Reviews for Current topics in computational molecular biology

The average rating for Current topics in computational molecular biology based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-01-26 00:00:00 Jason Marsiglia Gaiman is literary bacon - short stories, young adult, fantasy, adult fiction - he's good in anything! "Smoke and Mirrors" is a collection of 30 or so short stories. They run the gamut from sci-fi to very short parables to fantasy to magical realism. It's not his best work, but as a collection it's imaginative and provocative. I enjoyed a majority of these stories and Gaiman continues to be one of my favorite authors. Some of my preferences were "Chivalry", "Changes", "We Can Get Them for You Wholesale", and "Snow, Glass, Apples". One of my favored aspects of Gaiman is his ability to slip seamlessly between realism and fantasy. One moment the story feels like an honest recollection of his past, and the next we're interacting with angels, trolls, and werewolves. He so deft with his word choice that these transitions happen with ease. A good example of this is "The Price", where Gaiman story about stray cats turns from reality to supernatural in an instant. This ability also really stood out to me in a different book - "The Ocean at the End of the Lane". I can't help but admire his mind. It's the little things like referring to crabs and fish as " . . . filled with things with too many legs and other things with no legs at all." In this collection, Gaiman is daring, taking on explicit sex, politics, pornography, and even sex change. Of course, this book was originally published in 1998, when navigating these waters were a little less turbulent than today. The book includes an Introduction which gives a short description of the inspiration or background of each story. I found myself flipping back and forth to this section after each story. For example, in the particularly sexually graphic story "Tastings", Gaiman admits that the story took him four years to write, largely because he was embarrassed by it. I always appreciate short story collections where the author reveals a bit of their motivation, inspiration, or background of the stories. One note on 'Changes', it's a creative story idea about the cure for cancer having the side effect of gender change which society turns into recreational use. It's laid out almost as author notes for a novel. And it could be a fascinating, controversial, and complex novel. But why include it in this form? Why not write it? Weird, and I found it wasteful and disappointing. An aptly titled collection of stories, where Gaiman does indeed use sleight of word and a bit of magic to make the unbelievable feel just about real.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-08-29 00:00:00 Robert Bob Neil Gaiman never disappoints! That's what this book is - smokes and mirrors - an interesting collection of short stories and poems. A diverse mix of crazy, dark, engaging, weird and hilarious!