Category Archives: Reading itself

I think anthologies are the Chinese buffet of writing. You can choose from this or that writer, some of them you’ve never heard of, and, if you like their stories, give their other works a shot. It’s also the midnight … Continue reading →

I don’t know how many short stories I’ve read in my life. It’s well over the number of books, so, using 8-years-old as a starting point, figure 2-5 books a month for 60 years, time off for good behavior, maybe … Continue reading →

Call them really long short stories or too-short novels, there’s some good reading in them even as they defy an exact category. Novellete? Yeah, yeah, there’s agreed-upon definitions but who gets to decide that? So I will: if you can … Continue reading →

The criteria for this is very simple: someone from a book that I still remember to this day, no matter how long, or short, ago I came across them. They are memorable. Every once in awhile, I’ll recall something about … Continue reading →

I love trilogies, stories so big they need three novels to complete. Which is the big difference between a series and a trilogy- the story ends. Or, at least, ends one thing to start another. A series goes on and … Continue reading →

I have a rather broad definition of a thriller. It’s any exciting, violent, conflictive combative story that doesn’t involve the supernatural or science fiction. In other words, pretty much everything that isn’t romance or a mystery or literary fiction. It … Continue reading →

T I consider post-apocalyptic books as a subgenre of science fiction. After all, some fairly science fiction things have to happen before the world goes apocalyptic: meteor strikes, nuclear war, zombies. But it’s such a specific category that I see … Continue reading →