"...If your intended audience does not, at the moment, exist, you can project whatever you want onto that audience whether it jives with human nature or not. You can, for example, imagine that these future readers - unlike readers in the barbarian present - will have put aside all religious sentiment and accepted the inevitability of atheism. You can also imagine that said future readers will have abandoned their national ties and embraced one-world governance. The possibilities are basically endless.

And it was here in the thought process that I had my epiphany: The Future Library is, in fact, the apotheosis of recent trends in the literary world."

While I was away at Dragon Con, an argument erupted on Facebook that I would like to address -- and since I've just reviewed John Ringo's zombie plague novels, now is as good a time as any.

The argument in question began in a private conservative/libertarian author's group with a post that complained that John Ringo writes women badly. In creating female characters who are overtly sexual and kick a lot of ass, the poster asserted, Ringo is merely bowing down to feminist ideology, consequently betraying his conservative principles.

Now: Does Ringo write "men with tits"? Well, yes. To cite just one example, Faith - from the previously reviewed Black Tide Rising series - is an Amazon who outright enjoys getting into "scrums" with the infected. But having heard Ringo discuss his work in multiple venues over the past several years, I'm confident that his female characters are determined by the settings he chooses and not by political considerations; indeed, Ringo has gotten into at least one notorious fight with the feminists, so the very idea that he's been slavishly catering to that mindset seems rather ludicrous.

Here's what is happening: Read More...

As the voting deadline is fast approaching, we have now reached that special time of year at which I share my impressions of this year's short list for the Hugo Awards. In this post, I will start with the short stories, for which my ballot will look something like this:

1. No Award

2.

3.

4.

Harsh? Perhaps, but I have my reasons.