The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head: A Psychiatrist's Stories of His Most Bizarre Cases by Gary Small

A collection of unusual cases from the practice of American psychiatrist, varying from a naked young woman standing on her head on the emergency ward to a slowly progressing dementia of a colleague. All cases are solved very neatly and quickly by the author, while most of his fellow doctors tend to be arrogant fools. Pretty interesting as such, but gives an impression that psychotherapy is a fast process which is most often based on a clever insight of the therapists. The book was entertaining to read in spite of a great amount simplification of the process.

267 pp.

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

The long waited installment of perhaps the best fantasy series there is or have ever been.
The story continues partly in parallel with the earlier book and deals with those characters who were not featured in it.
As usually, the story is seen from multiple viewpoints, perhaps from too many. For some reason there seemed to be a fair amount of fluctuation of quality between different chapters. Some of them (especially the most Reek/Theon chapters,) were extremely good, some less good, or seemed even superfluous.
As a whole, this book felt more than a little like a middle part of a series: the pieces are being set up for the more important events in the later books and the Real Events will happen sometime later. Well, there were some moving and surprising turns of the plot, but even they seemed to be more cliffhangers for the rest of the series and the consequences were not explored at all, and practically all characters were left to hang on cliffhangers. This was not the best book on the series, and it seems that GRRM has reached that point in his career that he doesn’t have to use an editor anymore. There are a fair amount of things which could have been condensed and even removed resulting in a more satisfying and entertaining book, not to say that this wasn’t one.

1040 pp.

Katja Bargum: Kutistuva turska ja muita evoluution ihmeitä

Excellent and entertainingly written book about the basic principles of evolution. Something every creationist should read, but probably wont.

Viihdyttävästi kirjoitettu johdatus evoluutioon ja sen perusmekanismeihin. Kirja lähtee evoluution perusmekanismeista ja päätyy siihen kuinka ihmiskunnan itsekkyys (joka on evolutionaarisesti ymmärrettävää) vaarantaa koko maailman. Loppupuolella ehkä mennään hiukan liiankin moralisoivalla puolelle. Parasta kirjassa ovat kuvaukset evoluution erikoisista ratkaisuista, mm tilanteissa joissa evoluutio on johtanut lajeja umpikujaan suosimalla yksilön selviämistä lajin selviämisen asemesta. Evoluution logiikka ja mekanismi selitetään kirjassa erittäin hyvin ja selkeästi. Jokaisen sekopää kreationistin lukulistalle tämä kuuluisi, tosin ei taida siitä olla pelkoa.


317 s.

Analog Science Fiction and Fact March 2006

A serial takes a lot of space. Pretty average issue.

The Little White Nerves Went Last • novella by John Barnes
A formed leader of some sort of military or espionage organization is woken inside another man's mind, so that important information can be retrieved. Most of the story is a story inside a story, a tale what happened to him as a very young boy ( mind eating robots attacked the planet) the framing story was a lot less interesting as the nested tale. ***+
The Skeekit-Woogle Test • shortstory by Carl Frederick
A slow and asymptomatic viral infection makes people more creative. A scientist who discovers that wants to be infected as he doesn't consider himself to be creative at all. A fairly nice idea, but execution didn't really work. I found it hard to believe that someone who has been studying synesthesia wouldn't recognize it when he himself has it. ***+
Wildlife • shortstory by Henry Melton
A nature photographer goes to the moon to take some pictures of the landscape there. He finds out that there is some ”wildlife” there, also. A simple, short, story. ***-
Playhouse • [Draco Tavern] • shortstory by Larry Niven
A Draco tavern story. The aliens have some difficulties with their stasis equipment and unload a bunch of alien children from different species to the Draco tavern. Some of them with some fairly unusual habits. Ok, average or above average story. ***
Wasting Time • novelette by Grey Rollins
A professor has some trouble keeping his office plants alive. Then the whole outside wall of his office crumbles, later when the workers are building a new wall it explodes. What might be causing that? Pretty good story, probably the best in issue. The sinister implications of the invention which was made in the laboratory in the next building are are also at least mentioned. ***½

Reijo Mäki: Kolmastoista yö

A detective novel about a PI working in Turku. Probably worst I have read in this series. The book has some serious problems with an overcrowded plot involving KGB sleeper agents, mafia hit men, nuclear weapons and bisexual love triagles.


Vares romaani. Tällä kertaa Vares kohtaa useampiakin entisen Neuvostoliiton ja nyky isen Venäjän sleeper- agentteja, oma osuutensa juonessa on myös mafialla ja ydinaseilla, epätoivoista biseksuaalista rakkaustarinaa unohtamatta. Ja Vareksella tietenkin kauniita naisia ja olutta riittää. Kovin suuri uskottavuus ei Vares-kirjoissa ole mikään perusvaatimus tavallisestikaan ollut, mutta tässä kyllä mentiin uskottavuudessa kaikkien järkevien rajojen yli. Kirjassa oli runsaasti vauhdikkaita tapahtumia, mutta niiden järkevyys kyllä oli siinä ja sinä. Useampia sarjan kirjoja olen lukenut, mutta tämä taitaa kyllä olla heikoin. Jotenkin kirjoitustyylikin oli jäykempää kuin muissa sarjan kirjoissa. Jonkinasteinen pettymys, joka tuntui vähän välityöltä, mutta menihän tämä kirja hyvin kevyenä ja nopeana kesälukemisena.

362 s.

Galaxy Science Fiction October 1953

A serial takes a lot of space. The short stories are clearly below average.

The Model of a Judge • shortstory by William Morrison
An extraterrestrial with impeccable taste judges a pie making contest. I wonder what the point of the story is supposed to be? **-
The Carnivore • shortstory by Katherine MacLean [as by G. A. Morris ]
Aliens show themselves after humanity has destroyed itself in a war. Aliens are herbivores and very timid, and are afraid of the warlike humanity. The end twist is something that could be expected - aliens have sterilized all remaining humans so that there can be no more so dangerous creatures.***-
With a Vengeance • shortstory by J. B. Woodley
A short story about a new American emperor, who as a young man wanted to by a newspaperman, but couldn't as his writing was so atrocious. Now he has a job for the editor who fired him.... The best story in the magazine, but still fairly mediocre. ***
Origins of Galactic Etiquette • [Origins of Galactic . . .] • shortstory by Edward Wellen
Short stupid vignettes of misunderstandings between Galatic races. The premise might be good, but the stories are overlong and really, really stupid and badly written. Supposed to be funny, but isn't. **
At the Post • novelette by H. L. Gold
Gambler's wife is in a mental hospital because of catatonic schizophrenia. He and some of his friends starts to suspect that she is able to travel to the future. As that would be really valuable for some whose main interest is gambling on horse races, he tries to get into the same state as his wife. It turns out that she isn't traveling to the future – she is working with aliens who want to preserve some of humanity's most important aspects before mankind destroys itself. A pretty bad story which is badly written. **-

My Hugo award votes 2011 part 4: Short Stories

“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal
A family on generation ship saves all important data through an AI personality. Apparently it is so poorly constructed that a dropping it shakes a wire apart from its socket, and prevents it from accessing the long term memories. And apparently those who developed the system were brain dead and didn't plan for any backups. Well, that accident reveals that not only the system is poorly constructed and poorly fault tolerant, it is extremely poorly programmed as well - someone with dementia can hack the system so badly it can not be restored. The writing is ok and strives for emotion, but the premise and logic are so horribly bad, that irritation over those prevented any possible emotions.
“Ponies” by Kij Johnson 
A young girl has to bring her pony (with wings, a horn and ability to speak) to a party where the pony has to lose two of the skills. All metaphor, nothing else. Very short story,
“The Things” by Peter Watts 
John Carpenter's The Thing from the monsters point of view. Naturally he(it?) has motivations and goals of his own, and doesn't consider himself as on monster or as a "bad guy" ( or as an individual at all as matter of fact). A fairly good story, very well written, but somewhat too derivative.
“Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn 
A kind of postapocalyptic story about a future where there are strict quotas for everything, from fishing to getting children. A fishing group is led by a woman who originally has been born without valid permits and there some resentment against her for that reason. Another fairly good story, probably best of bunch. Not that it means much.


The average quality was probably the worst in this category. Once again I wonder how these stories managed to be nominated. Where is for example “Red Letter Day” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (the winner of Analog's reader survey), which is by far better story than any of these? Two of the stories were fairly good, two were so bad or irritating that I am going to place them below “no award”.


1. “Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn 
2. “The Things” by Peter Watts 
3. No award
4. “For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal
5. “Ponies” by Kij Johnson 

My Hugo award votes 2011 part 3: Novelettes

“Eight Miles” by Sean McMullen
A steampunk story from Analog? Is this a first? A balloonist gets an interesting offer from a nobleman in 19th century Britain. The nobleman has found a strange woman, who is very lethargic and passive, and clearly is not a human. He assumes that she comes from the highlands of Tibet, and uses the balloon to get higher up to thinner air.
“That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made” by Eric James Stone
A Mormon missionary is working to convert aliens who live on the sun and are made from plasma. He has made some converts, but then a one of them has bad conscience about a sexual act. 
A well written and good story, in spite of having a totally despicable main protagonist, who is trying to brainwash aliens to totally alien (to them) ideology. That point isn’t really discussed in the story; apparently the author doesn’t recognize the ethical problems. Personally, I think that all missionary work has some very racist connotations: OUR religion is so much better than YOUR religion.
“The Emperor of Mars” by Allen M. Steele
A bride of a man who works in a Mars colony dies in a car accident on earth. He soon starts to believe that he is the emperor of Mars and all classic sf about mars is true. Excellent and entertaining story.
“The Jaguar House, in Shadow” by Aliette de Bodard
I read this story earlier when it was published in Asimov's. i didn't get it them. Now I tried to reread it, but I got it even less. Some sort of intrigue told in reverse cronological order in some sort of alternative world where the great indian kingdoms of middle and south America weren't destroyed.
Plus or Minus” by James Patrick Kelly
A youngster who has been genetically modified for interstelar travel ( she is able to go hibernation) has more or less run away home and is working on some sort of space freighter. They have an acident, and inevitable conclusion happens. Well written but very ordinary and predictable story. I wonder why this was nominated?

Most of the nominees in this category were competent and even enjoyable, and I really liked of “The Emperor of Mars” and ”Eight Miles”. They were both competent and good stories, and it was fairly hard to decide which of them is the better one. I might well change their order before the final voting. The worst two were also easy to find; in both cases I really don't understand why they were even nominated. I didn't really hate either one, so I am not going put them below the ”no award”.

1. “The Emperor of Mars” by Allen M. Steele
2. “Eight Miles” by Sean McMullen
3. “That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made” by Eric James Stone
4. “Plus or Minus” by James Patrick Kelly
5. “The Jaguar House, in Shadow” by Aliette de Bodard