Howling Frog Books

To Say Nothing of the Dog, or, How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last , by Connie Willis I just love this novel.  I've read it several times and it's still great.  It's especially good if you're feeling a bit down and in need of distraction, because it's a comedy.  I might even call it a screwball SF comedy with lots of fun literary hat tips. Connie Willis is a very well-known SF author, and you should definitely read her stuff (though she does have a tendency to be reaalllly lengthy sometimes).  Some of her stories take place at a future Oxford University, where historians travel back in time to observe and experience events.  Here, time travel exists, originally invented by criminals hoping to plunder the past, but relegated to academics because nothing can be brought back and the space-time continuum (a self-protective system) won't allow people to get anywhere near important people or events.  You can't assassinate Hitler by time-travel.  

So pretty.  Not like mine. Letters to a Young Poet , by Rainer Maria Rilke I think this is Rilke's most famous work these days--at least in America, since I expect the Germans still read lots of Rilke. It's the book that every literarily-minded undergraduate reads (or at least means to read), and the book that started a new genre of "Letters to a Young X."  And it's only ten fairly short letters collected into a book. In 1902, Franz Xaver Kappus , a young cadet at a military academy, found out that the poet Rilke had once been a cadet at the same school.  Rilke was not suited to the school at all and was quite miserable, but the connection inspired Kappus to write to Rilke and ask for an opinion of the poetry he was struggling to write.  He also asked for advice on his career, since he was struggling with the same choice of whether to go into the military or to pursue literature. Rilke responded, not with much of an opinion on the poetry--which he refus

Wells Cathedral. Sister of the Angels , by Elizabeth Goudge I got this on ILL and wasn't at all sure what it would be.  It goes with City of Bells, which I read recently, but that's all I knew.  It turns out to be...sort of a children's book?  Maybe?  It's a sequel, but short and from the perspective of an 11-year-old girl.  I think you don't have to have read City of Bells to understand it--though it would certainly help a lot--so I guess it's a children's story.  Although the library that sent it to me seems to keep it in the adult section (luckily for me, since most libraries weed the children's room more heavily and would consider this to be too outdated and old to keep there).  It's also a Christmas story, so I'm a month late! Henrietta lives with the elderly Dean of Torminster as an adopted grandchild.  Hugh Anthony lives there too in the same capacity.  Henrietta's father is an artist and spends most of his time doing other th

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress , by Robert Heinlein Ha, I got hold of it!  I actually finished it a week or so ago--I have 5 titles waiting for me to stop being lazy and write them up--and, sad to say, I have still not started Starship Troopers.   But I will.  Probably not before the end of January, though.  Oh, and I did give Stanislaw Lem a try; I started two different books and was not grabbed by either, so I stopped.  Maybe I will like them some other day.  OK, on to the book I did read: In the future, the Moon is a penal colony; and once you're sentenced there, it's for life, so there are quite a few free descendants, too.  Manuel is an ex-miner and computer technician, caring for the one super-computer in the whole place.  "Mycroft" has been augmented and extended so often that it has now gained sentience, but only Manny knows that.  Manny isn't interested in politics--the Lunar Authority runs the whole place as a colony, with few laws but lots of price-s

The Case of Comrade Tulayev, by Victor Serge Here we have a Russian novel, except that it's written in French.  Victor Serge was born Russian, was a young anarchist, joined the Bolshevik Revolution in 1919 and rose fairly high, but joined the Trotskyites and got really critical of Stalin.  He was in and out of prison before being deported and spent the rest of his life in Belgium, France, and Mexico--where he died in 1947.  (This is a very short and cockeyed summary of a very complicated life, so by all means look Serge up properly.)  Comrade Tulayev was written near the end of his life.  Serge remained a Marxist until the end--though I certainly couldn't tell from this novel. In Moscow in the 1930s, the Terror is well underway.  Comrade Tulayev, an official very high in the government, is shot dead on a quiet street one night and the Soviet machinery swings into action.  Anyone associated with Tulayev is under suspicion, and suspicion means guilt.  One after another, de

Much prettier than my ugly old copy Agnes Grey , by Anne Bronte I just love Anne Bronte.  The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is fantastic.  I read Agnes Grey years ago, but I'd forgotten a lot about it, so I thought I would pick it up again.  Lovely! The story is narrated by Agnes, who is the younger daughter of a middle-class clergyman who loses all his savings in an investment gone wrong.  Agnes decides to contribute her bit by becoming a governess, which is about the only work she can do.  She first goes to a household with younger children and no order or discipline whatsoever.  Her difficult position is vividly described; as a governess she is expected to teach and discipline the children through some sort of magic.  She has no power or authority and at any time the children can run to their parents and get her into trouble while escaping any consequences of their own.  The family looks down on her, but as a gentlewoman she cannot socialize with the servants.  She is alone.

The Journey Through Wales and Description of Wales, by Gerald of Wales This was a really fun medieval travelogue.  Like another of Gerald's works, The History and Topography of Ireland , it would be a good selection for someone interested in dipping their toes into medieval literature. In 1188, Archbishop Baldwin (of England and Wales) made a tour of Wales to drum up support for an impending Crusade.  Gerald was part of his entourage, and he kept a record of the trip which he turned into The Journey Through Wales.  He details every stop, but relatively little of the text is actually about converting potential crusaders; he really talks a lot about local history and wonders.  Old battles and feuds, miracles, interesting anecdotes, and monuments fill the pages.  It is very fun.  For example: St. David's cathedral was founded in honour of Saint Andrew the Apostle.  The place where it stands is called the Valley of Roses.  A better name for it would be the Valley of Marble,

Prisoners of Power , by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky I love these guys.  I'm going to need to find more Strugatsky brothers to read. Far in the future, Maxim goes exploring.  On this future Earth, if you're a young, reasonably healthy guy with no particular idea of what you want to do yet and a sense of adventure that needs exercising, you open up the catalog, pick an unexplored planet, and head out to take a look at it under the auspices of the Independent Reconnaissance Unit.  Maxim fits that bill, and now he has landed on a planet that is...depressingly grey and flat.  And radioactive. Maxim arrives in a society controlled by unseen military dictators who use radiation to manipulate the populace.  All the known nations have thrown themselves into a cataclysmic nuclear war that has left everyone and everything nearly destroyed--and they're still at it.  Maxim has the ability to withstand the mind-control radiation, and as he makes friends and finds his way through, h

1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed , by Eric Cline Over 3000 years ago, the Bronze Age peoples around and near the Mediterranean had developed a network of wealthy and civilized nations that were connected by trade and royal kinship ties.  But somewhere around 1177 BC, it all went downhill.  Egypt declined, trade routes were ruptured, and a domino effect seems to have toppled one kingdom after another.  The Mycenaeans, the Hittites, the Babylonians and Minoans and others fell into a 'dark age' as technologies and writing systems were lost.  What happened? We know that one thing that happened was invasions from the Sea Peoples--several groups of murky origin that came in, mauraded, and settled down to intermarry.  (The Philistines in the Bible were part of the Sea Peoples.)  But that's not really enough to explain the collapse.  Some scholars have proposed a massive earthquake for one civilization, or drought for others, but usually they've focused on one civil

The Puppet Masters , by Robert Heinlein Here's my first Heinlein for adult readers rather than young teens.  It's still fine for them as well, actually, but as a category this isn't one of his juvenile titles.  (Some of the material was pretty daring in 1951 but now, not so much.) "Sam" is an agent for the most secret branch of the US's spy network.  He's called in to investigate a possible alien landing.  He and his partner "Mary" are shown a dummy setup--a hoax--but there's something very wrong somewhere.  There really was a landing, and "puppet masters," parasites that take over the brain, are slowly infiltrating the country.  Sam, Mary, and the rest of their organization first fight to convince the government to believe them, and then to save the world from the masters. The really neat thing about this story is (this is not much of a spoiler) that Sam becomes a victim.  We see the masters from the point of view of their ho

Wild Things!: Acts of Mischief in Children's Literature, by Bird, Danielson, and Sieruta Three people in the children's book world team up to talk about the wilder side of children's literature.  Between them, they've got almost every angle covered: authorship, reviewing, blogging, librarianing, interviewing and critiquing, and they're here to discuss all of it. There are chapters about: subversive elements in children's books old scandals and mysteries  why grownups love Newberys and kids love pulp (and, often, Newberys and everything else) censorship, banning, general outrage how and when gay characters arrived in books for youth, and just how many of the children's authors and artists you love were gay, only nobody mentioned it at the time children's books by celebrities: plague? not so bad? popularity contest? what Harry Potter did for children's publishing DEATH and the terrible scourge that is the Triumvirate of Mediocrity.  (

Have Spacesuit--Will Travel , by Robert Heinlein Here is it, my first Heinlein!  This was a really fun novel and I loved it.  We may see some Heinlein-collecting in my future.  Kip is your average high-school kid, except that he is extra-attached to his ambition to go to the Moon.  He enters a soap slogan contest, and while he doesn't win the first prize of a Moon trip, he does win a used spacesuit, and he spends a summer fixing it up just right and learning his way around the engineering.  While taking it out for one last walk, he's suddenly kidnapped by space pirates!  His fellow prisoners are Peewee, a pre-teen girl a little too smart for her own good, and the Mother Thing, an alien.  They've got to escape and warn Earth about an imminent invasion, but all they've got to work with is their own brains. This is a great adventure story for older kids and YA.  Kip and Peewee are both inventive and self-reliant, but they're also kids.  Peewee in particular has

Not available in my county. It's January, a new year with fresh new beginnings!  I, however, am groggy from a late night and feeling kind of under the weather, so I don't feel very peppy.  It's a good day to read a lot though, and I have some fun plans for January. First off, I look forward to January's annual Vintage Science Fiction Month Not-A-Challenge !  I have two goals for this month.  First, a confession: I have never read Heinlein.  Not one Heinlein book have I read, and I suppose it's time to fix that, so I am planning to read Have Spacesuit--Will Travel, The Puppet Masters, and Starship Troopers.   I would LIKE to read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress , but I have searched this county high and low and there is not a library or a used bookstore or a friend with a copy!  Did you know that there is no ebook version for sale either? Iron Curtain SF: I have Prisoners of Power , by the Strugatsky brothers (whose Roadside Picnic and Tale of the Troika I