Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 342

Book Review: Deck of Cards by Rebecca Lickiss – D Jason Fleming

Book Review: Deck of Cards by Rebecca Lickiss – D Jason Fleming

Before we even begin the review, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to do two things: ignore the cover, and ignore the title. Seriously. Pretend that somebody who hated the book and wanted to make sure it sold zero copies somehow got control and slapped the cover onto it.

I’ll come back to this later.

Rebecca Lickiss’s Deck of Cards is a space opera, with heavy elements of thriller and comedy of manners thrown in for goo...

Fretting Dowagers

It might not be immediately obvious to people in this blog, but growing up my family lived fairly close to the bone. We were never outright destitute except for a couple of years and that was for weird reasons. But we never had a lot of money.

Now most of this was probably because mom was socking away every spare cent, in fear of being destitute. BUT we were close enough to the bone (and to be fair when I was very young there was no money to sock away) that in summer the shoes I’d outgrown du...

Time Travelers

Sometime in the late nineties there was a common spam email that went “I’m a time traveler stranded in your time. I have reason to think you know what I’m talking about. There is this part I need.” Anyway… I don’t actually know what they were meant to be except a prank, because there were no links to follow. Or perhaps they harvested the emails when you responded. One of these hit strikingly close to home because the signature was my nephew’s name. And while our last name is common, in Portug...

Generation Ships – John Carlton

Generation Ships – John Carlton

Kim Stanley Robinson wrote a book recently apparently to show that interstellar travel is impossible. He expresses his point of view in this post.

http://boingboing.net/2015/11/16/our-generation-ships-will-sink.html

And this one.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-will-it-take-for-humans-to-colonize-the-milky-way1/

As far as Mr. Robinson is concerned, once the solar system is filled up that’s it, game over. Only one earth, one solar system, that’s a...

Of Moving and Cheese

My husband is very very (very) nearsighted. Periodically you accidentally move something he’s counting on early morning before he had his glasses on, and he — no longer goes ballistic, but — says “stop moving my cheese.”

This is of course a reference to some manual or other that said we’re like mice racing to the cheese and don’t like it when our cheese is moved. Keep this in mind. the whole post might seem to be about something else but this too is relevant.

The other day we had occasion to...

In The Future We’re All Ducks — a blast from the past post from 10/9/2011

In The Future We’re All Ducks — a blast from the past post from 10/9/2011

When I woke up this morning, I realized two things. One, I hadn’t written a blogpost last night to go up today. I was supposed to, but I’ve been away two weeks, so I had a whole lot of house and postponed “stuff” to catch up on. Two, the blogpost was supposed to be at Mad Genius Club as well.

This last immediately sent me into a tail spin, because what I post on my own blog can be whatever, including bits of novel. But...

The Books Blossom – Freerange Oyster

*Sorry this is so late. I got sidetracked into generic “errands” this morning. I’m not dead, though all week I felt like it was a close thing. I’m fairly sure I’ve not been taking thyroid meds in the morning, only midday, which means… Well, it feels like I’m getting the flu. I’ve solved it by getting a box with compartments per day, which is why I’m fairly sure I’ve not been taking it. I mean I woke up with a vivid memory of taking it, but the compartment was full. So there you have it. And y...

A Passion For Cubbyholes A Blast From the Past from February 2015

*Sorry this is so late. Yesterday I was out of sorts most of the day. I thought I was coming down with a cold but apparently other than seasonal allergies that’s not so, so either I forgot to take my morning meds OR it was tiredness from the move. At any rate, I slept late, and then decided to do a Blast From The Past post. Only WordPress has decided to mess with my ability to search my own posts, by not showing dates. Also, the only way is either searching by keyword (and I didnt have one al...

TANSTAAFL

This is not about Bernie Sanders. Amanda wrote that post. It’s not even about price as we’re used to thinking about it, in dimes and nickels and dollars and all. This is about other prices (though in the end money is usually a translation of time and effort and other trade offs we’ve made too.)

Yesterday Older Son realized that he has to mothball his Ninja Nun comics and bid sister Agnes Day farewell possibly forever.

Perhaps you’ll say this should have occurred to him before, but like many o...

Putting Yourself Out there

One concept we keep coming across is that of a “silent majority.” It is a concept easily ridiculed, because if they are the majority, why are they silent?

It is also a concept that proves itself again and again. The early eruptions of tea parties here, the demonstration I attended in Portugal when I was (I think) sixteen.

The problem is that “the silent majority” brings up the wrong image. This is not a crowd of people sitting at attention, stewing, unable to speak.

A more accurate name would...