I haven't done one of these round-ups for several days -- I was on vacation last week, and have been trying to catch up since -- so I expect this will be a big 'un...

SF Reviews casts its all-seeing eye upon:

• a review of Tim Powers's wonderful Three Days to Never
• another review of the thrilling Rogue Clone by Steven L. Kent
• and this here review of The Last Mortal Man by Syne Mitchell.

 SFF World reviews Joel Shepherd's Crossover.

 SF Signal has a couple of new reviews since I last linked to them:

• this one for a book called Event by David Lynn Golemon (which I have to admit I'm not personally familiar with)
• and this one for the reprint anthology Isaac Asimov's Halloween edited by Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams.

SF Site also has a new review or two, including:

• one for Year's Best Fantasy 6, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
• one for the even larger second edition of The Essential Ellison, by (naturally) Harlan Ellison
• one for the new book in the "Legacy of the Force" series, Star Wars: Bloodlines by Karen Traviss
• one for the classic The Zap Gun by Philip K. Dick
• and this one here for the mind-bending Vellum by Hal Duncan.
  

We also have some new reviews from Fantasybookspot (the site that doesn't need any steenkin' spaces):

• one for The Gate of Gods by Martha Wells
• one for a little book called A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (perhaps you've heard of it?)
• and several more. 

The UK Book SF Network takes a long look at a book called 100 Must Read Science Fiction Novels (which forms a bizarre sentence, and if I only knew who or what "100" is, it would make sense). I'm sure someone will post the list from the book online eventually, so we can all disagree violently with it.

Locus Online led me to several Washington Post reviews:

• Ron Charles on Stephen King's new novel Lisey's Story
• Graham Joyce on Susanna Clarke's short story collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu
• and Elizabeth Ward on Geraldine McCaughrean's Peter Pan in Scarlet.

SciFi Weekly on the Ellen Datlow- Terri Windling anthology Salon Fantastique.

Helen Pilinovsky reviews Delia Sherman's Changeling for The Endicott Studio. 

Kate Nepveu reviews Esther M. Friesner's Druid's Blood.

Blogcritics on Lemony Snicket's The End. (Can I also mention the post I made about The End on my personal blog?)

Blogcritics reviews MirrorMask: The Illustrated Film Script by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean.

Blogcritics reviews Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things. (They also have an essay wrapping up their Neil Gaiman feature for the month of October.)

Velcro City Tourist Board on Jon Courtenay Grimwood's reMix.

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Joe R. Lansdale is interviewed by the blog Dark, But Shining. [via SF Signal]

Adventures in SciFi Publishing has a new major podcast interview (with author R.A. Salvatore and the cute and savvy Warner Senior Editor Jaime Levine) and also a podcast of a conversation Salvatore had with some fans at the Mysterious Galaxy bookstore.

Sean Williams is interviewed by Neth Space.

Jennifer Fallon (author of Warrior) has posted an interview she did in 2002 for a magazine with the highly unlikely name of EidleAss.

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Lois McMaster Bujold is the featured author blogger at Eos this week, mostly talking about her new novel The Sharing Knife: Beguilement. Her posts so far include:

• Why she has no out-takes
• Where she gets her ideas
• About music
• and about landscapes in fantasy.

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The New York Times had an op-ed piece from Neil Gaiman today, about Halloween. (And it's quite nice, but I find myself wishing the Times would have been a bit more frivolous -- shake off the "Gray Lady" image a bit -- and asked Neil to say something about Christmas or Groundhog Day on October 31st instead. That would be a bit more interesting...)

Oh, and Neil's new book is Fragile Things, a new major story collection getting rave reviews everywhere, so you simply must buy it. (Notice how I pretend I know Neil Gaiman by calling him "Neil?" Such a petty wretch am I. I think we've been in the same room all of twice...)

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Jeffrey Carver, author of the recent Battlestar Galactica novelization, answers the common reader question: how do you get the job to write a tie-in novel?

(Short answer: be known already for writing non tie-in novels. A reputation for being fast helps quite a lot, too. A reputation for being good would be even better.)

[via SF Signal]

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SFBC Member Karen Moss posted the following as a comment on an old post here, but I thought it might get some more eyeballs (and maybe some responses) if I turned it into a post of its own:

I have been a SF Book club members since the 1960's and have over 1100 books in my library.  Years ago, I read a story which as I recall was of novella length.  It was about colonists who were abandoned on a heavy gravity planet called Ragnarok.  After many trials, they eventally returned to space as mercenaries who were superior fighters because they could handle High-G forces than anyone else when in combat.  Would love to know the title and author if possible.  I give you permission to publish this letter.  Thanks, Karen Moss

What do you say, folks -- any ideas? (I'm pretty sure I haven't read this myself, but it sounds vaguely familiar.) If there are any other books anyone needs identifed, post them in comments as well...

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

SFF World reviews the new Neil Gaiman short-story collection Fragile Things.

Continuing the Neil Gaiman love-fest, Blogcritics has two reviews of his last novel, Anansi Boys, and one for the novel before that, American Gods.

Finally, Blogcritics provided an overview of Gaiman's comics work, for those who like pictures mixed up with their words.

Blogcritics also reviewed Subterranean by James Rollins, who is not Neil Gaiman.

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Wired magazine asked a pile of mostly SFnal people to write six word stories. (Inspired by the famous taunt of F. Scott Fitzgerald to Ernest Hemingway that the latter couldn't write a story at that length. Papa, of course, replies: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.")

The results are all posted over at Wired's site, and I know I've seen other people trying to play the game as well. (The one I can remember specifically, and find, is from the Usenet group rec.arts.sf.written, which descended very quickly into author-bashing.)

For myself? Well, I'm not a writer, but how about:

Secrets not meant for man? Pshaw!

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The One Ring interviews James A. Owen, whose new novel Here, There Be Dragons begins a new YA series.

Meme Therapy asks various folks how SF has changed their worldview, and also asks (a slightly different group of folks) if the public mistrusts science.

Adventures in SciFi Publishing launches with its inaugural podcast, featuring Ray Bradbury and Paul Levinson.

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Locus Online has two lists of books seen recently this week:

• the first one is their main weekly list, and includes titles like Farewell Summer by Ray Bradbury, The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke, Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott, 1635: The Cannon Law by Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis, Eifelheim by Michael Flynn, and Spellbinder by Melanie Rawn.
  
• the second one contains smaller-press items, including new titles from Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, Edward M. Lerner, and Vera Nazarian.
  

And a similar list from the UK, covering the first half of October, has also just been posted by The UK SF Book News Network. I'm pretty sure most of you don't live over there, but getting books from other countries is trivial these days (though not necessarily cheap), and things are still often published in the UK a few months to a year before they hit the US market. Anyway, their list includes books like Transcendent by Stephen Baxter, Armageddon's Children by Terry Brooks, A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin, and Alastair Reynolds's new short-story collection Galactic North, which I'm eagerly looking forward to myself. (All links to the SFBC American editions, as usual.)

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Subterranean Press talks to Cherie Priest about her new novel Wings to the Kingdom.

The Agony Column features a podcast interview with Scott Smith about his new novel The Ruins.

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Reviews of Stephen King's new novel Lisey's Story are beginning to pop up -- here's one from Janet Maslin of The New York Times, and another one from Salon. [via Locus Online]

Bookgasm on Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu.

Blogcritics looks at the classic Arthur C. Clarke novel Against the Fall of Night.

Blogcritics reviews Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (as part, I think, of a gala "Neil Gaiman month").

Talking Squid on Peter Watts's Blindsight.

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American Heritage magazine takes a look at recent alternate history novels in which Nazi Germany won World Warr II, and singles out for praise Jo Walton's excellent Farthing -- which more of you really need to buy right now.

(An interesting side note: the article is by Frederic Smoler, a noted professor at Sarah Lawrence College and once one of the SFBC's best external readers.)

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John Scalzi recently talked to Sci Fi Wire about his new novel The Android's Dream, a crime-fiction thriller in SF clothing. (Of course, most of SF uses plots from other genres, since SF is generally a setting -- and the mystery/thriller area has been providing great plots to SF writers since at least The Caves of Steel and The Stars My Destination.)

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Sci Fi Wire reports that Andy Serkis, Helen Mirren, Rafi Gavron and Sienna Guillory have been cast in the film version of Inkheart, based on the Cornelia Funke novel. They join the previously announced cast of Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany and Jim Broadbent. The film begins production next month in Italy.

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Pat's Fantasy Hotlist raves about Ian McDonald's River of Gods.

SF Signal on Cherie Priest's Wings to the Kingdom.

Fantasybookspot has a number of new reviews:

• one for Charlie Huston's A Dangerous Man
• one for Joel Shepherd's Crossover
• one for Jeff VanderMeer's Cities of Saints and Madmen
• and one for Max Brooks's World War Z.
  

The Boston Globe on Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu.

SF Reviews on China Mieville's Un Lun Dun.

The Christian Science Monitor on Lemony Snicket's The End.

Neil Gaiman helpfully rounded up some recent reviews of Fragile Things on his blog:

• from The Baltimore Sun
• from the Lexington Herald-Leader
• Entertainment Weekly
• Gavin Grant at Booksense
• and at Laura Hird's New Review.
  

I Hope I Didn't Just Give Away the Ending on Peter Watts's Blindsight.

Blogcritics on Kelly McCullough's WebMage.

Blogcritics on Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

The Guardian on Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu.

And, outside our usual area, Locus had two reviews of the current movie The Prestige (based on the novel by Christopher Priest) -- one by Howard Waldrop and Lawrence Person, and one by Gary Westfahl.

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Have I mentioned yet that Martha Wells is serializing her first novel, The Element of Fire, on her blog?

(It's a real live novel, originally published by Tor a decade ago, which I remember liking a lot at the time -- and her books since then have all been good ones, as well.)

I remind you of this because I see she's hit Chapter Eighteen, and probably is getting near the end.

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Beth at PowellsBooks urges us all to read more Terry Pratchett books and to do a happy dance when we find Wintersmith.

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As has been reported all over the comics sector of the Internet (what? you didn't know each area of interest has its own sector?), Fantagraphic's lawyers have filed their response to Harlan Ellison's lawsuit.

It's in lawyerese, but, essentially, their defense is: a) they didn't say it, b) it's not illegal, and c) it's true anyway.

This one isn't as quotable as Ellison's complaint, but I particularly like the Sixth Affirmative Defense, where Fantagraphics claims that their statements "are constitutionally protected statements of opinion and/or rhetorical hyperbole." Does this mean we might see Ellison arguing that rhetorical hyperbole isn't constitutionally protected? (That would be interesting, to say the least.)

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Oops! I seem to have forgotten to post this yesterday... 

SFF World talks to Joel Shepherd, author of Crossover.

John Scalzi interviews Cherie Priest.

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Luc Sante reviews the big Library of America collection of H.P. Lovecraft, minimialistically titled Tales, for the New York Review of Books. He doesn't say much about that particular collection, but does give a decent overview of Lovecraft to the NYTBR's readers, who presumably don't know about him. (I have to admit I have certain problems with Tales, which I complained about at great length on my own blog when it was published last year.) [via Locus Online] 

John C. Wright did not like Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson's Variable Star. Not one bit.

Blogcritics on Lemony Snicket's The End.

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Locus has posted excerpts from the interviews featured in their October issue:

• Paul Park
• Mary Anne Mohanraj

Sci Fi Weekly talks to Spider Robinson about his new novel Variable Star (written from an outline by Robert A. Heinlein). [via SF Signal]

Far Sector SFFH interviews Tad Williams about his epic fantasy Shadowmarch (and, by coincidence, the massive -- 1167 pages! -- manuscript for the sequel, Shadowplay, just landed on my desk yesterday). [via SF Signal]

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I don't think I'm paying close enough attention, because it looks like Eos's blog is having a series of author guest-bloggers, and it keeps surprising me.

This week Eos has been playing host to Elaine Issak, who has written about such things as:

• seeing other people read her books
• said-bookisms
• the drawbacks of muses
• the joys of research
• and more

I wonder who'll be at Eos next week? (They probably already announced it, and I've just forgotten again.)

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Monsters and Critics take a look at Alan Dean Foster's new novel Sagramanda.

Fantasybookspot reviews Joel Shepherd's Crossover.

In related news, there's also an interview with Joel Shepard, the author of Crossover, at SFF World.

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Mark R. Kelly (the editor of Locus Online, among other things) just finished up his project of reading all of H.P. Lovecraft's major works straight through in chronological order, and he had some thoughts about it.

(I love this kind of reading project, possibly because I'm always dithering about what to read next and possibly because I like big unlikely structures. Speaking of which, I'm personally in the middle of a reading project over at my own blog -- I'm reading a book a day.)

Kelly has some interesting thoughts about Lovecraft, who is an endlessly fascinating writer. I'm also mentioning his post because he read some of these stories in my Lovecraft collection, Black Seas of Infinity, which I edited for the SFBC a few years back. And if you, too, are intruiged by Lovecraft and want to start reading him, well, you're in luck: it's still available.

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Locus Online has posted a list of the new SF/Fantasy/Horror books they saw the second week of October, and it includes such titles of interest as Aerie by Mercedes Lackey, Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean, Blindsight by Peter Watts (all available from the SFBC), as well as new books from Catherine Asaro, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Karl Schroeder.

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SFF World reviews the Christian fantasy The Final Storm by Wayne Thomas Batson.

SFF World also takes a look at Jeff VanderMeer's new novel, Shriek: An Afterword.

Velcro City Tourist Board on End of the World Blues by Jon Courtnay Grimwood.

Blogcritics takes a look at the awesomeness that is The Marvel Encyclopedia.

Blogcritics on Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Bookgasm on S.M. Stirling's The Protector's War.

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I didn't find any reviews today, and only this one semi-"interview":

Meme Therapy's question of the day: what ethical dilemmas should SF worry about?

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And our last note from an author this month is from Shana Abe, about her novel The Dream Thief:

Dragons are real. They live among us. They look like us and speak like us, walk like us and copy our small, imperfect lives, and they do all this so we’ll never guess what they really are. Imagine this: that you’re more powerful than anyone else around you; that your five senses have stretched into six, into seven; that you constantly hear gemstones and metals singing you ballads; that you can dream the future. That, with a whisper of thought, you can Turn to smoke and fly.

I fell in love with the world of the drákon. I find myself spending hours daydreaming about them, feeling the wind scrape my face, testing my wings. And it turns out that being a dragon is very, very cool.

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Sometimes we don’t ask authors what they have to say, because there’s something we need to say ourselves. Sometimes we want to (metaphorically) grab the reader by the collar and say “Hey, you’ve got to read this!” And so this is what I had to say about Jim Butcher’s Wizard at Large:

 

 

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Peter Watts’s new novel Blindsight is already getting a lot of notice in the blog world – Jeremy Lassen of Night Shade Books called it “insanely good” recently, and Elizabeth Bear and Charles Stross have also raved about it. We asked Watts himself what SFBC readers should know about Blindsight:

At its heart, science fiction is a medium for thought experiments. All its subspecies— the stories asking what comes next, or how might this work, or if this goes on— are basically variants of the same two questions:  What if?  What then?

Blindsight is the purest narrative thought experiment I've ever tried. I hate the results it turned up; they contain very unpleasant implications for all of us. But when you're conducting an experiment, you gotta go with the data, right?  Otherwise you're cheating; using experimental trappings to make a predetermined political point.

Still. If one of you could prove that the thematic underpinnings of Blindsight are so much crap, I wouldn't complain.

Be careful what you ask for. I asked What if…

 

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