Why, Then, This Is Hell, Nor Am I Out of It
Jay Lake defines the nine circles of genre publishing hell. These marshes wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for all the agents mosquitos.
The official weblog of the Science Fiction Book Club in the USA and Canada. Accept no substitutes!
« August 2006 | Main | October 2006 »
September 30, 2006
September 29, 2006
Reviews for 9/29
Bookgasm on Poppy Z. Brite's short-story collection The Devil You Know.
Bookgasm on George R.R. Martin's The Ice Dragon.
Tenser, Said the Tensor takes a close linguistic look at Robert Sheckley's classic story "Shall We Have a Little Talk?"
Interviews for 9/29
Sci Fi Wire talked to Jon Courtenay Grimwood about his novel Stamping Butterflies.
The Politics & Prose bookstore in DC presents: Meet Neil Gaiman.
Meme Therapy wonders what the world would be like if it were ruled by SF writers.
Harlan Ellison Lawsuit Update
Heidi MacDonald explains everything the general reader needs to know about Ellison's suit against Fantagraphics, in The Beat.
(The other rumored Ellison lawsuit is, as far as I can tell, still a rumor at this point.)
Beer-Money SF: Threat or Menace?
Velcro City Tourist Board picks up on a very short post I made on my personal blog about the difference between "beer-money" SF and "literary" SF, and thinks about it much more deeply than I did.
Blogcritics Celebrates Neil Gaiman
Blogcritics announces that they're going to be doing a bunch of articles about Neil Gaiman, starting with this one.
Jennifer Fallon's Death List
Jennfer Fallon must be feeling morbid today, because she's just posted a list of acceptable ways to kill people in fiction.
I think she's missed the James Bond standard "leave the hero tied up in a deathtrap," though many deathtraps would fall under her existing categories. Still, I love taxonomies, and I'dd like to see someone try toi use every single one of these in one story.
Two Generations of "Social Networking" Collide
Ever wished there was a MySpace or Friendster for SF conventions? I have to admit I never did, but someone made the obvious connection, and so conheaven.com was born.
Clive Barker on the Death of Genre
Clive Barker made an impromptu speech at FantasyCon in the UK last weekend, which was very well received -- and now you can read it online.
[via Hal Duncan]
September 28, 2006
Reviews for 9/28
Blogcritics reviews Kevin Brockmeier's The Brief History of the Dead.
John C. Wright is still reading old Heinlein books, but this time he pulled out one of the oddest items in the Heinlein catalog, the posthumously-published travelogue A Tramp Royale. He, as usual, has some interesting things to say about it.
Interviews for 9/28
John Scalzi (author of The Android's Dream) interviews Jo Walton (author of Farthing).
Meme Therapy wonders if narrowcasting is leading more people into conspiracy theories.
What Would You Nominate for the Best Art BSFA Award?
Niall Harrison reminds us that nominations are now open for the BSFA Awards (though, of course, you have to be a member of the BSFA to actually nominate), and tries to start a discussion of good art on the Torque Control blog.
Robin Hobb's Invisible River
Robin Hobb (author of Forest Mage) was asked by her publishers, Eos, where she gets her ideas, and she talked about her old house and the underground river beneath it.
The Epic Story of a Literary Scam
Baby Boomers Win More Hugos
Nicholas Whyte has crunched the numbers, and discovered that people born between 1942 and 1951 have won substantially more Hugos than would normally be expected.
[via SF Signal]
Edited 9/29 at 10:11 EDT because I spelled the guy's name wrong. Sorry!
Robert Silverberg on Technological Change
Robert Silverberg has a marvelous essay in Asimov's, about the changes that technology have made on writing since he started.
[via SF Signal]
Holly Phillips Is Sunburst Award Winner
Holly Phillip's short-story collection In the Palace of Repose has won her the 2006 Sunburst Award. The award is given by a jury to a Canadian writer who has published a speculative fiction novel or book-length collection in the previous calendar year.
[via Locus Online]
September 27, 2006
One Interview for 9/27
Meme Therapy's question for the day: what are the great ethical dilemmas of SF?
Reviews for 9/27
SF Signal reviews Joel Shepherd's debut novel Crossover.
Blogcritics on Neil Gaiman's Stardust.
Velcro City Tourist Board on Interzone issue #206.
Kids Lit has a quick take on Scott Westerfeld's new rock 'n roll vampire end-of-the-world YA novel The Last Days.
Juliet E. McKenna on FantasyCon
Juliet E. McKenna explains why conventions are important -- and fantasy itself, come to think of it.
New F&SF Contest
John Joseph Adams announces that F&SF is running a contest right now, and that they haven't gotten many entries yet. The prize is quite cool -- a signed, limited-edition copy of Matthew Hughes's new novel Majestrum -- and the contest itself sounds like fun in the F&SF tradition.
The idea is to take a genre book or story, and merge its title with another name -- such as Their Eyes Were Watching the Mote in God's Eye, or GloriaSna-na-na. So go enter.
John Scalzi Bakes a Schadenfreude Pie
No, literally -- he mixed up a bunch of ingredients, put it in a pie pan, stuck it in the oven at 375 and ate it afterwards.
Is there some competition for Oddest Writer Blog going on right now that I don't know about? Because John seems to be campaigning for it really hard.
Jennifer Fallon on the Taxonomy of SFF
Jennifer Fallon lists and explains all 51 sub-genres of Speculative Fiction. You might have heard that there were 43 or 57 of them, but, no, there are precisely 51 -- this one website says so.
David Louis Edelman Is Open-Source Agnostic
David Louis Edelman has an essay on his blog today, answering some reader complaints that his first novel Infoquake didn't show the open-source movement conquering the world -- as, of course, such people say, it will inevitably do.
And here I have to mention the hilarious TrueNuff Mac ad spoofs -- like this one on upgrading -- that feature a Linux character who we can all recognize...
Are You Game for Pullman's Dark Materials?
Sega has bought the video-game rights to His Dark Materials, the Philip Pullman YA fantasy trilogy, reports Sci Fi Wire, as part of a general blitz of licensed products surrounding the upcoming movie of the first book, The Golden Compass.
September 26, 2006
Reviews for 9/25
SFF World reviews Terry Brooks's new novel Armageddon's Children.
The New York Times on Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
Justine Larbalestier really liked Delia Sherman's Changeling.
SF Reviews.net on John Scalzi's The Android's Dream.
Blogcritics on Kate Mosse's Labyrinth (which I didn't think was SF/Fantasy, but the Quills do, so I guess it counts).
Bookgasm on Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things.
Interviews for 9/26
Locus Online has posted excerpts from their September issue's interviews: James Patrick Kelly and Ken MacLeod.
SF Signal talks to the three guys behind Meme Therapy.
Write, Scribe, Author, Compose, Draft, Scrawl Like Lionel Fanthorpe
The first annual R.L. Fanthorpe Write-Alike Contest is now open; the deadline for entries is October 10th.
The judges await your entry, submission, attempt, participation...
[via Locus Online]
Your Official Dose of Stupid Fun for the Day
Via SF Signal, here are the Top 176 Star Wars Lines Improved by Replacing a Word with "Pants."
Some personal favorites:
"I find your lack of pants disturbing."
"The emperor asks the impossible. I need more pants."
"I think you just can't bear to let a gorgeous guy like me out of your pants."
Moore Does A Dirty Job on Sci Fi Wire
Sci Fi Wire has an article today on Christopher Moore's novel A Dirty Job, which was recently nominated for a Quill Award.
September 25, 2006
Monday Magazines, 9/25
Strange Horizons has its usual Monday update, featuring a new story by Heather Lindsley, an essay on Roger Zelazny's "Amber" books, reviews, and more.
In the past week, Best SF has added reviews of Interzone #206 and Asimov's July 2006 issue.
There's a new issue of Emerald City (which, if I'm remembering correctly, will be the last real issue, with one or two more clean-up issues to follow). The lead review is Cheryl Morgan's look at Haruki Murakami's World Fantasy-nominated Kafka on the Shore. It may be self-indulgent of me to say so, btu I do urge everyone to take a look at the both the review and the book; Kafka was published outside of our ghetto but it's a great fantasy novel.
Interviews for 9/25
Melanie Rawn (author of the upcoming Spellbinder) is interviewed by SFF World.
The Agony Column interviews Charles Stross.
Pat's Fantasy Hotlist interviews Joel Shepherd (author of Crossover). [via SF Signal]
Suite 101 interviews Nicola Griffith.
There's a "perpetual interview" of John Crowley, related to the publication of a fancy 25th anniversary edition of Little, Big, to which readers can contribute questions.
The Slush God (John Joseph Adams) presents outtakes from his recent Sci Fi Wire interview with artist James Gurney.
Meme Therapy asks a motley crew about the distrust of science.
Reviews for 9/25
I can never tell for sure when Green Man Review has been updated, but it looks like there's a bunch of new stuff there:
- a review of Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things
- another one of George Zebrowski's Black Pockets and Other Dark Feasts
- and one of Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis
- then there's more reviews and things here; much of it is probably also new.
Our Man Itzkoff, at The New York Times, tried to explain the whole Dune saga to a mainstream audience in the guise of a review of the new novel Hunters of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.
Steve Erickson (the great American mainstream fantasist who wrote Arc d'X, not the great Canadian epic fantasy writer Steven Erikson who wrote Gardens of the Moon) reviews Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road for the Los Angeles Times.
Ursula K. Le Guin reviews Margaret Atwood's new short story collection, Moral Disorder, for Teh Grauniad. (And a big hello to my two UK readers who will get that joke.)
Blogcritics on Frank Beddor's The Looking Glass Wars.
Blogcritics on Neil Gaiman's Hugo-winning Coraline.
Book Fetish on Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Scion.
CA Reviews on Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Roman Dusk.
Sherwood Smith Opens
DeepGenre today has Sherwood Smith discussing different ways to begin writing a book, and the strengths and weeknesses of each.
Greg Egan on New Scientist
Greg Egan, who is famously reclusive and hasn't even been heard from much for the past several years, has emerged with a plea to save the UK magazine New Scientist from itself.
The Slush God Learns Viking Swordfighting
You thought hacking and hewing were easy, right?
Well, the Slush God is here to prove you wrong -- he recently witnessed a demonstration of Viking swordfighting techniques, and he's got the videos to prove it. Watch and learn.
Vote for the Quill Awards!
I mentioned the Quill Awards when the nominees were announced (and my opinion of the ligitimacy and honesty of the award has not changed), but the news today is that you -- yes, you! -- can now vote!
Go over here and push the button for your favorite in the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror category. Vote for any category you like -- no one will stop you. You don't have to have read, or even heard of, any of the books. Just push a button, and we'll see who wins.
Brooks Shows Sci Fi Wire What Armageddon is Like
Sci Fi Wire has an article about Terry Brooks's new novel, Armageddon's Children, today.
Charles Vess's Art for The Ladies of Grace Adieu
Charles Vess has posted a sampling of the art he has created for Susanna Clarke's upcoming collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu.
Tim Pratt Wins Norton Award
Tim Pratt has announced that his novel The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl has won the second annual Norton Award, for "extraordinary creativity unhindred by the constraints of paltry reason." The award is named after and is a statue of Joshua Norton, self-declared Emperor of the USA and Protector of Mexico, and a much-beloved San Francisco character in his day. It's my understanding that the Norton Awards are for books, writers and others associated with the San Francisco area, but I haven't seen anything that says so explicitly.
Locus Online has an account of the awards ceremony from last year.
British Fantasy Society Awards
Neil Gaiman wrote on his blog over the weekend that Anansi Boys has just won the August Derleth Award for Best Novel, and that the full list of British Fantasy Award winners for 2006 were up on the BFS blog.
Unfortunately, that link just is not opening for me right now. So I'll post this, and come back later for the full list. For now, congratulations to Neil, and to all of the other winners whose names I don't know yet.
Update: 12:04 EDT: And here is the entire list:
British Fantasy Award for Best Novel: The August Derleth Award: Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
British Fantasy Award for Best Novella: Stuart Young, "The Mask Behind the Face"
British Fantasy Award for Best Anthology: Allen Ashley, The Elastic Book of Numbers
British Fantasy Award for Best Collection: Joe Hill, Twentieth Century Ghosts
British Fantasy Award Best Short Fiction: Joe Hill, "Best New Horror"
British Fantasy Award for Best Artist: Les Edwards
British Fantasy Award for Best Small Press: Peter Crowther, PS Publishing
Karl Edward Wagner Special Award: Stephen Jones
There were also four Special Awards to honor people who helped to found the BFS: Keith Walker, Rosemary Pardoe, Phil Spencer, and David A. Sutton.
This Is Banned Books Week
According to the American Library Association, September 23-30 (hm, an eight-day week...interesting) is Banned Books Week.
As I see it, there are two possible ways to celebrate:
- go out and ban some books yourself (which most people don't have the power to do), orgo out and read a book someone else is trying to ban.
The second is a better plan all around, but do let me know if any of you decide to try #1.Anyway, to get you started, here's the ALA's list of the top 10 most challenged books of this century so far:
- Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
- The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
- Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
- It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
- Scary Stories series by Alvin Schwartz
- Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey
- Forever by Judy Blume
For myself, I’ve been slowly reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to my five-year-old at bedtimes, off and on, and we did the second half of chapter nine on Saturday (and probably will do part of chapter ten tonight). I'll also encourage my eight-year-old to re-read some of his "Captain Underpants" books, which I'm sure he won't mind...
John M. Ford, 1957-2006
It's being widely reported that John M. Ford, author of the classic alternate history The Dragon Waiting as well as many other books, has died in his home overnight. He had been in poor health for many years, but the cause of death is not yet known.
Anders Replies to Doctorow
Lou Anders has written a letter to Locus Online responding to Cory Doctorow's essay from last week, "How Copyright Broke."
I think Lou's mostly responding to issues from Cory's other writings -- not this essay in particular -- and this essay might actually be seen as a shift in Cory's thinking. "How Copyright Broke" is not really arguing that copyright is dying, though Cory has said that, in other ways and in other places, in the past. "How Copyright Broke" seems to be to be arguing for a radical expansion of the concept of fair use, to encompass all of the things people regularly do with creative products that they buy -- uses that, under a strict reading of the law, are illegal, but that are widespread and generally not considered a problem by consumers and creative folks. If Cory's argument takes hold, it could be damaging to the profits of some media corporations -- for example, if consumers would only need to buy songs once to have them available in any desired format for the rest of their lives -- but not, I think, damaging to the concept of copyright, or the protection of creative expression that copyright allows.
I've had problems with some of Cory's copyright-related essays in the past (see here at the SFBC blog, and then over at my personal blog Antick Musings for the more opinionated stuff), but this time I'm in complete agreement with him. The current obsession with licensing and limiting the uses consumers can make of their own property is self-defeating, ridiculously Byzantine in its complexity, and turning millions of otherwise law-abiding people into willfull lawbreakers (which is never a good idea).
September 22, 2006
New Books in SFC October
The October magazine is dropping into the mail today, so here's a preview of the new books you'll find inside it:
Selections:
- Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein & Spider Robinson, a long-lost mid-'50s Heinlein outline for a juvenile novel fleshed out by Robinson
- Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott, first in a new epic fantasy series featuring gigantic raptors
- Here Comes Civilization by William Tenn: the second and final volume of his collected works contains his only novel and many stories
- 1635: The Cannon Law by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis, continuing the tale of a normal American town stranded in 17th century Europe
- Eifelheim by Michael Flynn; a first contact novel that bridges the modern day and medieval Germany
- The Word and the Void by Terry Brooks; our new omnibus of his acclaimed contemporary fantasy series, including the novels Running with the Demon, A Knight of the Word and Angel Fire East
- Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean; the only authorized sequel to the Barrie classic
- Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett; the third adventure of Tiffany Aching, in which she inadvertently draws the attention of a being best avoided
- A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore; an exclusive softcover edition of a novel about a man who gets a new job asassistant to Death -- whether he wants to, or not
- Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman; a new collection of short fiction by one of the modern masters of the form
Altiverse:
- The Marvel Encyclopedia by Tom DeFalco; your guide to everything Marvel-ous
- Battlestar Galactica: The Cylon’s Secret by Craig Shaw Gardner; a new novelbased on the TV show
- Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes; a small masterpiece of comics, about a small town and all of the people in it
- Black Hole by Charles Burns; a big masterpiece of comics, a horror story about sex and death and being a teenager in the '70s
- Firefly: The Official Companion by Joss Whedon, and you can't get much more official than having the man write it himself, can you?
Other Odd Places:
- The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow; an exclusive softcover edition of the master of modern satire's new novel, about the end of witch-hunting and the beginnings of reason
- The Survival Imperative by William E. Burroughs, which argues that the human race needs to colonize space to survive
- Lisey’s Story by Stephen King; his new novel, a psychological study that is already being heralded as one of his very best
- Stephen King Library Desk Calendar 2007; for all of your planning-things-for-2007 needs
Note: As I type this, a couple of the Altiverse books aren't showing up on the site, but I'll post this now and fix the links later (once they are up there).
Ursula K. Le Guin Honored With Fellowship
On October 18th, the Washington Center for the Book will honor Ursula K. Le Guin with the Maxine Cushing Gray Fellowship for Writers. The Fellowship is given annual, in conjunction with the Washington State Book Awards, and is for the recipient's distinguished body of work.
Reviews for 9/22
I Hope I Didn't Just Give Away the Ending on Mark Z. Danielewski's Only Revolutions.
Blogcritics on The Toyminator by Robert Rankin (coming soon to the SFBC as the second half of the omnibus Eddie Bear, Private Detective).
Niall Harrison does not review James Tiptree, Jr. -- he makes that clear -- but he did just read it and has written up some thoughts about that most intriguing biography.