For my first ever podcast, I review this terrific thriller at
100eyesReview.mp3 (Run time: 9 minutes, 6 secs.).
Hope you enjoy it!
July 2009 Archives
Great news for disabled veterans: The first piece of legislation by Senator Al Franken (D-Minn) involved the formation of a pilot program providing service dogs to wounded verterans (with disabilities). The Hill's Blog Briefing Room discusses it here.
Well, happily, the bill was passed yesterday by the Senate. Details about the bill and what the program consists of are here and here.
Other Earths, edited by Nick Gevers and Jay Lake is an anthology collecting eleven short stories by various authors set on alternative universes where history, as we know it, didn't quite turn out the way it did on our planet.
Continue reading Other Earths (edt. by Gevers & Lake).
Today's New York Times has an article in their Science section on brain research being done to assist paralyzed people, with the possible option of prosthetic (robotic) limbs in the near future being considered, which you can read here.
And in last Sunday's Magazine section, the NY Times profiled science fiction author Jack Vance, who's been legally blind since the 80s, yet, until his just announced retirement (at 92!), has continued to produce novels and a forthcoming memoir (see photo at left). Read his story here. (Mr. Vance's books can be located through the library here.)
Trying to combine and imitate the writing styles of Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft might be a bit intimidating to some writers, but the authors who contributed to the 2003 short story collection Shadows Over Baker Street give it their best shot. The end results insure that fans of both Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series and Lovecraft's various concepts (including Cthulhu, Innsmouth and the Necronomicon) will wind up being pleased by the melding of these authors' two distinct universes.
Continue reading Shadows Over Baker Street.
Here's an uplifting story you might like to read about: A neurobiologogist named Susan R. Berry, who's visually impaired, discusses the process she came across to assist other visually impaired people by "retraining the brain" in this article. Dr. Berry's book, Fixing My Gaze, which is mentioned in the article, is in the library's catalog and can be reserved online from here.
One of the most provocative science fiction writers that ever lived, Philip K. Dick (1928-1982; hereafter referred to as PKD) has managed to become even more popular after his death some 27 years ago.
Continue reading The Man in the High Castle.
My colleague Will tipped me off to this article about a new laser treatment in England that may halt the onset of blindness for older people. While it isn't a cure for blindness, and may take years to be made available for the public, this new laser treatment may help halt the spread of age-related macular degeneration for visually impaired people. Check out the article at this Daily Mail link.
(Thanks Will.)
Fans of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Joe Haldeman's The Forever War will enjoy John Scalzi's 2005 novel Old Man's War. The first in a continuing series (with the most recent installment, Zoe's Tale, available here), Old Man's War focuses on the exploits of John Perry, a 75 year-old-man who, sometime in the far future, enlists in the Colonial Defense Forces, where, outfitted with a new, younger and enhanced body, battles various hostile aliens. Perry also discovers that his late wife...but that would be telling. Author Scalzi's novel is an exciting action/adventure thriller with lots of intriguing tecnology (such as "skip drives" and a very cool space elevator), yet doesn't stint on characterzation or dramatic conflict. Recommended.
