Author: Shannon Turlington
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Review of The Martian by Andy Weir…
The Martian by Andy Weir A stranded astronaut must survive for over a year and a half on Mars while awaiting rescue. While I found this to be an entertaining read, I cannot heap on it the accolades others are giving it. This book is quite flat, all plot with very little character, theme or even…
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Reading women in 2015…
Did you know that #readingwomen2014 was a thing on Twitter? I did not know it until a short time ago, but with the end of the year coming up, I don’t think we should stop reading women. Why should we make an effort to read more women writers? If you were not aware, there is a…
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When male writers show what they really think of women…
I’ve just finished two books that could not be more different, and yet they had one important thing in common. Both books, written by men, present an across-the-board indictment of women–all women. Granted, Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon is a schlocky horror novel published in the 1970s. However, the fear of women expressed in the novel, and…
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Recommended Reading: The Bone Clocks
Today I am recommending The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. Mitchell’s latest novel is a genre-bending epic spanning sixty years, about the people whose fates are altered by an ongoing war between immortals. This one is going to make a lot of “Best of 2014” lists. The book grew on me a lot after I was done reading it. I…
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Wow, Ursula K. Le Guin gave a great speech at the National Book Awards…
Here’s just an excerpt from Le Guin’s speech at the National Book Awards, but you should really go read the whole thing–it’s short and completely inspiring: “I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our…
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Cli-Fi: Fiction about climate change
I have just discovered a new genre: cli-fi, or climate change fiction. Set in the present or near future, these novels imagine a changed world once the effects of climate change are really beginning to be felt. It’s not such a new genre to me, after all. I read David Brin’s Earth and Kim Stanley Robinson’s Forty Signs…
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Recommended reading: Ancillary Justice
Today, I’m recommending Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. If you like space opera, political intrigue, or complex plots that turn assumptions upside down, I think you’ll like this book. And I believe the sequel, Ancillary Sword, is newly out–no waiting!
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Halloween picks: The Scariest books
I usually like to get in the Halloween spirit by reading a scary book or two. This year, my top pick is NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. If you like Stephen King, you’ll love this book by his son. Not only does it read like King, but it reads like King at his absolute best–one of those great big…
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It’s election season…
I felt moved to comment on this story posted on the New York Times today: In Democratic Election Ads in South, a Focus on Racial Scars. Here is my comment, which is a NYT Pick and one of the top recommended comments: We have all seen ads that invoke race to get white voters out to…
Shannon Turlington 