Apologies for all the SF book reviews–in my mad sprint to the end of the month finish line, I’m trying to cram in as many books as I can in an attempt to get close to my New Year’s Resolution. This end of the month clump of reviews is partly the result of my […]

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Carl Marsalis is a Variant Thirteen–the result of a near future project to genetically engineered abnormally strong and quick and hyper-aggressive soldiers. His kind are feared as humanoid monsters, and most are kept in camps or exiled to colonies on Mars. Marsalis has been hired to help track down a virtually untrackable renegade […]

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Sound the trumpets folks! It’s book #2 of the 100 I’m supposed to read for this year.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m a little slow coming out of the starting gates. My calculations tell me that I should have completed 7.2 texts thus far. I’ll catch up, I promise.
The Tourmaline may be […]

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Note: Please recommend other titles in the comments! 
I decided to make a list that was a sort of refreshing alternative to the recent bestsellers. I have several reasons for this. First of all, Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens and Pullman are getting so much media attention that you don’t need me to tell you about […]

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by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
#1 of 100, folks! Only 99 more to go. I started with an easy one. I promise to pick up a heavy book by someone with a Russian name or a biography of President Bush to balance out this light escapist fantasy.
This is a perfect book for junior […]

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Or, at the very least, an argument that most anti-Pullman activists probably haven’t even looked at the book:
The trilogy has the Church as the antagonist. Not religious belief in general. If any “message” may be derived, it’s that powerful religious organisation who is above the law and morally degraded (murder is no problem for them) […]

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Before I begin this post about the Golden Compass, a refreshingly original fantasy by Philip Pullman and a movie that will be released on December 7th, I have to mention that our very own xJane, with her exclusive Hollywood connections, has already seen and pre/reviewed the movie!
Listen to tone of Bill Donahue (sort of the […]

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While visiting my in-laws most recently, my step-mother-in-law had occasion to be horrified that I’d not read the “His Dark Materials” series by Philip Pullman. “Could I borrow your copies?” I asked. She became, if possible, even more horrified. “No,” she replied, “I read them too often.” Later that day, I had a set of my own.

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by Brian Halweil
The title should perhaps be not “reclaiming” but “exploring” as it is less a discussion of how and why to reclaim “homegrown pleasures” than a description of the changes different communities around the world are making in response to an ever more global food economy.

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Bored in Vernal, just so you know, I’m still working on my answers to your interview questions.
GameBoy, CatGirl and I spent the day at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. It’s billed as the “country’s largest celebration of the written word”, and as devout readers, we try to make an annual pilgrimage to […]

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