Ken MacLeod's Blog, page 42

Newspaper of record notices SF author actually good

Mainstream media comment on SF is usually ignorant and derogatory, so it's refreshing to read a major article in the New York Times Magazine about veteran SF author and noted stylist Jack Vance which is respectful, informed and informative. (Via, also worth reading.)

The Prophet's Suitcase

Tim Wohlforth's memoir The Prophet's Children, which I found in the Oxfam bookshop on Byres Road, Glasgow a couple of weekends ago, is a dismaying and enlightening read for anyone who has ever taken Trotskyism seriously. And I have - it's creepily apt that the photograph facing page 157 almost has me in it.

Kids these days - heck, anyone under thirty - in Britain, France and a handful of other countries, probably think it's a small but normal part of the gaiety of nations to have Trotskyists r

Theatrical, cruel, and implausible events

My old mate Ellis Sharp has sent me a copy of his new book, Dead Iraqis. Already reviewed enthusiastically in the Guardian by Nicholas Lezard, and with shout-outs by China Mieville, Lee Rourke, Iain Banks and me across the cover, this greatest hits compilation can't be expected to get a cool, objective review here, and it isn't going to get one. In the long-vanished fanzine New Dawn Fades, I described the stories in one of Sharp's earlier collections (from which four of the stories in this selec