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Review: Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 141
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 141 by Neil Clarke My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is one of those issues where I liked every story and every non-fiction essay. Read below for my thoughts per story. A space of one’s own: a whimsical dystopia that reminds me of the Terry Gilliam film Brazil. I’m a world…
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Review: Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 141
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 141 by Neil Clarke My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is one of those issues where I liked every story and every non-fiction essay. Read below for my thoughts per story. A space of one’s own: a whimsical dystopia that reminds me of the Terry Gilliam film Brazil. I’m a world…
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Upgrading Bowser (Windows Gaming Computer)
I hadn’t upgraded anything other than the graphics card for about a decade and so my gaming computer was starting to drag a little, even on games that shouldn’t have been that demanding. It was time for an upgrade! But I hadn’t kept up all that much with computer tech since I knew we didn’t…
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Review: Rave Master, Vol. 01
Rave Master, Vol. 01 by Hiro Mashima My rating: 3 of 5 stars I think this is the first manga I’ve read since DeathNote. I’m having a little trouble getting into this, but maybe it’s just one of those stories that starts off a little strange and then finally builds up to a plot? It…
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Review: Summer Knight
Summer Knight by Jim Butcher My rating: 4 of 5 stars Things continue to evolve in Dresden’s Chicago. By this point it’s become obvious to me that the main series (as opposed to short stories) requires the reader to read them all in order rather than just jumping in to any particular case. Like a…
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Review: Surrija by Surrija (formerly Jane Lui)
Like, perhaps, many of my readers, I knew Jane Lui’s music mostly from her cover songs. But I really liked her voice and so I decided to back the Kickstarter for her new album, Surrija. By the time this review is published, I’ll have had the album for about 2 months. For this review I’ll…
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Podcasts I’m Listening to In 2020
I’ve both added and dropped some podcasts since last time around. Where I’m listing the same podcast as last year I may use the same description as in the past with slight (or no) variation. Public Radio Radiolab – Heard about them because sometimes their stories are used on This American Life. Radiolab is a…
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2019 in Books
While I continued to read lots of cookbooks in 2019, this was the year of Sequels, Sanderson, and Science Fiction Magazines. On the sequels front, I finished The Cosmere (except for White Sands Vol 3), continued The Expanse, The Asylum Tales, Red Rising, The Dresden Files, The Mogoliad, Wild Cards, and the Illumination Paradox. For…
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Last.fm 2019 Listening Trends
In 2019 I went to 5 concerts, starting with Neon Trees and Fitz & The Tantrums in May. Then I saw a bunch of my favorite smaller bands like The MiSbehavin’ Maidens, The Doubleclicks, Lionize, and The PDX Broadsides. Anberlin came out of retirement and so it was great to go see them in concert…
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Review: Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 131
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 131 by Neil Clarke My rating: 4 of 5 stars With this issue, there were a ton of stories that had killer endings and worlds that I wanted to spend more time in. Strongly recommend!!! See below for a per-story review that may expand on my status updates: Twisted Knots: A story…
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Review: The Circlet Treasury of Erotic Steampunk
The Circlet Treasury of Erotic Steampunk by J. Blackmore My rating: 4 of 5 stars As I’ve said many times before – I’ve been exploring more genres recently instead of locking myself into just one. I don’t remember how this ended up in my To-Read list back in 2014, but it’s definitely different than my…
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Review: Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 126
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 126 by Neil Clarke My rating: 4 of 5 stars “Two Ways of Living” – A world in which humans can essentially hibernate by eating a ton of calories and then a chemical cocktail to go unconcious. Additionally, the person does not age. The short story essentially serves as a meditation on…
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Review: Promise of Blood (Powder Mage, #1)
Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan My rating: 4 of 5 stars As I work through my To-read list, we come to another book I added around 2014. This one was after Mr. McClellan had been interviewed by Sword and Laser (and 4 years before I’d ever heard of Brandon Sanderson). His idea of powder…
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Review: Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1)
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie My rating: 5 of 5 stars Only my third 5-star review for 2019, but boy does Ms. Leckie deserve it here. It’s everything I love about SF including a gigantic, fully realized world with a culture that makes sense as a consequence of the world she’s created. It really reminded…
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2019 Concert #5: The PDX Broadsides with The Misbehavin’ Maidens
I would have backed The PDX Broadsides’ Kickstarter for Relatable Content no matter what because I loved Trust Issues and I enjoy nearly all of their older songs. But the thing that made me spread the word everyone and try to get more backers was that they had a goal to do an East Coast…