Review: A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness In the Sky

 

Awards among the shallows:

Hugos considered as dyptich of semi-precious novels

Vernor Vinge and why the golden age of science fiction is still twelve

 

I really ought to know better by now. It doesn't matter whether an award is given out by fans or by peers, critics or the general public, whether the criteria is ostensibly "best" this or "favourite" that.

Awards are a crap shoot, influenced by fashions, by lobbying and by plain old bad taste.

That's right, I said it. Sometimes an award is given out to a book (or a movie, or a play, or a poem — the list is as endless as variations in the arts) that simply doesn't deserve it. That doesn't even merit being on the short-list in the first place.

Let me tell you about Vernor Vinge and why the golden age of science fiction is still 12. My full review lives at Edifice Rex Online. Yell at me here, or there.

So long and thanks for all the bagles

 

Serendipity:

(So long, and thanks for all the bagels)>

July 31, 2012, OTTAWA — As July comes to a close, so too does my tenure in Ottawa's storied Glebe. Tomorrow, I meet with our new landlord to pick up the keys. Saturday, we pack up our things and move uptown, into the very heart of our nation's capital.

Sometime last week, I decided to test out the new bus route to the airport (hint: it doesn't require a transfer and the bus comes to within a few blocks of our home-to-be). The bus to work was running late but the trip was otherwise uneventful. The ride back, on the other hand, made my heart go boop-oop-a-doop.

As the 97 crosses over the Rideau Canal one looks out upon a skyline that actually looks like that of a city, not of a town with a thyroid problem.

Who knew? In Ottawa there are towers of glass and concrete canyons. It's true, the towers are not that high and there aren't that many of them; nor are the canyons all that deep. But they exist, and it thrilled me to know I would be once again living in an area I can honestly call urban.

* * *

Which is not to say I won't miss the Glebe. I will. I'll miss the fearless cats. I'll miss the quiet streets and their stately arboreal honour guards. I'll miss Kettleman's Bagel Co. and — maybe more in theory than in practice — I'll miss having a sidewalk and driveway to clear of snow.

And so, just because it happened and I like the accidental results, I will say a cyber farewell to the old neighbourhood with a photo I've entitled Serendipity. I took it last week, the day I gave up on playing soccer in the rain and have (finally) decided that I like it quite a lot.

It might seem strange to commemorate a time of drought with a photo of a downpour, but since I am in fact commemorating a time of change — of giving up and taking on, of shedding and growing, of joys to come and regrets past — perhaps the apparent contradiction is a good thing. If there is anything at all consistent about life, it lies in its inconsistency.

Click the picture to embiggen, if you're of a mind to.
Cross-posted to Edifice Rex Online