Mark R. Kelly
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Recent Posts
- Links and Comments 19 Feb 2021
- Notes and Quotes: Ray Bradbury on Good, Evil, and Knowledge
- Links and Comments: Reality as a Common Ground
- Links and Comments: RL, as despicable as DJT
- Links and Comments: Republicans and Doing the Right Thing, Not; Religion as LARP
- Links and Comments: Astronomical Photos from APOD
- Nonfiction Notes: Matthew Hutson’s The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking
- Nonfiction Notes: Alex Rosenberg’s THE ATHEIST’S GUIDE TO REALITY
- Links and Comments: Political Matters This Week: 11 Feb 2021
- Nonfiction Notes: Bobby Duffy, WHY WE’RE WRONG ABOUT NEARLY EVERYTHING
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Category Archives: science fiction
Notes and Quotes: Arthur C. Clarke’s THE DEEP RANGE (1957)
Here’s a relatively quick take on a 1950s novel I reread this past week — not as long or as polished as my Black Gate reviews have been. (I’ll be resuming those in February.) THE DEEP RANGE was the 8th … Continue reading
Posted in Arthur C. Clarke, Book Notes, science fiction
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Heinlein, SPACE CADET (1948)
I’m reviewing detailed notes of books I’ve read in recent years but not yet posted about, and boiling them down into summaries and comments more useful to readers than if I simply posted all the detailed notes. (And in truth, … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Heinlein, science fiction
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Frederik Pohl, THE GOLD AT THE STARBOW’S END (1972)
This is a nice companion book to Pohl’s novel GATEWAY, because one of the five stories here is a prelude that novel. That story and three of the others were all published in various magazines in 1972; the fifth was … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, science fiction
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Frederik Pohl: GATEWAY (1977)
[expanded 24jun20 5pm] I need to catch up on book notes. I’m not a fast reader, and am busy with other things throughout the week, reading perhaps 3 hours a day at best, but still get through about 2 books … Continue reading
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Links and Comments: Nature and Human Brains; Science Fiction and Mental Resiliency
Scientific American, Caleb A. Scharf: A Failure of Imagination, subtitled, “Nature does not have to play fair with our puny human brains.” A favorite theme of mine: how there’s more to the universe than humans are aware of; how there … Continue reading
Posted in Cosmology, MInd, Narrative, science fiction
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Notes for the Book: Hierarchy of Science Fiction
(updated 8jul20, with additional para’s at the end) What is science fiction? Many things, and what interests me about science fiction is not reflected in all its forms, any more than any particular music fan, interesting in dance, say, or … Continue reading
Posted in science fiction, The Book
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Silverberg, DYING INSIDE (1972)
This is Silverberg’s most highly-regarded novel, and one of his most unusual. It was published in 1972, near the end of a period during which Silverberg wrote one or two critically acclaimed novels a year, from roughly 1967 to 1976. … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Robert Silverberg, science fiction
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Heinlein’s First: For Us, the Living
Almost on a lark, I picked up the first novel by Robert A. Heinlein a few days ago, and read it through. It’s a fascinating book on several levels. First, it’s Heinlein first novel in that it’s the first one … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Heinlein, science fiction
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Notes for the Book: Simplex, Complex, Multiplex
Several themes are starting to gel, so perhaps I’ll record some of my current thoughts as they now stand. Just the act of writing a blog post helps me organize and clarify them. I still find myself learning: almost every … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, science fiction, The Book
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More Standard SF Furniture: Robert Silverberg’s The 13th Immortal
As I said in my previous post, I suspended reading for some weeks once the coronavirus lockdown began, in mid-March; things were too unsettled and uncertain to allow for the indulgence of sitting down and turning inward into a book. … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Robert Silverberg, science fiction
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