With Both Hands

Sign in Subscribe

Appendix N

The Time Traders and Galactic Derelict by Andre Norton Book Review

Andre Norton was a prolific mid-century science fiction and fantasy author who is listed in Gary Gygax’s Appendix N, but despite her popularity I was entirely unfamiliar with her work. To rectify that, I picked up the 2000 Baen omnibus edition titled The Time Traders [Amazon link] that contains

Linkfest 2021-03-26: Trigun Edition

. . . And Between the Wasteland & Sky JD Cowan masterfully analyzes the Catholic themes in Trigun Made in China Razib Khan looks at the history of China and various governments actions in Xinjiang. Appendix N Connection: The Origin of Shadows in the D&D Game How a classic story by

Forgotten Ruin by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole Audiobook Review

Forgotten Ruin [Amazon link], the new audiobook by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole, narrated by Christopher Ryan Grant, is described by the authors as Tolkien meets Shock + Awe. I would describe it as a wonderful mashup of all of my favorite things in dudelit, the masculine adventure fiction that spans

The Long View 2008-03-20: Missing Greenhouse Signature; Arthur C. Clarke; JFK & Religion; Dune 2.0; Extreme Good Friday

The passing of Arthur C. Clarke in 2008 spurred this comment by John J. Reilly: Here is a mystery: Clarke was usually counted among the Big Three of science fiction in the second half of the 20th century; the other two were Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. All of them

Re-reading Paxton Locke

I’ve got an ARC of The Sacred Radiance, book 4 in the Paxton Locke series [Silver Empire affiliate link] by Daniel Humphreys, and I felt like it would be fun to run through the three previous volumes again before I get into it. Spoiler alert: it was. In my

Penny Dreadfuls

So despite what I just said, I am going to look to something G. K. Chesterton wrote almost 120 years ago, because it is still true. And while I appreciate JD Cowan’s analysis of what went wrong in popular culture in the last twenty years, in another sense very

Cugel's Saga or The Skybreak Spatterlight by Jack Vance Book Review

Cugel’s Saga [Amazon affiliate link] and The Eyes of the Overworld are both described as picaresques, but in my mind, a key element of a picaresque is to take the absurdity and dial it up to eleven. Cugel as portrayed in the 1966 short stories has a kind of