Review: Six-Gun Snow White

Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente

At the store, we have, by my estimate, roughly a million copies of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. There is only so much room on the shelves themselves, so I’m constantly shelving, reshelving, and rearranging to not only make room for those copies, but keep them in stock. (It’s selling quite well!) Thus, in the course of my duties as bookseller, I found myself reading a blurb on one of the series’ covers that declared Catherynne M. Valente the next Ray Bradbury. That’s high praise, I thought to myself. And then I thought: Oh, I’ve missed the bus again!

Review: The Lifecycle of Software Objects

The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang

The Lifecycle of Software Objects came to my attention during last year’s Hugo Awards, when it won the Hugo Award for Best Novella. As I’ve mentioned, I rarely even dip into short stories—novellas are another thing entirely. As a fan, I’m quite familiar with the length (I feel like novella is a popular length for fanfiction), but my only exposure to them in print has been Love in a Fallen City. It was my first exposure Ted Chiang, whose work I’d never heard of. But the buzz for The Lifecycle of Software Objects was good, and when I found out it had been released in hardback at my local library, I immediately declared it eligible for review on its own.

Review: Plastic Jesus

Plastic Jesus by Poppy Z. Brite

Whenever I’m sick or I can’t sleep, I read TVTropes. Much like the Internet itself, it is infinite, so there’s no lack of new or interesting things to read about or analyze–I’m particularly fond of alternate interpretations of certain properties. While working my way around TVTropes, I stumbled upon a reference to Plastic Jesus, a novella by Poppy Z. Brite. It sounded interesting–what if a Beatles analogue had affected the course of gay rights? But getting my hands on a copy proved difficult. Physical copies are obtainable at upwards of thirty dollars on Amazon, and my usual thrift stores are nowhere near getting a novella like Plastic Jesus donated. But finally, I found a copy of it available on Barnes & Noble’s website, as an eBook. It was even half off, so I knew it was time to cross it off the list.