About

What is Speculiction?  Well, as much as I'd like to think this blog is my special little corner of the web, a place where the most cosmopolitan of book reviews are recorded and the most profound of travel writing is laid down, I know better.  It is just an escape for my bibliophilia and a place to post the thoughts and images of my travel.  It is typical blog fodder.  Though a reader of almost anything, most posts reflect my main reading habit the past four years: speculative fiction (hence the blog title), with a smattering of other fiction mixed in.  But you'll also find non-fiction reviews, as well as photos and thoughts from where I've been and lived in the world.

Yes, it seems I lately can't get enough speculative fiction.  I've been thoroughly engaged by the side of the genre which invites us to take a look at life from another perspective or imaginatively re-visions the world as we know it in intelligent fashion.  Writers like Stanislaw Lem, Ian McDonald, William Gibson, and Ursula Le Guin have grabbed me and won't let go.  My roots, however, lie in works more classic, Dostoevsky, Hesse, Steinbeck, and the like.  My reviews on this blog thus lie along lines more literary in expectation and analysis.  There needs to be some substance in the material or quality in the writing, entertainment not always sufficient to truly enjoy a book.  As I am also cutting my teeth in the review world, please have patience with my style.  I hope it is becoming more objective and quality.

For those serious about reading, I do not limit myself to any particular niche or to recently published fiction.  In an attempt to be comprehensive, the books reviewed originate from any era, category, culture, length, and whatever other manner can be used to delimit the genre.

With culturally, socially, and personally relevant ideas in books having more value than entertainment, on this blog you will also find essays, articles, and such extrapolating upon the major themes and topics of books I've read.  By clicking on 'Essays' you can access these posts.  (Unfortunately, this page is growing slowly, the essays requiring time to do the background work.)  Not having the time at the moment to go into the academic depth I would like, these essays are more overviews than detailed studies, and should be treated as such.

For more details, you might begin by clicking on any of the "Best Reads" posts located on the right side of the homepage (2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012).  There you will find a more concrete idea of my reading interests.  Also, every book I own or have read--for better and worse--can be found on my LibraryThing page here.  And lastly, the Review Policy, which spells out how I go about writing a review, can be found here. It may be an indirect way in which to familiarize yourself with this blog and its aim.

Feel free to leave your comments and opinions and I hope you enjoy Speculiction.

Jesse