“What do these onlookers see as they bend over my broken body? I do not know. But inside me, the sun.” ––The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, pg. 320 “In an augmented reality world, the ‘Web’ will become the space that surrounds you. Cameras embedded in the glasses will recognize the objects […]
We live in a world shaped by scientific principles, but our understanding of those principles is always less than perfect. As technology and scientific inquiry become ever more embedded in our social and professional lives, it’s important not only to ensure exposure to reliable information, but also to ask how this trend affects the quality […]
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to shake my head when asked by another scifi enthusiast if I’ve ever read Dune. To be unfamiliar with Frank Herbert’s classic is to leave a giant of the genre unexplored––to dismiss a leap forward in our thinking about technology and futurism. Now that I’ve […]
I don’t know what state the revenge narrative was in before The Count of Monte Cristo hit the scene, but this book remains a paragon of the genre nearly two centuries after publication. Alexandre Dumas’s classic is deeply concerned with the character of human happiness and suffering, and challenges readers to cherish what good fortune […]
Family Furnishings is my second foray into the mind of Alice Munro, but will certainly not be my last. Munro writes the best prose––and the best short stories––of any modern author with whom I am familiar. Her disarmingly prosaic and delectably mysterious tales unveil the hidden meanings lurking within the mundane corners of everyday existence. After […]
Three years ago, my father pointed me toward a frightfully thick book called Cryptonomicon that permanently rearranged my relationship with modern fiction. Since that first taste, Neal Stephenson has challenged me in every way an author can (including nearly boring me to death). Stephenson looms larger in my literary pantheon––and weighs more heavily on my […]
“When are we going to begin writing our own fucking narrative?” ––Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson, pg. 822
“This was how the mind worked. The mind couldn’t think about the End of the World all the time. It needed the occasional break, a romp through the trivial. Because it was through trivia that the mind was anchored in reality, as the largest oak tree was rooted, ultimately, in a system of rootlets.” ––Seveneves, […]
“‘You see, Princess Nell, you have conquered this world today, and now that you have conquered it, you’ll find it a rather boring place. Now it’s your responsibility to make new worlds for other people to explore and conquer.’ King Coyote waved his hand out the window into the vast, empty white space where once […]
Having worked my way through almost all of Neal Stephenson’s novels, I’ve come to recognize a phenomenon I call The Stephenson Guarantee: You don’t know what any Stephenson book will be like before you crack it open, but you can be assured it won’t be like anything else. The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s […]