![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I'm back from ConQuest, the Kansas City-area science fiction convention. I had a good time, including a dinner with Karin Gastreich and Brent Bowen, and some time to catch up with Eric Reynolds. Saturday in particular was wall-to-wall panels I wanted to attend, so I did. There was an interesting panel (scheduled opposite George R.R. Martin) about marketing books, in which David Pedersen of "Got Angst" fame and Blake Hausladen discussed the ways to sell books. In short, a good time was had.
While travelling, I read three books, and had some thoughts on them.
1) The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan. The umpteenth book in a long space opera / milSF series, it was highly enjoyable if you've been reading all along. If not, you'd be lost.
2) One of the victims of the Sad Puppies was the writer Annie Bellet. For a variety of reasons, I decided to take a flyer and buy one of her books. It's short, barely 121 pages, but very entertaining. (There will be a more profound review.) I think it's probably technically a novella, and would have been a vastly better pick than any of Wright's output. In Annie's books, stuff happens quickly to people we care about.
3) I'm working on Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin. It won the Nebula in1995 1968 (not sure where I got the other date from), and was recommended to me. It's frankly a bit slower than the Bellet, but still managed to grab my attention. Again, largely by providing characters I care about, a cool world I want to learn more about, and setting some high stakes.
If you're looking for a "Human Wave Manifesto" style story, I would recommend any or all of the three above over much of what was actually nominated by the human wave supporters.
While travelling, I read three books, and had some thoughts on them.
1) The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan. The umpteenth book in a long space opera / milSF series, it was highly enjoyable if you've been reading all along. If not, you'd be lost.
2) One of the victims of the Sad Puppies was the writer Annie Bellet. For a variety of reasons, I decided to take a flyer and buy one of her books. It's short, barely 121 pages, but very entertaining. (There will be a more profound review.) I think it's probably technically a novella, and would have been a vastly better pick than any of Wright's output. In Annie's books, stuff happens quickly to people we care about.
3) I'm working on Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin. It won the Nebula in
If you're looking for a "Human Wave Manifesto" style story, I would recommend any or all of the three above over much of what was actually nominated by the human wave supporters.
