Favorite Fictional Character: Locke Lamora

Favorite Fictional CharacterHosted by Ryan at WordsmithoniaFor some reason I often find myself attracted to fantasy books that feature a thief as the central character. And one of my favorite thief characters is Locke Lamora from Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora.After being orphaned as a child, Lock Lamora joins the Thiefmaker's gang where he is trained as a pickpocket and thief. But while skilled at his new vocation, Lamora is too much of...

Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold

Louis McMaster Bujold’s Paladin of Souls has been sitting on my shelf, unread, for the past year. I had picked it up on my last trip to America, not realizing that it was a sequel to an earlier book, and so I put this book aside until I had a chance to read the first one, The Curse of Chalion. Now that I have finally read it, I only wish I had made more of an effort to do so sooner.Although Paladin of Souls takes place in the same world as The Curse...

Winner of the January Book Giveaway

Congratulations to Audrey at Brizmus Blogs Books for winning the January Book Giveaway at my website, www.42scifi-fantasy.com. Audrey will get to select for herself any one book from my bookstore that she would like to receive.This giveaway runs each month, beginning at the first of the month. To enter, just send me a book recommendation, which will be posted on my website's recommendation page. Click here for more information about this conte...

The key to enjoying science fiction

A couple of weeks ago, Jo Walton posted an interesting piece on the Tor blog about reading science fiction and the kind of skill-set required to really enjoy this genre.She says that most science fiction readers have developed the skill of allowing the really complicated SF details to pass them by, while enjoying the rest of the story. People who can't enjoy SF because they get caught up in the mechanics of how everything is supposed to work, apparently never developed this skill set and therefore can't really enjoy reading these sort of books....