Looking for More Books to Read?

I know all too well that it's very difficult for a voracious reader to get enough books. I grew up in a small town where the nearest bookstore was an hour's drive away and the public library had all of 800 volumes, including reference materials. Next week I'm going to be participating in an exciting new literary event. Until then, I wanted everyone to know about a cool compilation of free and 99-cent books available online.

New Reviews Now Up at the Billion Light-Year Bookshelf

I just put up six new reviews over at The Billion Light-year Bookshelf. These include one on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which I look at how humorous works, even excellent ones, are often passed over for awards because "not serious" is seen as evidence of a lightweight.

On a darker note, I also look at Boris and Arkady Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic with an eye to the authors' treatment of the alien visitation as fundamentally unknowable and incomprehensible to humanity.

There are also books by Robert J. Sawyer, Octavia E. Butler, and Marie Brennan, as well as a collaboration by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes which is arguably a technothriller, but is treated as science fiction because it deals with space travel.