reviews

10 Grand Stories and 90 So-So Offerings Author: Al Sarrantonio and Martin H. Greenberg In a world currently filled with long, rainy spring days and ominous puffs of steel grey clouds, what could possibly be better than cuddling in with your pets, hanging out in your favorite chair, opening the window wide to the sound of pinging rain drops, and exploring the quirky, morbid world of creepy short stories? Back in the days before college when I was a teen indulging in languid summer days (and way too close to the local Barnes and Noble) I discovered an entire series [...]

Murky musings... Author:  Noam Chomsky Are there limits to what we can understand? How can the human brain generate incredible thoughts and concepts when each of its individual neurons doesn’t possess even the slightest iota of consciousness?  How can the finite number of sounds used to create human language produce an infinite number of ideas?  The world’s most famous linguist and political critic, Noam Chomsky tackles these kinds of questions in his 2015 work, What Kind of Creatures Are We? Unfortunately, despite my respect for the man’s indefatigable activism and his trademark clarity when it comes to political topics, I [...]

Put This Fire Out Author: Joe Hill We’re big fans of plagues and dystopians around here, so imagine our excitement when we heard about The Fireman, which combines elements of both and adds a splash of spontaneous human combustion! (This book also appeared in our Winter/Spring 2016 fiction preview, if you’re looking for more new books to add to your list.) A horrifying plague known as “Dragonscale” is spreading across the United States like, er, wildfire. First, the highly contagious disease marks its victims with striking black-and-gold patterns — and then they BURST INTO FLAMES. Harper Grayson, a tough but [...]