Jo Walton is an award-winning author of, inveterate reader of, and chronic re-reader of science fiction and fantasy books. What Makes This Book So Great? is a selection of the best of her musings about her prodigious reading habit. Jo Walton's many subjects range from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. Among them, the Zones of Thought novels of Vernor Vinge; the question of what genre readers mean by 'mainstream'; the under-appreciated SF adventures of C. J. Cherryh; the field's many approaches to time travel; the masterful science fiction of Samuel R. Delany; Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children; the early Hainish novels of Ursula K. Le Guin; and a Robert A. Heinlein novel you have most certainly never read. Over 130 essays in all, What Makes This Book So Great is an immensely engaging collection of provocative, opinionated thoughts about past and present-day fantasy and science fiction, from one of our best writers.
As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closests companions.
It was then that Sara realized the books chose her as much as she chose them, and the rewards and frustrations they brought were nothing she could plan for.
As civil war threatens to destroy the hard-won peace of Tir Tanagiri, warrior Sulien ap Gwien must take up arms once again in a conflict that tears her country, family, and friendships apart.
When four friends participate in a competition that leads to the death of a horse and enrages the Horse Goddess, the friends must evade the godess's curse and save their countries from destruction.
Sibyls & Spaceships: Poems
Now she returns with a powerful epic set in the same world. The Prize in the Game is the tale of the intertwined fates of four friends, destined for kingship but riven by rivalry and war.
Cal reveals that matching your job to a pre-existing passion does not matter. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before.
Offering a fresh perspective on Gatsby, SO WE READ ON takes readers into archives, high school classrooms, and onto the Long Island Sound to explore the novel's hidden depths, revealing its surprising debt to noir, its rocky path to ...
A boat captain is forced to team up with the woman who stole his job in order to save his New England island home from developers.
This is the famous story of Selina, who taught school in a community of hard working farmers and thrifty wives—and found beauty in cabbages!