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Beats: Book Reviews 2014
What it means to me to be a critic/reviewer? For a lot of readers, a "reviewer" or "critic" is an embittered failed novelist or worse, a barely restrained serial rapist. Book critics may take the form of a dilettante, theorist, essayist, or even historian, but almost never reviewers, who sometimes lack the distancing from the text required by the demands of academia synthesis.
Table of Contents
Preface
Foreword
What's a Rebus: "Saints of the Shadow Bible" by Ian Rankin
The City that Sleeps: "The City & the City" by China Miéville
Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar
Refined Language: "The Prince of West End Avenue" by Alan Isler
Ecstasies and Agonies of the Flesh: "Pleasure" by Gabriele D'Annunzio, Alexander Stille, Lara Gochin Raffaelli
Freaked-up Atmosphere: "Annihilation" by Jeff VanderMeer
Shilly-shallying: "Crocodile on the Sandbank" by Elizabeth Peters
Classical SFional Tropes Revisited:"Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea" by Adam Roberts, Mahendra Singh
The Willow Looming Through the Mist:"Death of a Red Heroine" by Qiu Xiaolong
SF at its hardest: "Greg Egan" by Karen Burnham
The Wiseness of Women: "Where the Devil Can't Go" by Anya Lipska
Kafkaesque Fiction or post-Kafka Fiction: "A Man: Klaus Klump" by Gonçalo M. Tavares, Rhett McNeil
German Poetry from Yonder Times: "German Poetry for Beginners" by Emma Sophia Buchheim
Second-person Narrative: "Not for Nothing" by Stephen Graham Jones
What Is Relativity - An Intuitive Introduction to Einstein's Ideas, and Why They Matter by Jeffrey Bennett
Truly Horrific Fiction: "Narrows" by Ronald Malfi
New Clichéd Crime Fiction: "Death Can't Take A Joke" by Anya Lipska
Oldie and not so Vintage SF: "David Starr: Space Ranger" by Isaac Asimov
Norwegian Crime Fiction: "Son" by Jo Nesbo
Semi-true Grit SF: "Half a King" by Joe Abercrombie
A Modern Spy Story: "A Colder War" by Charles Cumming
Hallowed be thy name, oh Lord and shotgun do your stuff: "Hot in December" by Joe R. Lansdale
A day without the sun is like you know, night : "Cold in July" by Joe R. Lansdale
A loaf, a whole tumazzo cheese and a flask of wine: "The Potter's Field" by Andrea Camilleri, Stephen Sartarelli (translator)
A Noir Pastiche: "The Angry Dream" by Gil Brewer
Minor SF: "Northern Lights" by Philip Pullman
Methadone-like Noir : "The Lock Artist" by Steve Hamilton
A dark, dark, dark story: "Luther - The Calling" by Neil Cross
Top-notch Dark Fiction: "December Park" by Ronald Malfi
Why do we read?: "The Serialist" by David Gordon
Full-boat Carr grin: "Big Money" by Jack Getze
Pseudonym vs Heteronym: "The Silkworm" by Kenneth Galbraith
Shakespearena: "How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare" by Ken Ludwig
"To the Cloud - Cloud Powering an Enterprise to the Cloud" by Pankaj Arora, Raj Biyan, Salil Dave
Walking-the-walk: "High Risk" by Bruce Dickinson, Matt Dickinson
Literary Noir: "World of Trouble" by Ben Winters
Putdownable: "Rubbernecker" by Belinda Bauer
"Medieval Shakespeare Pasts and Presents" by Ruth Morse, Helen Cooper, Peter Holland
Lowfalutin literature: "A Bullet for Carlos" by Giacomo Giammatteo
Supernaturalism in Crime Fiction:"The Coroner's Lunch" by Colin Cotterill
Shakespeare's Literary Continuum: "The Shakespeare Wars - Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups" by Ron Rosenbaum
Down-to-earth Shakespeare: "Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard" by Ben Crystal
Surf Bum Culture: "The Dawn Patrol" by Don Winslow
"Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing" by Adam Greenfield
Gender Treatment in non-provocative Mode: "Ancillary Justice" by Ann Leckie
Protect and Serve and Never off Duty: "Personal: A Jack Reacher Novel" by Lee Child
Reality is weirder than Fiction: "A Palette of Particles" by Jeremy Bernstein
Non-traditional SF: "The Folding Knife" by K.J. Parker
"Designing the Internet of Things" by Adrian McEwen, Hakim Cassimally
Heinleiniana: "Robert A. Heinlein, Vol 1: In Dialogue with His Century Volume 1 (1907-1948) - Learning Curve" by William H Patterson
Heinleiniana: "Robert A. Heinlein, Vol 2 - In Dialogue with His Century 1948-1988 - The Man Who Learned Better" by William H Patterson
The anotherness of Hay: "The Magus of Hay" by Phil Rickman
The Inner Structure of Reality: "The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher" by Hilary Mantel
The Art in Coding: "Geek Sublime Writing Fiction, Coding Software" by Vikram Chandra
Methinks Love Maketh Men like Angels: "Lamentation" by C.J. Sansom
Intertextuality in SF: "What Makes This Book So Great" by Jo Walton
Something Happened: "Revival" by Stephen King
Everybody counts or nobody counts: "The Burning Room" by Michael Connelly
Phildickian SF: "After the Apocalypse" by Maureen F. McHugh
How old SF can be as crappy as new SF: "Rite of Passage" by Alexei Panshin
The Operating System Wars: “Learning Old School Linux” by Edward Harnett
Rampant Geekery: "What If - Serious Scientific Answers t...
Table of Contents
Preface
Foreword
What's a Rebus: "Saints of the Shadow Bible" by Ian Rankin
The City that Sleeps: "The City & the City" by China Miéville
Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar
Refined Language: "The Prince of West End Avenue" by Alan Isler
Ecstasies and Agonies of the Flesh: "Pleasure" by Gabriele D'Annunzio, Alexander Stille, Lara Gochin Raffaelli
Freaked-up Atmosphere: "Annihilation" by Jeff VanderMeer
Shilly-shallying: "Crocodile on the Sandbank" by Elizabeth Peters
Classical SFional Tropes Revisited:"Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea" by Adam Roberts, Mahendra Singh
The Willow Looming Through the Mist:"Death of a Red Heroine" by Qiu Xiaolong
SF at its hardest: "Greg Egan" by Karen Burnham
The Wiseness of Women: "Where the Devil Can't Go" by Anya Lipska
Kafkaesque Fiction or post-Kafka Fiction: "A Man: Klaus Klump" by Gonçalo M. Tavares, Rhett McNeil
German Poetry from Yonder Times: "German Poetry for Beginners" by Emma Sophia Buchheim
Second-person Narrative: "Not for Nothing" by Stephen Graham Jones
What Is Relativity - An Intuitive Introduction to Einstein's Ideas, and Why They Matter by Jeffrey Bennett
Truly Horrific Fiction: "Narrows" by Ronald Malfi
New Clichéd Crime Fiction: "Death Can't Take A Joke" by Anya Lipska
Oldie and not so Vintage SF: "David Starr: Space Ranger" by Isaac Asimov
Norwegian Crime Fiction: "Son" by Jo Nesbo
Semi-true Grit SF: "Half a King" by Joe Abercrombie
A Modern Spy Story: "A Colder War" by Charles Cumming
Hallowed be thy name, oh Lord and shotgun do your stuff: "Hot in December" by Joe R. Lansdale
A day without the sun is like you know, night : "Cold in July" by Joe R. Lansdale
A loaf, a whole tumazzo cheese and a flask of wine: "The Potter's Field" by Andrea Camilleri, Stephen Sartarelli (translator)
A Noir Pastiche: "The Angry Dream" by Gil Brewer
Minor SF: "Northern Lights" by Philip Pullman
Methadone-like Noir : "The Lock Artist" by Steve Hamilton
A dark, dark, dark story: "Luther - The Calling" by Neil Cross
Top-notch Dark Fiction: "December Park" by Ronald Malfi
Why do we read?: "The Serialist" by David Gordon
Full-boat Carr grin: "Big Money" by Jack Getze
Pseudonym vs Heteronym: "The Silkworm" by Kenneth Galbraith
Shakespearena: "How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare" by Ken Ludwig
"To the Cloud - Cloud Powering an Enterprise to the Cloud" by Pankaj Arora, Raj Biyan, Salil Dave
Walking-the-walk: "High Risk" by Bruce Dickinson, Matt Dickinson
Literary Noir: "World of Trouble" by Ben Winters
Putdownable: "Rubbernecker" by Belinda Bauer
"Medieval Shakespeare Pasts and Presents" by Ruth Morse, Helen Cooper, Peter Holland
Lowfalutin literature: "A Bullet for Carlos" by Giacomo Giammatteo
Supernaturalism in Crime Fiction:"The Coroner's Lunch" by Colin Cotterill
Shakespeare's Literary Continuum: "The Shakespeare Wars - Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups" by Ron Rosenbaum
Down-to-earth Shakespeare: "Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard" by Ben Crystal
Surf Bum Culture: "The Dawn Patrol" by Don Winslow
"Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing" by Adam Greenfield
Gender Treatment in non-provocative Mode: "Ancillary Justice" by Ann Leckie
Protect and Serve and Never off Duty: "Personal: A Jack Reacher Novel" by Lee Child
Reality is weirder than Fiction: "A Palette of Particles" by Jeremy Bernstein
Non-traditional SF: "The Folding Knife" by K.J. Parker
"Designing the Internet of Things" by Adrian McEwen, Hakim Cassimally
Heinleiniana: "Robert A. Heinlein, Vol 1: In Dialogue with His Century Volume 1 (1907-1948) - Learning Curve" by William H Patterson
Heinleiniana: "Robert A. Heinlein, Vol 2 - In Dialogue with His Century 1948-1988 - The Man Who Learned Better" by William H Patterson
The anotherness of Hay: "The Magus of Hay" by Phil Rickman
The Inner Structure of Reality: "The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher" by Hilary Mantel
The Art in Coding: "Geek Sublime Writing Fiction, Coding Software" by Vikram Chandra
Methinks Love Maketh Men like Angels: "Lamentation" by C.J. Sansom
Intertextuality in SF: "What Makes This Book So Great" by Jo Walton
Something Happened: "Revival" by Stephen King
Everybody counts or nobody counts: "The Burning Room" by Michael Connelly
Phildickian SF: "After the Apocalypse" by Maureen F. McHugh
How old SF can be as crappy as new SF: "Rite of Passage" by Alexei Panshin
The Operating System Wars: “Learning Old School Linux” by Edward Harnett
Rampant Geekery: "What If - Serious Scientific Answers t...
206 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2015
3 people want to read
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