With Both Hands

Sign in Subscribe

Adventure

Timothy Zahn interviews with The Portalist

Timothy Zahn has a recent interview with The Portalist, advertising for his newly released book Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising [Amazon affiliate link]. I read this interview in a hermeneutic of continuity with the series of Facebook posts Zahn made reminiscing on his journey through the world of Star Wars book

The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance Book Review

Cugel the Clever stumbles from one adventure to another in a dismal world, ancient beyond memory, in Jack Vance’s The Eyes of the Overworld [Amazon link]. Written in 1966, Cugel’s world spanning tale of thwarted ambition and stillborn revenge is darkly epic. Reading through my omnibus edition of

Night's Black Agents by Daniel Humphreys: Paxton Locke Book 2 Review

Have I said I’m a sucker for any book [Silver Empire affiliate link] that mentions my hometown, Flagstaff, Arizona, even in passing? Paxton and his not-quite-girlfriend Cassie do simply pass through Flagstaff, as it is the junction between I-40 and I-17, on their way from Wisconsin to Arizona. Since

The Long View: The Sky People by S. M. Stirling

Reader Duane Oldsen requested John J. Reilly’s reviews of S. M. Stirling’s The Sky People [Amazon link] and In the Courts of the Crimson Kings [Amazon link]. I’m happy to oblige, even though these reviews were written by John in 2008, which is a little ahead of

The Moon Pool by A. Merritt Book Review

This is another expedition into the past of popular literature. Abraham Merritt, whose byline is nearly always A. Merritt, was a popular author who wasn’t even best known in his own time for his fiction. Rather, he was a celebrity journalist, making enough money to travel widely and pursue

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling Book Review

Normally, I’m not much interested in writing reviews of books I don’t like. I figure I’m just not the intended audience, and since there are so many good books of so many types in the world, I can just move on. In this case, I’m going

What authors like versus what readers like

This week, under quarantine and working at home, I was pondering how any given author’s most popular work is popular for reasons other than what the author was interested in writing it for. The thread provided lots of excellent examples, like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle [Amazon link], which