Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Our last “Author’s Note” from March comes from Guy Gavriel Kay, whose new book is Ysabel:

The books that work are rarely those we force into the light. They are the ones that want to emerge, that demand it, actually, pushing everything else out of the way. That’s what happened with Ysabel.

During a year in the south of France, I started thinking about how some parts of the world still carry the imprint of what has gone before. How “yesterday” in such places isn’t so remote. And it occurred to me that “the past” can mean many different things. It can be twenty-five-hundred years or – in a family working through its scars – twenty-five.

Out of these thoughts and images, Ysabel – the book, and the woman named in the title – came to me.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 01:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

P.C. Hodgell tells us a little about her new novel, To Ride a Rathorn:

Welcome to the first half of Jame’s year at the military college of Tentir. Being Jame, she has more on her hands than maneuvers, including cadet intrigues, threats to the college’s honor, assaults on the Kencyr soulscape, and an erupting volcano, courtesy of the Burnt Man. Also, there’s a certain young rathorn (pronounced “rath-orn”) out for her blood and in danger of getting a taste of same. She may survive Tentir, but will Tentir survive her? I had more fun with this novel than any since God Stalk. Since these stories tend, in a weird way, to mirror my own life, here’s hoping for an interesting future, if only in the sense of the Chinese proverb. That, at least, sounds like Jame.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next, here’s Kim Harrison, about her new novel, For a Few Demons More:

Instant communication between reader and writer.  I’ve been watching it develop, seeing most writers fall to one side or the other, either avoiding it to maintain the purity of their ideas, or embracing it to better tailor their work to what the reader wants to see.  It’s an individual choice, and both make strong, complete visions. 

For me, talking to readers in a relaxed format hasn’t given rise to the reader directing my plotlines, but it has shaped my work positively, hopefully making it purposeful faster than had I allowed only my thoughts to color my words.  Readers themselves have driven me to push into new areas of thought as they debate the ramifications of characters' actions, and I as a writer find an unexpected excitement in addressing their questions in due time—questions as to the depth and power behind human emotion, what is moral vs. what is just, and how the individual is still as powerful as the masses.

To try to answer them in such a way that there is no same answer for all has been the most exciting thing I’ve ever done, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to strive to meet the challenge.  I hope you enjoy the ride.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those who aren’t aware, the SFBC asks most of the authors whose books we use in the club if they’d like to write a short note to our members, and many of them do so. To start off this time, here’s Elizabeth Moon writing about the fourth “Vatta’s War” novel, Command Decision:

In 2005, while working on Command Decision, I was in Oslo, Norway for an SF convention. It was my first trip to Norway, and I was far too excited to plan any research aimed at this particular book. Besides, the book had stuck: I had designed the perfect "locked room" and couldn't get my characters out of it.

One night I turned on the TV. The only English language program happened to be about a situation similar to the one my characters faced. With the British Special Air Services explaining in detail how they'd handle it. Aha! I needed a different kind of "locked room."

After the convention, I took an overnight trip to Bergen, a tour called "Norway in a Nutshell" which involved trains, a boat ride down a fjord, a bus ride back up to the train line, overnight in Bergen, then the train back to Oslo. Beautiful trip, lots of fun. On the way back--between the stations where the outbound tour left the main line and returned to it--I saw the perfect location for the other "locked room." Aha!

I love it when that happens.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sci Fi Wire talks to Sarah Langan, author of the Bram Stoker-nominated novel The Keeper.

Iain Banks writes in The Guardian about how he's saving the earth by selling his sports cars.

Lisa Tuttle profiles Philip K. Dick in The Times.

John Scalzi interviews Hal Duncan, author of Ink.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pat's Fantasy Hotlist reviews Justina Robson's Keeping It Real.

Sci Fi Weekly reviews the George Mann-edited Solaris Book of New Science Fiction.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Irene Gallo has posted the winners of the annual Spectrum Awards (for fantastic art -- for both meanings of "fantastic") over at her blog, The Art Department.

Congratulations to all of the winners -- Gold Awards went to James Jean (twice), Jon Foster, Adam Hughes, Daniel Dociu, Cam De Leon, William Basso, and Joao Ruas. The Grand Master for this year will be Syd Mead.

(And, since I can't have a post about art without some kind of illustration, here's a random James Jean cover from Fables.)

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John C. Wright is continuing to steam forward with The New Space Princess Movement, which is kind of a reaction to The New Comprehensibility (the movement I Svengali-ized John Scalzi into starting). Normally, if someone started a movement in opposition to my movement, I'd be a mite peeved. But who can resist Space Princesses? (I know I can't.)

Following up the initial manifesto, Wright has republished a piece he wrote for Meme Therapy about Space Pirates and their interactions with Space Princesses. But what about Space Ninjas?

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Pearls are chosen by the members of Paranormal Romance.org, and honor the best in paranormal romance.

Some of the winners this year:

• Best Anthology: My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding edited by P.N. Elrod
• Best Magical/Fantasy: Master of Swords by Angela Knight
• Best Shapeshifter: Dark Side of the Moon by Sherrilyn Kenyon
• Best Vampire: A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole
• Best Overall Paranormal Romance: Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward

(That's not all of them; this is another one of those awards with a lot of odd little categories.)

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MTV News talked to Robert Shaye, co-chairman of New Line Pictures and director of the new movie The Last Mimzy, about that film. (The Last Mimzy is based on the famous SF short story "Mimsy Were the Borogoves," by "Lewis Padgett," a pseudonym for Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore -- and the story is available in Two-Handed Engine, a great collection of the work of those two classic writers.)

Sci Fi Wire interviews Nate Kenyon, author of the Bram Stoker-nominated novel Bloodstone.

The Agony Column talks to Ian McDonald (two years ago) about the novel he was working on then, and which will soon be published in the US, Brasyl.

Irene Gallo has a quick interview with new artist Shelly Wan (and a gallery of Wan's work).

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Fantasybookspot:

• a review of In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente
• a review of Keeping It Real by Justina Robson
• a review of Children of Chaos by Dave Duncan
• a review of Mother of Lies by Dave Duncan
• a review of Silent Echoes by Carla Jablonski

SFFWorld reviews the fine debut novel The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (coming soon as a SFBC Selection).

Sci Fi Weekly's RSS feed says that they're reviewing Jack Vance's classic novel Big Planet, but the link leads to a 404 page at the moment.

Bookgasm's "Bullets, Broads, Blackmail & Bombs" column takes aim at the lesser-known works of Robert E. Howard.

Lou Anders quotes from the Publishers Weekly review of Joel Shepherd's Breakway (coming soon to the SFBC) at the Pyr blog.

I Hope I Didn't Just Give Away the Ending liked Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box.

Blogcritics also reviews Heart-Shaped Box.

Jayme Lynn Blaschke of No Fear of the Future reads Julie Phillips's great biography James Tiptree, Jr. and thinks about the life of Alice Sheldon.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Oscar-winner Anna Paquin has signed up to play Sookie Stackhouse in the Alan (Six Feet Under) Ball-produced HBO pilot True Blood, which is based on the series of novels by Charlaine Harris (all of which are currently available from the SFBC, starting with our omnibus of the first three novels, Dead In Dixie).

There doesn't seem to be any guantee of a series at this point, but the pilot would have to be really lousy not to get picked up, and, with both Ball and Paquin invovled, that seems very unlikely.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Locus Online reports that Patrice Duvic, a French editor of SF and other works who was also known as an interviewer, author, and filmmaker, has died. In the English-speaking world, he's probably best -known for his films or for his interviews with American SF writers in the early 1970s.

Locus links to his IMDB entry and his Wikipedia entry (which is in French).

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Odyssey Workshop has a podcast of a lecture from mid-2006 by Jeff VanderMeer.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As predictable as the tides, another Monday brings another Strange Horizons update, featuring a story by Charlie Anders, a column on board games, a review of the World Fantasy Award-winning collection The Keyhole Opera by Bruce Holland Rogers, and more.

The Courier-Journal (or possibly The Enquirer) talks to Jason Sizemore, editor and publisher of Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest.

Scott Edelman writes about the current SF-magazine slump in his column at Sci Fi Weekly.

Subterranean magazine is moving online.

Forbidden Planet International celebrates the 25th anniversary of Interzone.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Agony Column talks to Guy Gavriel Kay about his new novel Ysabel.

The Agony Column also had a quick talk with Charlie Huston about his vampire PI "Joe Pitt" novels selling to Hollywood.

The Wall Street Journal interviews Joe Hill, author of Heart-Shaped Box, in a feature only available in full to bloated plutocrats and other subscribers.

Adventures in SciFi Publishing podcast-interviews Dan Simmons, author of The Terror.

Stephen King talks to Sci Fi Wire about the recent movie deal for his "Dark Tower" books (which being with The Gunslinger).

OF Blog of the Fallen interviews Paul Di Filippo, the last person I'd expect a bunch of "Wheel of Time" fans to be interested in. The world is more interesting than I expect, sometimes. [via SF Signal]

Locus Online has posted excerpts from the current issue's interview with John Barnes.

Alex Irvine is interviewed on a podcast for Marvel Comics's Bullpen Bulletins; consequently, it focuses on his comics work, and not on his fine novels like The Narrows.

Robert J. Sawyer is profiled by the Fanshawe Student Union (of Fanshawe College, in London, Ontario), after a recent speaking engagement there.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Green Man Review features some new things:

• a review of Justina Robson's Living Next Door to the God of Love
• a review of Diana Gabaldon's A Breath of Snow and Ashes
• a review of Neal Asher's Polity Agent
• a review of the Lou Anders-edited anthology Fast Forward 1
• a review of Holly Black's new YA novel Ironside
• a review of John Crowley's long-awaited Endless Things
• plus more book reviews, and a stack more of recorded music and other stuff.

Monsters & Critics reviews a book named Moonshine, but neglects to tell us who wrote it.

Monsters & Critics also reviews The Fair Folk, which I already knew was edited by Marvin Kaye (but which they didn't mention, either).

Tangent reviews issue #6 of Fantasy Magazine.

Tangent also reviews the short fiction from a site called shortshortshort.com.

The Amazon page for Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box now has featured reviews by Scott Smith and Harlan Coben. (And you can buy that book from Amazon for $16.47, as of this second, or you can buy it as a SFBC member for $12.49. If you're not yet a member, you can get it -- and five other books -- for a dollar each with membership.)

Blogcritics reviews the first "Honor Harrington" novel by David Weber, On Basilisk Station.

Tformers.com reviews Alan Dean Foster's Transformers: Ghosts of Yesterday, the official prequel to the upcoming movie. Unsuprisingly, they liked it.

The Guardian reviews D.M. Cornish's Monster Blood Tattoo: Book One: Foundling.

SF Reviews covers two volumes of Elizabeth Moon's "Vatta's War" series:

• first there's this review of Engaging the Enemy
• then there's this one for Command Decision.

SF Signal brings us:

• a review of Connie Willis's new novella-as-a-book, D.A.
• and a review of Kay Kenyon's series-beginning science fantasy Bright of the Sky.

Sci Fi Weekly reviews Cory Doctorow's new collection, Overclocked.

Book Fetish reviews Rebecca York's Moon Swept, and cracks the whip.

CA Reviews looks at Jack McDevitt's Odyssey.

Kids Lit reviews Garth Nix's YA novel Lady Friday.

The Asimov's magazine review column by Paul Di Filippo from March is now online; it covers a whole lot of books, starting with a graphic novel, A.L.I.E.E.N. by Lewis Trondheim, and ending with the new issue of Flytrap magazine. In between, Di Filippo covers books by Jeffrey Ford, Ken MacLeod, John Picacio, Justine Larbalestier, William Browning Spencer, and George Zebrowski.

Lou Anders liked John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades.

Jonathan Strahan reprints the starred Publishers Weekly review for his anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year #1.

Blogcritics reviews the play The Girl Detective, which was based on Kelly Link's story of the same name.

Blogcritics also reviews Frank Miller's graphic novel 300, the basis of the upcoming movie of the same name.

And Nisi Shawl reviews Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box in the Seattle Times.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bruce Sterling linked to a great blog called Strange Maps today, and used the below map as an image.

I'm stealing that map (it's from 1897, so it's public domain) because I believe this could be the map for the mostly totally awesome -- and totally generic -- epic fantasy novel ever. You, too, could steal this novel and write the tale of the goat-boy Snerd and the fabulous lost Crochet-Hook of Enderby. (Or perhaps even the fabled tale of the Mace of Ake'fujji.) So go to it.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Charles Coleman Finlay, who was co-chair of the Andre Norton Jury this year, presents the final list of nominees and posts a statement from the judges about those nominees. 

And those nominees are:

• Magic or Madness, Justine Larbalestier
• Midnighters #2: Touching Darkness by Scott Westerfeld
• Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
• Devilish by Maureen Johnson
• The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
• Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The UK SF Book News Network lists the books they've seen (published in the UK, mostly, as you'd expect) in the last two weeks.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is getting out of control...

First I incited John Scalzi to write the don't-call-it-a-manifesto for The New Comprehensibility (my name, by the way, so if you hate it blame me, not John).

Now John C. Wright has gotten into the game, too, with his own manifesto for The New Space Princess Movement. (Careful readers will have already learned of Wright's feelings about space princesses, which do him only credit.)

Anyone else? It's still only Thursday; we could get a couple-three more manifestos (manifesti?) in by the weekend...

Update, 2/26: No new movements have sprouted over the weekend (yet!), but SF Signal has joined the Space Princess bandwagon (and what red-blooded male wouldn't want to be on that bandwagon?) with a poll.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

SF Signal links to an essay on the classics of SF by James Wallace Harris and does some thinking about old books themselves.

Folks, Foundation always had prose like wet cardboard. SF fans used to tolerate bad prose, non-existent characterization, and horrible cliches because they were thrilled by new skiffy ideas, and new skiffy ideas were, more often than not, embedded in stories with all of those bad things. But, since the much-maligned New Wave, the standards for acceptable SF stories have gone way up. (And, to be fair, that wasn't the first time -- John W. Campbell was the first one to try to drag SF out of the pulpy muck, though he was still in thrall to the Cult of the Idea, and the mid-'50s boom driven by Galaxy also did its bit.) So, yes, some books from before that watershed now don't seem all that good -- but that's because they were never that good. We just all used to tolerate bad stories for the sake of good ideas, and we don't have to do that anymore.

This is a good thing, and if we can pull ourselves away from SF's insanely hypnotic form of neophilia for a moment, we'll see that.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You know, it's not actually better when the person tarring an entire genre with a broad brush, despite not really reading in that genre, or liking it, is someone ostensibly "inside" our little ghetto.

(Case in point: SF Diplomat making sweeping generalizations about "fat fantasy" in his essay "The Aesthetics of Fantasy -- Part One," which I am indebted to SF Signal for pointing out to me.)

Anyone who constructs a single category explicitly containing Fritz Leiber, David Eddings, China Mieville, and George R.R. Martin simply cannot be taken seriously on that subject. It's not worth the time even to refute him. Just say "bah" and pass on. That's what I'm doing.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

SF Signal has the Table of Contents for this year's iteration of the Hartwell-Cramer Year's Best Fantasy series, which I have stolen from them:

1. "Hallucigenia" by Laird Barron
2. "Four Fables" by Peter S. Beagle
3. "Yours, Etc." by Gavin Grant
4. "Sea Air" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
5. "I'll Give You My Word" by Diana Wynne Jones
6. "The Bonny Boy" by Ian Macleod
7. "Ghost Mission" by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
8. "The Roaming Forest" by Michael Moorcock
9. "Show Me Yours" by Robert Reed
10. "Christmas Witch" by M. Rickert
11. "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter" by Geoff Ryman
12. "The Lepidopterist" by Lucius Shepard
13. "The Double-Edged Sword" by Sharon Shinn
14. "Pimpf" by Charles Stross
15. "An Episode of Stardust" by Michael Swanwick
16. "The Osteomancer's Son" by Greg van Eekhout
17. "Thin, On the Ground" by Howard Waldrop
18. "The Potter's Daughter" by Martha Wells
19. "Build-a-Bear" by Gene Wolfe
20. "Bea and her Bird Brother" by Gene Wolfe

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The very busy Iain Banks (who also writes science fiction under the fiendishly clever pseudonym Iain M. Banks) recently closed the Aye Write! literary festival in Glasgow, reported The Herald.

The article is mostly about the festival, but Banks does have a couple of quotes about his writing process, and the fact that he's sold his sports cars to reduce his carbon footprint is mentioned.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Battalion (a student newspaper of Texas A&M) reports on the efforts of AggieCon organizers to promote their upcoming convention (their 38th) through homemade plaster lawn gnomes.

<Snorts dismissively.> Aggies!

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 09:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SFWA has announced a tribute to the late writer Octavia E. Butler will be held at the Seattle Public Library on March 1st. Participating by reading from Butler's work will be Nalo Hopkinson, Nisi Shawl, Timeca Briggs, Vonda N. McIntyre, and others.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sci Fi Wire tracks down yet another author of an Arthur C. Clarke-nominated book, this time Adam Roberts of Gradisil fame.

Italian artist Maurizio Manzieri interviews Texas artist John Picacio.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 01:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SFF World reviews Karl Schroeder's new novel Sun of Suns.

Neth Space reviews a debut fantasy novel, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (coming as a SFBC Selection in our June magazine).

CA Reviews looks at Warrior and Witch by Marie Brennan.

Fantastic Reviews covers John Meaney's To Hold Infinity.

Blogcritics reviews Yoshitaka Amano's Coffin: The Art of Vampire Hunter D. (Yes, that's not the kind of thing I usually link to, but I have a small Friday-sized link list to begin with, and I'll be heading off to the New York Comic-Con any minute myself. So I'm feeling more comical than usual right now.)

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 01:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jess Nevins brings us a perfect Friday lunch-time piece (the fact thet he wrote and posted it much earlier is irrelevant to my point here): an essay on the importance of fast food to the work and life of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

John Scalzi provides a very detailed look at his science-fictional earnings sources for 2006; this is fascinating to other people in the business, and probably of interest to anyone who wants to be a writer. (Disclaimer: Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Results may not be typical. You are not John Scalzi.)

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 01:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A play based on Kelly Link's story "The Girl Detective" opens today in New York City -- it's playing at the Connelly Theater at 220 East 4th Street.

The Small Beer Press Not a Journal has more information; that's where I found out about this myself.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You can't buy Ragamuffin, Tobias Buckell's new novel (and the loose sequel to Crystal Rain) yet -- it publishes in early June. But you can see the map of the wormhole system featured in the book, which Toby just published on his blog.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The March magazine started mailing a week ago today, so many of you will have it already. But here's the complete list of new books for your perusal anyway...

Selections:

• Command Decision by Elizabeth Moon is the fourth in her popular "Vatta's War" series
• For a Few Demons More is the new "Rachel Morgan" novel from Kim Harrison

Alternates:

• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson launches the fifth (and possibly last) series of the "SFBC 50th Anniversary Collection"
• The Sam Gunn Omnibus by Ben Bova collects all of the stories ("and then some," as the author says)about the popular space rogue 
• Deep Storm by Lincoln Child is a near-future deep-water thriller from the co-author of Relic
• To Ride a Rathorn is the long-awaited new novel by P.C. Hodgell
• The Vampire Files, Volume Two, by P.N. Elrod, collects three more adventures of a vampire "confidential agent" in the 1930s
• The Dead Fathers Club by Matt Haig is a brilliant retelling of Hamlet centered on a small-town British pub, and one confused eleven-year-old boy
• And Ysabel is the new novel from Guy Gavriel Kay, set in the modern world but with mythic ties to the long-buried past.

Elsewhere in the Envelope:

• 300 by Frank Miller; a comics retelling of the battle of Themopylae that is the basis of the upcoming movie
• Jemima Parry-Jones's Falconry; a guide to the ancient art of killing small animals with raptors
• And, lastly, Dark Cosmos by Dan Hooper, a book about the search for the msising matter and energy of the universe

I hope you can find something of interest there -- the variety is particularly wide this month.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The SFBC is reprinting Mary Gentle's wonderful novel Rats and Gargoyles any minute now, but it has several pieces of art in it, and the US publisher doesn't have files for them anymore. My printer is trying to scan them from an old copy of the book, but so far the results are not good. I would prefer to have the art in this book not look like a muddy mess, if at all possible, but my options are few right now.

I'm hoping the art might exist out in the world somewhere in a more useful form. So, if you are Mary Gentle, have ever been Mary Gentle, are in contact with Mary Gentle, or otherwise might have art files from Rats and Gargoyles, please e-mail me ASAP at andrew dot wheeler at doubledayent dot com.

Thanks.

Update, 2/23: Mary Gentle has gotten in touch with me; thanks to everyone who helped. (It sounds like quite a number of you did know her.)

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)