Today, I give you the first in a series of Summer reading recommendations, dredged up from that place where 'Serious Literatures of Ideas' meet Pulp. I like to think of pulpy SF as the Grisham/Patterson/Brown Thriller for the imaginative. You can see the loose set of criteria that I'm using to pick out these books in my previous post here. I give you S. M. Stirling's Nantucket trilogy.

In case my position here was not already evident enough, I'll say it explicitly: I am a book nerd.  Ever since I learned how to read, I've loved it.  Reading is my constant companion, and reading fiction (especially SF) has been one of the few things I've consistently enjoyed.  There is very little in this life more satisfying than the reassuring pressure of a 6" x 4" paperback against my thigh or a hulking hardcover in my hand as I walk down the street.  It means that now matter what I'm doing that day, I'm never bored or lonely.   I can remember walking around day camp in the summer time with an Animorphs book taking up an entire cargo pocket in my shorts, making my walk limp to one side as the top scraped my leg.  If you're about my age (early 20's) you'll probably remember these -- they were to SF what Goosebumps were to horror: a young adult or children's series that at the time I read them was really awesome.  I mean, seriously, just look at the cover of book 1:

There were all sorts of wonderful, pulpy, exciting things going on in that series, and an early love for books like those, ones that are just for fun, continues with me to this day and my summers have always been full of them.  

The long waits are over. New Doctor Who is airing, New Battlestar Galactica is airing.  It has been a good week for fans of SF TV.  I am unable to muster more than glee -- BSG continues on the course that has long been set out and now that there's only 1 more Cylon that looks like us we'll finally get some serious movement in the plot.  In other words, a lot of shit will go down and I am looking forward to it.  If you've not started watching Season 4, or even if you have, make sure you catch Razor, something I'd missed completely.

There's been a lot of buzz around the blogosphere about Big Dog which I'm sure most of you have seen. A lot of people have had trouble with the part where the robotic dog is kicked -- they felt bad for it, since it was complex enough to be identified in the same way as a real dog. I thought the robot faltering on the ice was particularly pathetic. Why didn't anyone help it?

If by some chance you haven't seen the video here it is: