Making Book

Making Book is an astonishing collection of essays by Teresa Nielsen Hayden. It's far easier to quote some of the comments about it than to describe it:

"Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a bloody good writer. Her effortless mastery of the comma-separated list, courageous use of subjunctives, and wicked precision with a semicolon make this one of the few 1990s publications which will not cause the late William Atheling, Jr. to rotate in his grave."
—David Langford

"Making Book is like a tea party with E. B. White, Dorothy Parker, and M. F. K. Fisher (and imagine what they would have said about Iguanacon). Teresa Nielsen Hayden is smart, funny, satirical, sensitive—a treasure of an essayist."
—Emma Bull

"An orrery of a book, all bright shiny bits whirling about and just when you think it's all random it clicks and you can see that the prose precesses with the drunken grandeur of a Galilean moon."
—Steven Gould

"Maybe I'll go to sleep one night and wake up as Teresa Nielsen Hayden. I'd like that. Every time I wrote something, I'd just close my eyes and imagine people like me giggling and then sitting up straight going, 'Hey! I hadn't thought of that!' And, geez, I'd know everything. I mean, I'd understand about the languages of Canada, the languages of copyediting, and the languages of narcolepsy; the true meaning of 'Fred,' the true meaning of 'Jon Singer,' the true meaning of 'Claude Degler,' and the true meaning of the serial comma; and I could explain these languages and concepts so perfectly that everyone else would understand them too, only they wouldn't know how they'd come to understand them exactly, but they'd nevertheless find themselves thinking, 'Maybe I'll go to sleep one night and wake up as Teresa Nielsen Hayden.'"
—Steven Brust

"You don't have to be interested in science fiction to adore this book. A fondness for style and secret knowledge will carry you through it in joy."
—Will Shetterly

"Making Book is delightful. Also insightful, erudite, laugh-out-loud funny, and more than a little dangerous."
—Beth Meacham and Tappan King

"Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a rare talent, a writer who combines a powerful, deft style with an astonishing intellectual range. And Making Book is a delight-a dizzying feat of literary legerdemain that leaves you gasping, applauding, wanting more."
—Laura J. Mixon