I finished JayLake's Rocket Science last night and I really really liked it. There's a blurb on the back which reads, "If the Hardy Boys stayed up half the night reading Astounding Magazine by flashlight, this is what they would dream after they turned out the light!" That blurb actually got me interested in the book in the first place and the story completely (and wildly) lives up to its promise. It takes place after WWII so there is certainly that whole "Hardy Boys" feel going on in the way the characters talk to each other and act (with a lot more respect then your current teenager), but it isn't cheesey or dated. It's mostly just a cool retro ride that includes Nazis, Communists, the Mob and an alien spacecraft - oh, and the US Army too. In that respect it is a very mid-century/Cold War type of book, but none of it reads as something that is out of date. Mostly it is just flat out fun - not silly fun because it gets quite intense at moments - but fun to read, fun to escape into, fun to experience, if that makes any sense. My full review will be up over at Bookslut in January but consider this a winner all the way around. It is a sci fi novel unlike any I have read in awhile and very much - dare I say it - like something Bradbury might have written a few decades ago. I'm sending my copy to my older brother because I know that he will love it and there is nothing better than passing on a good book.

If you love Sci Fi then you will probably have heard that the Sci Fi Channel is discontinuing its SciFiction series of short fiction at the end of this year. The archives have great great stuff and it is a real shame to see this end - I honestly don't understand how the channel could do this as short stories are really the backbone of the whole genre. A movement has started to write appreciations of everyone of the stories and you can read about it and sign up over here. I have already picked my story to appreciate - now I just have to write the darn thing!

I also forgot to mention the new issue of Bookslut that is up this month. I reviewed several books in my column (Mermaid Park, After Summer, Love Cajun Style and Midnight Blue.) I really try to find books that might have escaped notice and write about them, as so much young adult fiction is complete and utter crap that it is hard sometimes to find everything that is good. As I wrote in my review, I was a big fan of the mermaid park at Weeki Wachee, Florida when I was a kid. It flat out blew my mind to see those girls performing underwater. When I picked up Beth Mayall's book, Mermaid Park, it was like going home again even though it is set in a park in New Jersey. Beth nailed her inner teenage girl with this novel, and wrote so effectively about how hard it is to be misunderstood and how sometimes really, that is what happens in families. (And don't even get me started on the so-called joy of blended families. Yeah, right.) Her book seems nostalgic although it is firmly set in the modern day but then again, that might just be my own nostalgia overwhelming me. This is a great book for a teenage girl who wants a little time to herself to sort things out. I loved it, just as I loved all the books I wrote about this month.

And on a more serious note if you haven't picked up the current issue of Newsweek then you really are missing out. The issue of the day is do the American people want to be part of a country that tortures, that makes torture an acceptable part of doing business in the 21st century. My military history instructor in college (a Major in the US Army and Vietnam vet) came down incredibly hard on some of my classmates who tried to explain one day why the events of My Lai were understandable, and acceptable. Major Hall said we were better than that, our job was to be better than that - we are Americans. That's what John McCain says in Newsweek as well and I believe him. I don't want to be killed by a terrorist, I don't want another terrorist attack - anywhere - but I also don't want to give up the best part of being an American, that knowledge that we are the good guys.