale on behalf of writers who are actually on our side in the Culture War. So stop giving money to people who hate you and […]

The Doom That Came To Complex 34

— by Wombat-socho It seems I haven’t done any book posts since last fall, when I spent three posts trashing one of the worst lists of combat SF ever posted anywhere, so I’d better get cracking, because I have a lot to talk about.  Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam. One of the subgenres […]

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