David H. Friedman

— A late Victorian writer of gothic horror and science fiction, something of a precursor to Lovecraft. A mystic who believes in a great unknown spiritual world behind or alongside the mundane, to penetrate which brings great delight and horror and death. Start with The Great God Pan. Subtly thrilling.

— I'm on an English Catholic Fabulist streak. I recently recommended Neil Gaiman's Sandman to a friend, which reminded me that Gaiman much admires Chesterton, so, interrupting Lewis' Space Trilogy, I read The Napoleon of Notting Hill (e-texts of Chesterton's works at dmu.ac.uk)

I might have said English Catholic Moralists but that Chesterton and Lewis are wonderfully entertaining writers (in very different ways) and terrific storytellers, which mere Moralists usually are not.

— A gentle novel, suspensful, melancholy, a little tragic. Reminds me, in its cosmic viewpoint, of Olaf Stapledon and of Arthur Clarke at his best. I can't wait to read Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.

— A couple of centuries after devastating wars on Earth, Humanity has made it to the stars with FTL ships and communications, and Artificial Intelligences. Katmer Al Shei is captain of a mail packet, and Evelyn Dobbs is a professional Fool who has signed on to her crew. Reminds me of Cherryh - normal folk shoved into the middle of a clash of cultures; sympathetic characters, and lots of twists in the plot. Recommended.

— In an alternate future in which the Méxica (Aztecs) and the Japanese rule an interstellar empire, the light cruiser Cornuelle carries a Company team and an Imperial shaman/political officer to Ephesus to rescue a stranded archaeological team which has uncovered dangerous relics of a long-lost hi-tech civilization... good space opera, decent characters, and the usual pleasant unfamiliarity of alternate history.

I like alternate history when the point is to show that some of the things we take for granted weren't inevitable, but I think this story could have been told without the added conceit, by constructing a future culture that included all the elements he wanted to adopt from Aztec culture. Still, Harlan's extrapolation of Aztec society to technological imperium feels consistent and believable.

— Era of Queens, Best of, Eternal

— How to seprate structure from style in web page design. Very clear.

— A ribbon around a star with the area of a billion earths. Evolutionary manipulation. Flying cities! A classic.

— Wacky highschool Anime. Cute characters.

— Interesting twist on an old favorite.

— A short story. I think this is the best approximation of a truly alien mindset that I've read.

— Eschatological fiction. Interesting characters.

— He is superb at capturing the stream of memories and minutiae that run through all our minds in a way that makes us interested in the character and his preoccupations.

— Beautiful fractals deriving from Klein's work on the interactions between certain kinds of spiral motions. Lovely images, nice mathematics and computer code.

— A terrific space western from the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Kaylee is qute! Foolishly canceled, there is a movie in the works. Good theme song.

— Melancholy and lovely Anime, a story of redemption and coming of age from Yoshitoshi ABe (Lain, Niea). More info and a review.