I'm a twenty-two year old technical consultant working in northern Virginia. I prefer to read well-written character oriented science fiction, although I read fantasy and mainstream fiction at times. I probably am more picky than the average reader, and although I read a good deal I hate to feel like I have wasted my time reading something that isn't any good. My goals are to find good books to read and to become a better writer myself. This site helps with the first, because I read so much I eventually begin to forget what I thought about books or authors, and hopefully thinking at least a teeny bit critically about books will help with the second.

I don't really enjoy writing formal reviews or in-depth criticism. I can do either, but I don't think I do it very well. In the past I have tried writing rigorous reviews and it made the enterprise so unpleasant I never kept up with it. This year (2004) I simply committed to writing short 10 minute responses to everything I read. That's what you'll find on this site. The only rule I'm holding myself to is no spoilers on the main page and keeping them properly marked in the reviews themselves.

There are two reasons why people read book reviews. The first is to decide whether the book being reviewed is worth their time and/or money. The second reason is, having already read the book, most readers are interested in hearing what other people think. My reviews hopefully will serve both sorts of reader, although generally I don't have the time to pound out a spoiler heavy essay on why I like or dislike a book. When I do it will be carefully marked so as not to spoil anyone.

The ratings are a fairly ambitious side project of mine that has been going on for a while. Basically the goal is to give every book I've ever read a rating from 1 to 5 stars. I started doing this when I got tired of being asked "what would you recommend" and having to rack my brain and then feel stupid later when I forgot something obvious. It's slightly top heavy since I do my best to avoid reading books that won't be at least 3 star. I don't put ratings on the reviews because I feel like it tends to defeat the purpose of a review. In a review I'll try to let you know what sort of reader will like a book. Just because, for example, The Stars My Destination was a 3 star book for me doesn't mean a lot of people don't consider it a 5 star book. While ultimately I go mainly by my own reaction, I acknowledge when I know I'm in the minority or even small majority. The ratings are based entirely my personal taste. If your tastes align with mine to a decent extent then it will be useful for insta-recommendations, but mainly you can use it to gauge what I like and take that into consideration when reading my actual reviews.

Although my favorite books tend to be fairly literary (Book of the New Sun, Stand On Zanzibar) that doesn't stop me from enjoying what I call "light" SF if it is well-written. Generally however my patience with procedural novels has waned the past few years. I want to see interesting characters, an interesting world, or interesting ideas. Otherwise I will not care about the plot no matter how nicely set up.

I'll add, too, that another motivation for this site was the fact that reading SF reviews elsewhere on the net makes me feel like I'm an alien. Although there are obvious intersections, more often I am left shaking my head. Philip Pullman a great writer? Diaspora anything more than a glorified physics paper? And don't get me started on Quicksilver. There's no accounting for taste, I suppose. The good news is you should be easily able to determine just how much of an crazy idiot I am from seeing my ratings page and take this into account when looking at the reviews. Contact

The web has amazing capabilities as an interactive medium but mostly it is used as a fancy printing press. Send me an and tell me what you think. Comments and recommendations welcome.