by Jan Bear | May 26, 2014 | Reading
Martin Roth’s Prophets and Loss is a deep character study wrapped in an intriguing mystery. Who can you trust? is the question that runs through the story, with twists and turns on the question in every chapter. Even Johnny Ravine isn’t quite sure he can...
by Jan Bear | May 26, 2014 | Reading
Time travel to the 14th century and a 21st-century flu outbreak test the resourcefulness of people in both locales in Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book. Kivrin is a young time traveler sent to explore 14th century England at the same time a fatal flu outbreak back...
by Jan Bear | May 26, 2014 | Reading
In Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, young members of a mathematical community (that looks a lot like a monastic community on earth) simply want to live out their bookish lives in the quiet, calm seclusion of the community. But when the once-a-decade Apert celebration...
by Jan Bear | May 26, 2014 | Writing
In fiction, stakes are always about the end of the world. I’ve been resistant to that because I think oncoming asteroids and alien invasions are boring (even though I like science fiction). But that’s because I’ve defined the “end of the world” too narrowly. The end...
by Jan Bear | Sep 28, 2013 | Uncategorized
I creep through the house in the dark morning And find time lying abandoned in pools of night: Tossed into corners, scattered on the floor, jumbled on the chairs. I take an hour, maybe two, and use them for my own purposes. Who will know? I will. My conscience nags....