Monthly Archives: February 2020

The Murderbot Diaries

Posted on 28 February 2020 by Barbara Howe

If I were to make a movie of All Systems Red by Martha Wells, I would open with this voiceover: I murdered 57 humans. And then I went rogue. Murderbot, as the part-organic android security unit (SecUnit) privately calls itself, … Continue reading →

Posted in Space Opera | 2 Comments

2020 Sir Julius Vogel Awards

Posted on 21 February 2020 by Barbara Howe

Are you aware of the Sir Julius Vogel awards? Sir Julius Vogel was a prominent early immigrant to New Zealand. Besides being New Zealand’s Premier in the 1870s, he wrote New Zealand’s first science fiction novel, published in 1889. The … Continue reading →

Posted in New Zealand | 2 Comments

From a Shadow Grave

Posted on 14 February 2020 by Barbara Howe

Seventeen-year-old Phyllis Symons was murdered in 1931, struck on the head and then buried alive in fill from the excavation of Wellington’s Mount Victoria tunnel*. That historical fact is the springboard for From a Shadow Grave, by New Zealand author … Continue reading →

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Snow Falling on Cedars

Posted on 1 February 2020 by Barbara Howe

The time: December 1954. The place: a courtroom in a small town on an island in Puget Sound. Kabuo Miaymoto, the American-born son of Japanese immigrants, is on trial for the murder of Carl Heine, an American of European descent. … Continue reading →

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