Book Review: The All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness

Have you read Deborah Harkness’s A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES yet? If not, why not? It’s okay if you haven’t. I’m late to the party, too. The first book was published almost six years ago and I didn’t know about it until last year. You could have asked me that question a little over a year…

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Skeleton: A Poem

Today was the first day I felt your bones And not your breath. Today was the first day I ran my fingers over your clavicle And not your skin. Today was the first day I lay against your rib cage And not your chest, taut and rich with youth and fear, Today I felt the hardness of…

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Mirrors: A Poem

“Forget him” was the most useless advice anyone ever gave me. “Forget about him,” my friends said. “You deserve better, anyway.” Forget him. The thought had occurred to me one night years before, but it meant nothing to my hoofbeat heart, stampeding in my chest, meant nothing to my butterfly eyes, wings beating open every five…

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Porous, Chapter Twelve: Waves On The River

This is the first chapter in the two-part ending to Section One of POROUS. Next Monday I’ll release the final chapter in the first section, and these two chapters are intended, really, to be one and the same. But I wanted this final scene to be long, and dramatic, and that didn’t really fit the…

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Porous, Chapter Eleven: Dissipation

I stare out the windows at the cloudless blue sky, a rarity here in Oregon. I’m trying to avoid Dr. Chase’s eyes, searching for mine, inquisitive and demanding. I wish I were out there, floating in the deep blue, or perhaps drifting through Silas’ purple bubbles in his strange world, instead of cooped up in…

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Porous, Chapter Nine: The Second Law

As I wrench myself away from the the gravitational pull Silas seems to exert on me, my fingers intuitively search for my cell phone. I pull it out and press a button on the side to check the time. Two minutes past four. It astounds me that so little time has passed, though I’ve found…

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IRON MAN 3 – My First Movie Review!

Confession time: I love superhero movies.  I love superhero movies because: A) They’re awesome. Things explode. Bad guys happen and are killed or banished to the end of time (e.g. Loki). The good guys always triumph. B) Superhero movies are a thrilling and entertaining way to explore what defines and unites humanity in all our…

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Book Review: “Disconnect” by Imran Siddiq

I’ve been going on a bit of a YA reading spree lately, but I’ve been fairly disappointed by the fact that so many of the protagonists in this genre are female. I have nothing against female protagonists, but the imbalance in the genre is overwhelming. Where are the books for boys? Where are the coming-of-age…

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Book Review: NEXUS by Ramez Naam

The tagline for the book NEXUS, published by the Angry Robot imprint of Osprey, is “Mankind Gets An Upgrade”, but frankly, I don’t think that does the book justice. Lots of books are about “upgrading” humans, whether through genetic modifications, android additions, or drugs (as is Nexus). The tagline is technically correct: the basic premise of NEXUS…

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