2025 Hugo Novels, Part 1: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

It's that time of year again: I'm reading the Hugo nominees! This year I'm lucky to be once again attending Worldcon (this year in Seattle), so I will not only be voting, but I plan to attend the ceremony in person.

As has become tradition, I've waited way too long to get started, but the good news is that I'm halfway through the novels. So, here's what I thought so far about The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher. I will review the other three novels soon in Part 2, and, of course, there are novellas and many more categories as well. Stay tuned!

Academic Cats and Dogs: Does Academia Need to Get Weirder to Survive?

I’ve never been entirely comfortable in academia. Don’t get me wrong. I love reading and writing. I enjoy teaching and interacting with students. I’m fond of conversation about subjects most people don’t understand or care to understand. 

But in recent years—especially with the convergence of the pandemic, my tenure, and feeling middle age—I find myself caring less and less about academia as an abstract system of disciplines. I care about my friends, my colleagues, and my students. I care about philosophy as a global human endeavor. But I don’t care about being a Very Serious Academic. I’m not sure how much I ever really did. 

Considering Our "Inescapable Network of Mutuality": MLK Day 2024

 

I had a great time at Chattacon this weekend, which included a fun panel on Dune and Philosophy!

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in the US. I was looking forward to following up my Chattacon experience with my local MLK Day march and parade, but today we're having some winter weather. The local MLK Day festivities have been postponed.

Review of Reviews: December 2023

 

It's the week between Christmas and New Year's, that blank time filled with cheese, sugar, and not knowing what day of the week it is. I've been having fun reading, but I have been somewhat remiss when it comes to writing reviews. Lest I disappoint the small handful of humans and bots who will read this, here are my reviews of some of what I've been reading lately: Transcendent by Stephen Baxter, The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee, and Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. I also recently finished A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, but I need more time to process how much I loved everything about it. I'm also returning to an old favorite, The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, which I'm loving just as much if not more than I did when I first read it ten years ago. Anyway, on to this Review of Reviews: December 2023!

How the Other Bland Lives: Halfway Human by Carolyn Ives Gilman

 

"Slow, but engrossing" is how I would describe my experience reading Halfway Human. There's a lot to think about here, as with Gilman's other work (like Dark Orbit).

"Unfrozen Eons Drown the Future": My New Short Story on The Weird Tales Podcast!

My short story "Unfrozen Eons Drown the Future" is now live on The Weird Tales Podcast! You can listen to it on most podcast services. Check out the details here.

Happy (?) Second Pandemiversary!

KN-95 masks, arranged artistically(?)

 

Happy Second Pandemiversary! 

No, wait, that's not right. Try this: I wish you a safe and healthy second pandemiversary!

Better, but still a bit weird. Let's just go with the pained irony approach: Happy (?) Second Pandemiversary!

Melancholy Utopianism: The Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

 

The Ministry of the Future is up there with Kim Stanley Robinson's best work. Given how much I love his work, this counts as high praise from me.

If you're familiar with Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR), you'll have some idea of what to expect. A lot of wonky, nerdy details delivered in what his critics would call "info dumps," a lot of cool Big Ideas, a delightful thrashing of the "show don't tell" rule that's sure to give nightmares many creative writing teachers, and oh yeah, some characters and plot and stuff, too. (Indeed, I sometimes wonder if a writer like KSR would get published today given how he cuts against the grain.)

2020 in Hindsight

                      

What a fucking year. At the beginning of 2020 I was looking forward to a year of tenure and travel. Here, at the end, I’m looking back on a year of turmoil.

Looking Forward to Seeing Con Nooga 2020!

I just realized two things that precipitated this post. One, we're several weeks into the year, and I have yet to make a silly joke about seeing 2020. Two, Con Nooga is tomorrow! If you're not in the know, Con Nooga is a great multi-fandom con that happens every February here in Chattanooga, TN. This year it takes place Feb. 21-23, 2020.

The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, Edited by Tarun K. Saint

I wholeheartedly recommend The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, Edited by Tarun K. Saint not because I loved all the stories (I didn't), but because this is a valuable anthology and a place to start for someone looking to learn more about science fiction in South Asia.

Birthdays, Deathdays, Climate Change, and Humanity

Last year I celebrated the apex of birthdays in the life of any philosophical nerd: 42. I can’t hope to top that this year, but that’s okay. Each year is something of its own (see some of my previous birthday posts here and here.)

Birthdays and Deathdays

This year I’ve been thinking a little bit about my post from four years ago when I discovered that I had, statistically speaking, entered middle age. I’ve also been thinking a lot about death in my philosophy and horror class (an occupational hazard, I suppose). I’ve always been a bit prone to melancholy and thoughts of death (not quite enough to be goth, but I see what the goths are on about).

Given that my life is more likely than not more than halfway over at this point, should my birthday be a day of celebration of my existence thus far or a mourning in anticipation of an impending deathday?

Dinétah After the Apocalype: Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

I loved Rebecca Roanhorse's Hugo-winning short story, "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience," so I was really looking forward to seeing what she did with a novel, which is this year a Hugo finalist.  While I can't say I liked Trail of Lightning as much as the previous short story, it's definitely an interesting read.

The first thing to note is that Trail of Lightning combines three things that may not have been combined before: Diné-inspired fantasy, urban fantasy, and post-apocalyptic science fiction.  For the most part, it works pretty well.  I was pulled into the book more than I expected, especially since I'm generally not the biggest fan of urban fantasy (I have only read one of the Dresden books, which I thought was fun, but haven't felt the need to read more ... yeah, I know, I'm a terrible person).

Let's talk about the three elements and how they interacted and where they maybe didn't work so well.