Reviews

This a book you read as you might swim in an ocean. You submerge yourself at this point or that, absorbing it, living it.

PHILIP K. DICK, by the Exegesis

BY D.F. McCourt

There are three books, actual bound paper artifacts, that sit near at hand on my desk: Webster’s New Explorer Dictionary and Thesaurus, the King James Bible and the Oxford Complete Works of Shakespeare. Though all three of these texts are available freely online, I find great value in having them within reach to flip through. Not only do they represent the foundations of modern literature but they, all three of them, are inexhaustible wellsprings of inspiration and reliable remedies to all flavours of writer’s block. For the first time in many years, there is a fourth book I am thinking of adding to this company: The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick.

AE Interviews: Nalo Hopkinson

BY Paul Jarvey

I met with Nalo Hopkinson in the Merril Collection of the Toronto Public Library, just minutes before she was to participate in a reading of select works from science fiction’s late visionary Theodore Sturgeon. Sturgeon was one of the most prolific and influential writers of his time and he remains the most anthologized. Hopkinson’s oeuvre does not share the universal recognition (or impressive size) of Sturgeon’s, but she has mastered the art of subtle narrative. Her works are nuanced tales that are celebrated for their power to weave the unique mythologies of the Caribbean with complex social and political themes in the unusual settings of speculative fiction.

AE Interviews: Peter Watts

BY AE

Peter Watts lives in Toronto and has received press primarily for two things. The first is his bold decision to make the vast majority of his work (including both Blindsight and “The Island”) available for free online under a Creative Commons license. The second is an altercation he was involved in crossing the Canada–United States Border in December 2009. It was in the aftermath of his trial, which resulted in a felony conviction for obstruction, that he gave AE this interview. At the time, “The Island” was a nominee for a Hugo Award, an honour it has since won.