A Brief Review at IROSF

April 2009 Issue of IROSF

The new online issue of the Internet Review of Science Fiction, which I've touted on this blog before, includes Lois Tilton's Short Fiction reviews. The May 2009 Analog is featured first, including "The Brother on the Shelf" by Philip Edward Kaldon.

It's 2882, and Earth is at war with Enemy Aliens. Billy and his little Brother Connor go every week to the store to pick up the new war trading cards. Billy likes the big cruisers.

Later, at age seventeen, Billy volunteers to serve on one of the cruisers while Connor is still too young to go to war, but he can keep in contact through the trading card of Billy's ship.

Pulling his last card out of the pouch, Connor sat quietly in the cold winter afternoon. It had been hard to find one specific warship out of the thousands of ships in Fleet, but he had a strong reason for having this exact card and so sought one from a dealer off the net. He stared at the image of the black and gray wedge, the notation FFL-2890 in crisp Fleet lettering.

A cross between Starship Troopers and Bazooka Joe, for readers who can accept the premise that it's still 1959, after nine hundred years.

At Least My Name Was Spelled Correctly (grin)

Unlike one of my student's book reports, which got both my first and last name wrong!

I'm not here to argue about reviews. It is instructive to me to see which aspects of a story get through and which do not -- some of that has to be on me, the writer, not on the reviewer, the reader. (grin)

Ha!

Dr. Phil

Been A While

West Michigan Weather

We've had odd strings of nice and semi-days for a bit now, in between some cold, some rain and a lot of wind. Windy today, high in the 40s. Rain last night resulted in a few roads closed due to "ponding", which is unusual.

Tomorrow, Saturday, is going to be nice. Then Sunday, rain and snow.

Nothing like the rains in Alabama or the snows after the rains and floods in Fargo... except one of the computer models is throwing a connecting rod or something. Might have 10 to 20 inches of snow by Tuesday. No, really.

I've warned my students about this. They're always the last to hear about things like this and I hate it when they get caught coming back from home over the weekend, wreck their cars and then have to miss class.

May be nothing. We'll see.

Dr. Phil