Books! Zombies, ponds, and loners!

Books! Zombies, ponds, and loners!

An abundance, an embarrassment almost, of good reading lately has succeeded entirely in wiping the rancid aftertaste of Bully Boy from my mind. Naturally, this makes me happy – reading is one of my foremost pleasures, so a bad patch of it can make my entire waking life feel a little wrenched.

After A Tale of Two Summers I read Saint Iggy by K.L. Going, the author of the really good teen fiction book Fat Kid Rules the World. Saint Iggy is cut from much the same cloth – a memorable loner as the main character, and graceful, fun, fluid, intelligent writing throughout. Before I was half-way done with it, I’d forgotten my dissatisfactions with A Tale of Two Summers. Saint Iggy is hugely smarter as a book, and part of what lets it be so is the greater trust it reposes in the kids who’ll be reading it.

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SFF: Star Trek - Crucible: McCoy! Hunters of Dune!

SFF: Star Trek - Crucible: McCoy! Hunters of Dune!

You know, the main enemies of science fiction aren’t the genre-snobs who think it starts and stops with Philip K. Dick (or that Margaret Atwood has ever written a word of it).

The real enemies of science fiction are the writers of it who’ve bought into the mainstream idea that genre readers are a little dim.

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