SF Reviews and Articles in General Publications
§ Village Voice July 28 - August 3
Rock critic Robert Christgau profiles Peter Stampfel, associate editor at DAW and husband of DAW publisher Betsy Wollheim.
§ New Scientist July issues
July 31: Liz Sourbut's opinion piece briefly profiles SF classics by Lem, Le Guin, Herbert, Shute, and Robinson.
July 24: Stephen Baxter has an opinion piece about the forgotten Apollo astronauts.
July 10: An essay by Terry Pratchett and co-authors Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen about their UK-bestselling The Science of Discworld (Ebury Press).
July 3: An essay about the real life model used by Tintin creator Hergé for his eccentric Professor Calculus -- the Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard.
(Thu 29 July 1999)
§ Salon July 27
A three-part feature asks, Is Ken MacLeod our greatest science-fiction writer? Andrew Leonard reviews MacLeod's The Cassini Division (Tor) --
MacLeod is a breath of fresh air blowing through the all-too-formulaic genre niches of science fiction. Cyberpunk is far from dead -- likewise class struggle.
-- and interviews MacLeod via e-mail. Plus: an excerpt from the novel.
Wired August
Bruce Sterling has an article (page 92) about the ''postnationalist future'' of Cyprus, where a Kosovo-like ethnic conflict was played out 25 years ago. Also: a feature (page 181) about how the Mars Society is financing an expedition to the fourth planet with a lottery. [Links not available; Wired's contents go online only the month after the issue goes off-sale.]
§ Los Angeles Times Magazine July 25
In a special science and technology millennium issue, Gregory Benford's ''In Praise of Our Technopolis'' explains why Southern California has been ''a magnet for thinkers and tinkerers''. Also: a feature by Jason Dietrich summarizes famous works of SF set in LA. [Links should be good this week.]
The New Yorker July 19
A humorous vignette by Steve Martin, ''The Y3K Bug'', begins:
With only eight years to go before the end of the third millennium, many scientists are beginning to express concern over the Tridecta Blighter Function, whose circuitry was not programmed to accommodate the year 3000. ''Who knew that people would live six hundred years?'' said Tyrell Oven-Baby No. 9, whose work in Danish metaoscillititaniannia led the way to the familiar Fundolator. ''Yes, it's true,'' continued No. 9, ''at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 2999, some individuals' heads will explode.''
§ New York Times July 12
A review by Richard Eder [who recently 'retired' as lead book critic for the Los Angeles Times, only to turn up writing reviews on the opposite coast!] of Laurence Cossé's A Corner of the Veil (Scribner), a ''metaphysical fable'' about a Casuist religious order that comes into possession of ''an irrefutable, unparseable, unconditional proof of the existence of God.''
(Tue 27 July 1999)
