Reading

First Lines from Legendary SF & F True Fans Read

Lynette M Burrows

First Line Friday is a series of blog articles posted on the first Friday of every month. The first line of a story, we’re told, must hook the reader. Implied is that the reader will not buy the book if the first line isn’t great. These are the First Lines from Legendary SF & F true fans read. Do they hook you? Which one(s) will you read? A noble gentleman that had been married many years, but his wife being barren, did bear him no children; at last she died, and his friends did advise him to marry again, because his brother’s children were dead, and his wife was likely to have no more: so he took to wife a virtuous young Lady, and after one year she conceived with child, and great joy there was of all sides: but in her child-bed she died, leaving only one daughter to her sorrowful husband, who in a short time, oppressed with melancholy, died, and left his young daughter, who was not a year old, to the care and breeding of his brother, and withal left her a great estate, for he was very rich. The Blazing World Margaret Cavendish (1666) You […]

Story Time Reviews “Kin”

Lynette M Burrows

Story Time Reviews remembers that special time when an adult reads to a child and recognizes that as a grown-up, we need to reward ourselves with a story time now and then. I’m reviving this blog series that offers reviews of stories read aloud. Today Story Time Reviews “Kin” by Bruce McAllister read on “LeVar Burton Reads.” This podcast originally posted on June 13, 2017. It runs 36:46 minutes in length. The Story “Kin” by Bruce McAllister appeared in the February 2006 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. It received a nomination for the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. The story appears in multiple anthologies and is an Amazon “short read.” The story is about a meeting between a young boy who has a need and an alien assassin. Their meeting yields unexpected results. The principal character, a twelve-year-old boy, is convincing. The author’s words paint the alien assassin in scary otherworldly details. The story starts in a third person omniscient viewpoint that quickly switches to a closer third-person viewpoint and shatters conventions by relaying the story from three different viewpoints. One might think three viewpoints would make the story flabby and difficult to follow. Yet, the story, the […]

Discover Hope in Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

Lynette M Burrows

Reading can be escape and inspiration. Sometimes reading is difficult. Other times it’s easy. Reading can open our eyes and minds and hearts to different ways to think, a new world, or to life, love, and maybe death. One of the greatest things reading can give us is hope. Hope grew scarce during 2020. Now, the glimmer of hope taunts us while we must continue fighting a pandemic and the capriciousness of life. Discover hope in science fiction and fantasy novels. May these quotes give you respite from whatever troubles you. Even when the world throws it worst and then turns its back, there is still always hope. Pittacus Lore, The Power of Six Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you’d drop dead in 10 seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 Kindness eases change. Love quiets fear. And a sweet and powerful Positive obsession Blunts pain, Diverts rage, And engages each of us In the greatest, The most intense Of our chosen struggles. Octavia E. Butler, Parable of Talents Each day means a new twenty-four hours. Each day means everything’s possible again. You […]