Review: Redshirts

Redshirts by John Scalzi

So Star Trek Into Darkness broke my heart and not in the fun way. (The fun way involves my usual Sunday night weepings, which I believe the rest of the world calls Once Upon a Time.) With my hold on Star Trek: The Motion Picture (yes, I know it’s painfully slow, but completionism compels me!) remaining in a, well, holding pattern, I knew I had to do something to drum up my waning enthusiasm for the franchise if Project “Watch All Of Star Trek” was ever going to get completed. Luckily, Redshirts was available right off the shelf at my local library when I finally stepped in.

The Literary Horizon: Poison Study

Poison Study by Maria V. Synder

Review: Dragonflight

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

When Anne McCaffrey passed away in 2011, I was saddened, as many people in the sf community were. I was also seized by a sudden urge to go back and read The Dragonriders of Pern. Well, go back… I distinctly remember reading a Pern novel featuring a tall, dark villainess in middle school, but, looking back, I definitely could have just imagined that. In any case, 2011 was when I determined to read Dragonflight and get a toehold back in the series, to see if I wanted to continue or not. Naturally, it took me two years to finally sit down with it. Yeesh.

The Literary Horizon: The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break

The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break by Steven Sherill

Review: The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

For some insane reason, I thought that my final finals season at Agnes meant that I would have tons of time for reading. This was not only a lie, but a damned lie. I checked out every book I could only get at my college library and a handful of books from the local library. Fines piled up on the school books and the local books went home, unread, save for one: The Man in the High Castle. I’d only known Philip K. Dick by reputation, and I had confused The Man in the High Castle, the “Nazis won World War II” story, with another “Nazis won World War II” alternate history short story that was much more dour and depressing. Well, not that this isn’t…

Reading by Ear: Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

For a very long time, I hated Kurt Vonnegut. More specifically, I hated Slaughterhouse-Five. It was assigned to me during my first or second year of high school, so I was still doing debate and still in the throes of what I like to call “The Wombat Years”—a bad period spanning most of my adolescence that featured bangs, rabid femmephobia, and constant, quiet anger. That last one had a hair trigger, and Vonnegut tripped it by, in my memory, calling Billy’s daughter “a bitch”. (This may or may not actually happen in the book.) I finished the book, since it was for school, but I scowled more than usual all the way. I am no longer a wombat, but that loathing remained. I did know I’d have to revisit this eventually for Reading by Ear—I just didn’t read that much as a kid, y’all!—but I was expecting the worst. And all I’ve got to say is praise and hallejulah, the Wombat Years are behind us.

The Literary Horizon: Daisy Buchanan’s Daughter

Daisy Buchanan’s Daughter by Tom Carson

Review: Vessel

Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst

I’d never heard of Sarah Beth Durst before Michael Ann Dobbs reviewed her latest novel, Vessel, for io9. While I do end up reading a lot of young adult fiction, I don’t especially pay attention to that market, electing instead to float around speculative fiction spaces and fellow omnivorous book bloggers online, so something like Drink Slay Love was way off my radar. But Dobbs’ review made me immediately add it to the spreadsheet—not so much because of glowing praise, but because of that premise. Somewhere in time, child Clare is throwing a tantrum and claiming that Durst stole her idea (from an awful fantasy manuscript squirreled away on a long-dead computer? Shut up, child Clare). I, as an adult and actual person, merely appreciate what Durst did with a concept I’ve always found intriguing.

Review: Herland

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is one of those texts most American kids encounter in high school, but, as a literary critic in training at a women’s college, it’s popped up as the ideal candidate to practice feminist theory on in the class that teaches you about the major schools of literary theory. It’s also popped up in one of my history classes. So Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a very familiar name to me, but only because of that one short story. But her bibliography is much deeper than that, and includes a utopian trilogy of which Herland is the middle installment, flanked by Moving the Mountain and With Her In Ourland. I’ve tried reading Herland once before, as a kid discovering Project Gutenberg in high school, but I thought it was time to give it another shot.

The Literary Horizon: The Lace Reader

The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry