...also known as "Jesuits in Space"! Continue Reading Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow

“Snow Day, by Jennifer Pelland. At that link, you can download an EscapePod reading of the story (which is also wonderfully done). Definitely worth a download and listen. I mean, who doesn’t like robot sex? If you’re into podcasting, you may want to subscribe to the EscapePod ‘cast, because it’s a good one. Short stories, flash fiction, all science fiction. Updated 7/19/2005 to add links to the author’s website and EscapePod.

In Words and Rules, Steven Pinker provides a well-rounded glimpse into linguistics, history of languages, language families, childhood speech errors, neural networks, and various other related topics through the examination of regular and irregular verbs. What one might consider a rather boring topic on the surface (“j’ai, tu as, il/elle/on a…”, anyone?) is presented in such a manner as to make reading the same lists of the families of irregular verbs (in four languages, no less) several times bearable and even interesting. I found my interests leaning towards the history of languages and language families discussed throughout the first five or six chapters and my attention waning on the last…

In The Once and Future King, White tells the story of King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, Queen Guenever, and surrounding and supporting characters. During the course of four “books”, White moves from Arthur’s childhood with Merlin to his ultimate failure to rid his kindom of Might and Lancelot’s persecution for his affair with Guenever. While the story itself is entertaining, it’s the bursts of insight into humanity White gives us that make the book worth reading again and again. Throughout the book there are several places where something as simple as a small turn of phrase or as large as a passage of description reveals an amazing knowledge of the human…

Slapstick is the story of an ugly boy’s rise to power in a crumbling United States. It’s also the story of a child whose genius depends on his twin sister in a society that firmly believes in “Paddling your own boat.” It’s also the tale of the isolation of the People’s Republic of China and it’s quiet, secretive rise to the intellectual and spiritual domination of the world. It also defies a consise, conhesive summary of the plot. This was a quick, moderately enjoyable read for me. I found Vonnegut’s writing interesting and entertaining, but not enthralling. I found the plot only interesting at particular points–when Vonnegut was making a…