About this blog

The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—

The one the other will contain
With ease—and you—beside—

Emily Dickinson, c. 1862

 

Perinthia’s astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong and their figures are unable to describe the heavens, or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters.

Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

This blog is a response to sci-fi burnout.

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Five years ago, a little blog dedicated to science fiction and fantasy book reviews was born. That blog was christened From Couch to Moon, mainly because I was stuck at home that summer and couldn’t decide whether I should occupy my time with a couch-to-5k plan, or–what sounded even better–read and review all the Hugo Award best novel nominees I could get my hands on. I was having hip flexor issues at the time, so From Couch to Moon it was!

This was before I knew how sycophantic the amateur book reviewing landscape was. This was before I knew about publisher-blogger enmeshment. And this was before I knew how boring, cliché, and corny space battles could be after reading a thousand scenes of the same thing, and how little they had changed since 1939. It was also before my realization that many Hugo-nominated novels–regardless of year–are terrible. (It took me a few months to finally admit that one.)

It was also about 3-and-a-half years before I started to run out of new and entertaining ways to say, “I dig this,” and “This is not my bag.” Around that time, I started thinking it was time for a new blog with a new mission.

Then the 2016 US election happened, and I really couldn’t be reading no more sci-fi. We are living it.

I’m trying to come back from that. With this blog, I want to explore more of what I like: fiction that best articulates the human experience, the minutiae of life, and the unexplainable and unknowable depths of who we are. Instead of looking up to space (or enchanted forests), I want look around at life.

But still, like, you know, with some sensawunda in it.

 

Here are some of my greatest hits from the FC2M years:
The Moon is a Harsh Mansplainer

Stand on Zanzibar

Inverted World

Perdido Street Station

The Southern Reach series: Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance

Shadow of the Torturer

The Sword of Aldones

Man Plus

Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind

Articles and Compilations:

The 2016 Clarke Award Shortlist: Surface, Contrivance, & Salience

The Best SF I Read This Year

Adventures in Military SF!

Of the 2014 Books I Read, I Read, I Read…

SFatigued

I also made this, for all your PKD-reading needs, which people seem to like:

The Official PKD Bingo Card