Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Book-A-Day #190 (1/22): Michael Swanwick's Field Guide to the Mesozoic Megafauna

Yesterday was as close as I'd come to breaking the book-a-day streak: the book I'm reading for work (and thought I'd be able to finish today) had to be set aside at lunchtime, since I had an interview to do (with the Adventures in SciFi Publishing podcast; watch for it in a few weeks). And I'd cleared out the last of my emergency back-up half-read pile over the weekend.

Things looked bleak for the ol' book-a-day.

But then I remembered the super-secret pile of quick reads, and pulled this out of it. It's probably the thinnest excuse for a "book" that I'll ever commit, but it looks like a book, so I'm counting it.

This very slim stapled volume (32 pages, I blush to mention) contains two short-short story cycles: "A Field Guide to the Mesozoic Megafauna" (originally posted on Swanwick's publisher's website to promote his then-new novel Bones of the Earth) and "Five British Dinosaurs" (from Interzone). There are eighteen different stories here, but they are all, of course, very, very short.

But they're also Swanwick stories, so they're witty and fun. I don't recommend this to anyone but a huge dinosaur fan (or Swanwick completist), though I should add that Bob Walters makes a cameo appearance in one story.

The Fabulous Book-A-Day Index!

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