What I Just Finished Reading
Once upon a time, Major Mick Gilligan, USAF, didn’t believe in Magic. Nor, had he been told of it, would he have believed in the elf Lisella, or cared that she had cursed master programmer Wiz Zumwalt, later of Cupertino and now of an alternate world where magic works like a computer program. But that …
Using the last 200 years of American history as his template for Martian history, Robinson projects his tale of Mars’s colonization from the 21st century, in which settlers successfully revolt against Earth, into the next century, when various interests on Mars work out their differences on issues ranging from government to the terraforming of the …
Wiz Zumwalt, ex-Cupertino programmer and now mighty wizard in a sword-and-sorcery world, must contend with the need to act as a leader in the Council of the North, the need to teach his new magic programming system to others, and the need to rewrite his spell compiler system. He also learns of incredibly destructive ends …
The sequel to Red Mars details an early 22nd-century Mars controlled by Earth’s metanationals, gigantic corporations intent on exploiting Mars. Debate among the settlers–some native-born, some the surviving members of the First Hundred–is divided between the minimalist areoformists, who have come to love Mars in all its harshness, and the terraformists, who want to replicate …
It all began when the wizards of the White League were under attack by their opponents of the Black League and one of their most powerful members cast a spell to bring forth a mighty wizard to aid their cause. What the spell delivers is master hacker Walter “Wiz” Zumwalt. With the wizard who cast …
For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny. John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a …
It’s only natural that Alan, the broadminded hero of Doctorow’s fresh, unconventional SF novel, is willing to help everybody he meets. After all, he’s the product of a mixed marriage (his father is a mountain and his mother is a washing machine), so he knows how much being an outcast can hurt. Alan tries desperately …
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In the midst of a series of unexplained plagues and famines, two teenage girls are heavily pregnant, despite being virgins. According to the sacred prophecies of Fatima, one will bear the child of Christ and the other, the spawn of Satan. Both Anne Fitzgerald, a former nun turned private detective, and the Vatican’s Father Rosetti …
A courageous federal agent, a powerful and resourceful woman lawyer–only they can possibly stop the unspeakable from happening. New York City is under siege by a secret militia group–and that’s just the beginning of the relentless terror of Black Friday. While Patterson’s thriller is slightly out-of-date with its Cold War setting, it remains dramatically contemporary …
When ferret Swartt Sixclaw and his arch enemy Sunflash the Mace swear a pledge of death upon each other, a young creature is cruelly banished from the safety of Redwall. As he grows, he seeks revenge on the people of Redwall and finds himself embroiled in a hostile battle with far-reaching consequences. I’ve finished the …