REVIEW SUMMARY: A great hard science fiction story that delivers more ideas in a single novel than most do in a series. Niven is a great writer, and this is a great collaboration.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Fleeing a chain-reaction supernovae in the galactic core, the Citizens (Puppeteers from Niven’s other books) take their planets and head out. This fleet of worlds comes across a human colony ship and turns the embryos they find into a race of slaves. Kirsten is one of the best and brightest and is eventually sent out to scout ahead of the fleet looking for danger. What she ends up discovering involves the history of her race and threatens to send the Citizen planets spinning out of control.

MY REVIEW:

PROS: Niven and Lerner turn in a fantastic collaboration. Even if you haven’t read any of Niven’s known space novels you’ll find a lot to like here. Excellent set of ideas around the alternative evolution of life, exploiting teleportation, starship construction, and much more.

CONS: You really need to be a fan of science fiction to enjoy this book.

BOTTOM LINE: Set in the universe of the Ringworld novels, this book stands very well on its own and delivers a very strong hard science fiction experience. It is a great novel that is not to be missed.

Read the rest of this entry

John Joseph Adams has posted the Table of Contents of Seeds of Change, his upcoming anthogy of original fiction about world-changing events:

1. Introduction by John Joseph Adams
2. “N-Words” by Ted Kosmatka
3. “The Future by Degrees” by Jay Lake
4. “Drinking Problem” by K. D. Wentworth
5. “Endosymbiont” by Blake Charlton
6. “A Dance Called Armageddon” by Ken MacLeod
7. “Arties Aren’t Stupid” by Jeremiah Tolbert
8. “Faceless in Gethsemane” by Mark Budz
9. “Spider the Artist” by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu
10. “Resistance” by Tobias S. Buckell

In 1974 after having his wisdom teeth removed, Philip K. Dick experienced a profound religious experience. Pumped full of Sodium Pentathol, Dick answered the door to meet a girl from the pharmacy who was delivering his pain medications (if only they delivered now) and, upon seeing her golden fish pendant, experienced what he called ‘anamnesis’.

This experience led to his ‘discovery’ of the ‘Black Iron Prison’ and, slowly, Dick would believe that he was a Christian from Roman times. Often times assuming the personality of that person.

If you’ve ever wondered what that might be like, then look no further than The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick, as illustrated and written by R. Crumb. There’s something about reading this in comic form that works extremely well and gives us a great sense of what it must have been like to slowly loose touch with reality. Or did he?

As I write this, I just finished watching the latest episode of LOST, called ‘The Constant’. To all those who poo-pooed the idea that LOST was not science fiction, watch this episode. After hinting and teasing, the writers finally pulled out the stops and gave us a full-bore science fiction episode.

‘The Constant’ is a Desmond-centric episode, which is great because Desmond is a great character, but what set it apart was that, depending on how you look at it, it was either a flash-forward episode, or a flash-back. Why? Because, due to forces only hinted at (of course), Desmond becomes unstuck in time, and oscillates between 1996 and 2004. He must find Penny in both periods (she is the constant) to ground him, or else he will die as his consciousness will be unable to handle the ever increasing time shifts. Yes, we get the paradoxical infomational loops, but they are handled pretty well, although there were a couple of areas that were glossed over. But that’s ok, because:

Not only do we get some heavy duty SF tossed into the show, it only took the writers 4 seasons to smack people over the head with it, we also got a terrific character story centered on Desmond and Penny. Now we see what prompted Penny to start, and continue, her search for Desmond. We see the lengths Desmond will go to try and reconnect with Penny, ultimately ending with a very emotional, and powerful, reunion. This was, by far, the best episode this season and might be the best overall. An awesome job by all those involved.

I won’t say much more then you simply have to watch it for yourself. If you gave up on LOST, I think you owe it to yourself to catch up (fulls eps available on ABC’s website). If you’ve never seen it, all seasons are online at ABC, what are you waiting for? It should be one incredible run to the series finale in 2010.

Arthur C. Clarke talks about sea monsters…

This video is from the 70′s. Compare and contrast that with this video from the 70′s kids’ show Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.

[via raincoaster]

Tor’s latest free eBook is the 2006 Hugo Award-winning Spin by Robert Charles Wilson.

Have you signed up yet?

They’ve also posted a couple of cool desktop wallpapers: Todd Lockwood‘s cover for To Light a Candle by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory, and Stephan Martiniere‘s cover for Escapement by Jay Lake. Get them quickly! They will be rotated out every week.

[via The Art Department]

• Free Reads:
  • As promised, Neil Gaiman‘s publisher, Harper Collins, has made his book American Gods freely available. It’s only available for one month and only via online reading. So hurry up and read it while you can!
  • Tobias Buckell has posted the 1st chapter of his next novel, Sly Mongoose.
  • Jayme Lynn Blaschke is giving away copies of his Locus Poll-nominated story “The Final Voyage of La Riaza”.
• Apex has purchased the short story collection (I Remember the Future: The Award-Nominated Stories of Michael A. Burstein). About time, imo. [via SF Scope]
• Meet the Author: Iain M. Banks, whose mum recommends Matter.
• Locus Online has interviews excerpts with Maureen F. McHugh and Lucius Shepard, pulled from the latest issue of Locus magazine.
• At SciFi Wire, John Joseph Adams profiles Alastair Reynolds (The Prefect) and Robin Hobb (Renegade’s Magic).
• Angry Black Woman features a guest essay by David Anthony Durham.
• Paul Levinson is reading from his upcoming book, Unburning Alexandria at Gypsy Moon, in Second Life this Sunday.
• Fantasybookspot interviews Michael Cisco (The Traitor and Secret Hours).
• At Time Magazine, Matt Selman tells us How to Store Books. “It is unacceptable to display any book in a public space of your home if you have not read it.” Uh-oh… [via When Gravity Fails]
• Check out Gus Hunter’s cool King Kong artwork.
• Cover Pr0n:
  • Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams.
  • The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia.
  • Project Moonbase and Others by Robert A. Heinlein.
  • The Affinity Bridge by George Mann.
• Cinematical has the new WALL-E poster.
• Jeff Prucher, editor of Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, talks about organlegging
• Leonard Maltin interviews Anton Yelchin (Pavel Chekov in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot).
• W.W. Ni has posted an excerpt from Tophero: Son of Smilodon, a “provocative prehistoric space action adventure for men who dare to dream”.
• Jim van Pelt lists 10 Reasons To Not Be Discouraged About the State of Science Fiction.
• io9 lists The Twenty Science Fiction Novels that Will Change Your Life. A nice list, as far it goes, which is just short of explaining exactly why they are life-changing.
• Speaks for itself: Spock as a DJ.
• SciFi Web Comic Humor: Brewster Rockit takes on 2001: A Space Odyssey.

• Marc Wade, former director of production at StarTrek.com, has landed a weekly column over at Roddenberry.com. His first column takes a look at Star Trek: The Tour.
• Cine Fantastique Online has a very long, in-depth interview with George Takei. The cover a wide range of topics including Star Trek, William Shatner, Heroes, Howard Stern and a lot more. Part 1 here. Part 2 here. This interview happened some time last year, but only recently posted, so some of the information is out of date.
• At last week’s WonderCon, Chris Carter dropped some hints about the upcoming X-Files movie. It will be stand alone and won’t deal with the mythology of the show, instead it will focus on the scarier stories that peppered the show during its original run. Rumor has it there may be werewolves involved.
• If you really can’t wait for the last season of Galactica and don’t mind being very spoiled, then head on over to IO9 ans see thier BG video clips for season 4.
• In case you weren’t planning on playing the new video game, LOST: Via Domus, now you can watch TyndelM play through the entire game! In fact, it looks like he has several video walkthroughs. I find this, odd.
• The fine folks over at RavenStake have released their second LOST parody video, using actual LOST action figures. Check it:

From the Science Fiction Writers of America:

The SFWA® Board of Directors and President Michael Capobianco are pleased to announce that writer and editor Michael Moorcock has been named Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master for 2008. The Grand Master represents SFWA’s highest accolade and recognizes excellence for a lifetime of contributions to the genres of science fiction and fantasy.

Mr. Moorcock is the twenty-fifth writer recognized by Science FIction and Fantasy Writers of America as a Grand Master. He joins Robert A. Heinlein (1974), Jack Williamson (1975), Clifford D. Simak (1976), L. Sprague de Camp (1978), Fritz Leiber(1981), Andre Norton (1983), Arthur C. Clarke (1985), Isaac Asimov (1986), Alfred Bester (1987), Ray Bradbury (1988), Lester del Rey (1990), Frederik Pohl (1992), Damon Knight (1994), A. E. van Vogt (1995), Jack Vance (1996), Poul Anderson (1997), Hal Clement (1998), Brian Aldiss (1999), Philip Jose Farmer (2000), Ursula K. LeGuin (2003), and Robert Silverberg (2004), Anne McCaffrey (2005), Harlan Ellison (2006), and James Gunn (2007).

The award is presented at Nebula Awards weekend, April 25-27.

Call me silly, I liked the first movie. I never saw the supposed suckfest that was Starship Troopers 2. And now this? I dunno. Your thoughts?

• There’s a brand new website for Space Vulture, the new pulp science fiction adventure book written by Gary K. Wolf (Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, the basis for the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) and Archbishop John J. Myers.
• Paul Cornell has announced that he has been commissioned to adapt the Iain Banks novella “State of the Art” into a BBC radio play. [via Iain Banks (Official Site)]
• Free SF Sample: Alastair Reynolds has posted the 2nd chapter from House of Suns.
• Tobias Buckell, in a guest essay at The Angry Black Woman, talks about how history affects his fiction.
• Nancy Kress is dwelling on the Pareto principle and wonders: Does the 80/20 rule apply to science fiction? “Should we pay that disproportionate amount of attention to that 20% of writers, of stories, of a given author’s oeuvre?”
• Enturbulation claims to have proof that L. Ron Hubbard plagiarized Scientology from a 1934 German book called Scientologie. [Boing Boing]
• The SFWA has decided that “World Enough and Time” is indeed eligible for the Nebula, despite some complaints. Science Fiction Awards Watch has more.
• Good news for Our UK Readers: BBC is airing a 3-part series called The Worlds of Fantasy exploring the growth of Fantasy fiction. The bad news: it started yesterday (Wednesday February 27th). [via Yatterings]
• Mr. McGroovy’s shows us How to Build a Cardboard Spaceship. [via MonkeyFilter]
• Science Fiction Addiction names 5 Strong Female Characters Science Fiction Literature.
• SciFi Scanner’s Kevin Maher has another illuminating episode of the SciFi Department in which he lists 5 Oscar-award winning actors who went on to grace the screens of B-movie trash.

Common sense and statistics say that, even when you think you’re watching a decent SciFi film, you should refrain from celebration until after the end credits – because sometimes movie endings suck. We asked a host of luminaries the following question.

*** SPOILER WARNING! ***

Some of these answers (and accompanying videos) contain spoilers. But in this case, the answers are more entertaining than the end of the movie anyway, so…spoiler warning redacted.

First, what makes for a good ending? The hallmark of a great movie ending is that it’s impossible to anticipate while watching it, but seems like the only ending possible in hindsight. It shouldn’t fall prey to sentimentality, at least not overly so, and should follow through with the power of the premise. Surprising, inevitable, memorable; some examples that come to mind include: A Boy and His Dog, 12 Monkeys, The Thing, Planet of the Apes (1968). I guess I like the shocking sci-fi horror ending! A lot of sf movies have conventional endings, a little too pat and expected, but not weird or ugly.

I decided to start with a list of movies I think have endings flawed one way or another, a list that includes a lot of movies I truly like. 2001 is pretty confusing. Contact is a bit of a let down and the government cover-up seemed unnecessary. AI goes for the weird alien happy ending. The Hulk ending is a dark mess. The finale of Sphere sucks. Changing the ending of Armageddon sure couldn’t hurt it. Return of the Jedi is full of Ewoks and happy happy joy joy Darth Vader. Ridley Scott himself has changed the ending of Blade Runner several times.

And then there’s the movie I finally settled on: Signs…

Read the rest of this entry

MilkandCookies Middle-Unearths this 1968 interview with J.R.R. Tolkien and grandson Adam (2007).

• Science Fiction Quarterly interviews Robert J. Sawyer (Rollback). “What’s best about the genre right now is that a goodly number of writers are striving to engage the heart as well as the mind, and are giving us books that actually live up to that hoary old cliche we’ve trotted out for decades about SF being a special lens for examining the human condition.” [via Jason Sanford]
• The Agony Column podcast interviews Terry Bisson (Number s Don’t Lie).
• The following stories have been added to the list of Free Nebula Fiction [via Joe Sherry]:
  • “Awakening” by Judith Berman
  • “The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs Of North Park After the Change” by Kij Johnson
  • “Unique Chicken Goes In Reverse” by Andy Duncan
• Free audiobooks: SFFaudio rounds up some short fiction stories with Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 3.
• Free Magazine: Steampunk Magazine Issue #4, which includes fiction, features and an interview with Ann & Jeff VanderMeer. [via Ecstatic Days] (VanderBonus: PS Publishing shows off the awesome cover art for Jeff VanderMeer’s chapbook/novelette, The Situation.)
• Free Sample: Eos Blog has a sneak peak of The Outlaw Demon Wails by Kim Harrison.
• Guardian Unlimited Arts blog wants to know what you think of reading books in bite-size, daily chunks via email, like via DailyLit.
• Paul Jessup shares some information on his intriguing-sounding surrealist Space Opera.
• As advertised: Speculative Fiction Writers Pick Their Favorite Stories.
• Helium lists The most famous science fiction authors.
• The Onion A.V. Club interviews Summer Glau.
• GalleyCat, with the help of Ellen Datlow, names the most award-nominated story you’ve never heard of.
• Screen Rant has a first look at the X-Men Origins: Wolverine poster.
• Looking to drop $50 in a hurry? PopTherapy takes us to these Alien Spaceship Lawn Figures. Hmmm..lawn ornaments or 3 Dalek T-Shirts…

REVIEW SUMMARY: A collection of well-written erotic science fiction short stories.

MY RATING: See the text below.

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: 10 erotic science fiction short stories written by Polly Frost.

MY REVIEW:

PROS: An interesting collection of stories that makes fun of science fiction tropes occasionally but also contains some interesting ideas. Most of the stories involve a last-minute twist (ironic or otherwise) that I enjoy most in short fiction.

CONS: Some stories are just strange as opposed to interesting.

BOTTOM LINE: If you find erotic fiction to be your cup of tea, I think you’ll enjoy this collection of stories that Polly has written.

Because I’m not sure how sensitive our readers are to this sort of thing, I’m putting the rest of my review and an analysis of each of the stories after the jump. Read on if you dare!

Read the rest of this entry

John Jude Palencar has been presented with the 2008 Spectrum Grand Master Award.

From the press release:

Cathy and Arnie Fenner, the directors for Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, announced that this year’s Grand Master Award has been presented to John Jude Palencar. The Spectrum Advisory Board–consisting of Rick Berry, Brom, Mark Chiarello, Leo and Diane Dillon, Harlan Ellison, Irene Gallo, Bud Plant, Don Ivan Punchatz, Tim Underwood, and Michael Whelan–reviewed a list of eligible artists and reached a consensus to confer the honor.

The Spectrum Grand Master Award is presented annually to a living artist whose career has spanned at least twenty years, whose work has achieved and maintained a high-level of skill and imagination, and who has inspired others with their art and attitude.

…

Previous recipients of the award are Frank Frazetta, Don Ivan Punchatz, Leo and Diane Dillon, James E. Bama, John Berkey, Alan Lee, Jean Giraud, Kinuko Y. Craft, Michael William Kaluta, Michael Whelan, H.R. Giger, Jeffrey Jones, and Syd Mead.

Congratulation, John!

The Spectrum site has more winners of the Spectrum 15 Awards.

Stefan G. Bucher’s Daily Monster website operates with a simple premise: every day he posts a short, high-speed video of him drawing a new monster.

A simple idea, yes, but the results are awesome.

The website has also spawned a book: 100 Days Of Monsters, which also comes with a DVD that features videos from the website. Now why didn’t I think of that? Oh yeah, no-talent @$$-clown. (With apologies to Michael Bolton…)

[via Boing^2]

Another reader writes in with a story description looking for a title. Do any of our readers out there know the title of this story?

When I was a kid in the 1970s, I read what was probably a short story (probably in an anthology for young readers) about a bunch of children who lived in a controlled environment with a minder looking after them from a voice in the wall. In fact that’s what they called this person, “Voice.” All the children have names like Emelen and Emanee (those are the two I can remember). One very bright child figures out that “Voice” is actually more than one person, as the personality changes over time, and this child eventually organises an escape, in which all the children discover a huge world outside their home and that they have been kept prisoners. They also learn that they are all mutations of some sort, with extra limbs or misshapen facial features, and that that was why they were separated from the rest of humanity. Their names turn out to be 3-letter codes, MLN and MNE, in the examples above, and the M stands for “monster.”

I remember this story hitting me very hard as a youngster and I’d like to reread it if anyone remembers it.

- Maria S.

Can you name this story?

• Free Fiction: “Mathralon” by David Louis Edelman (appears in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two]
• Free Audio Fiction: Key Out Of Time by Andre Norton. [via SFFaudio]
• Free Fiction Teaser: Asimov’s has posted the beginning of Elizabeth Bear‘s story “Shoggoths in Bloom“.
• John C. Wright liked Steven Gould’s book, Jumper. The movie? Not so much.
• F&SF Blog interviews K.D. Wentworth whose story, “Exit Strategy”, appears in the March 2008 issue.
• Artist Maurizio Manzieri shows off the cool artwork he did for April 2008 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine to coincide with the lead story “Five Thrillers” by Robert Reed.
• D.D. Shade at Lost Books asks: What is Speculative Fiction? “…we need a good way of defining Speculative Fiction other than saying, as Damon Knight said of science fiction, that Speculative Fiction is that which we point to and say it is Speculative Fiction.”
• io9 lists 7 Scifi Comic Books That are Free Online.
• TexasBestGrok points us to these cool Model kits that Might Have Been, a set of realistic (but faux) model kit boxes which you can actually order and showcase at home (or wherever it is one showcases models). My favorite: Balok from Star Trek. Clint Howard always creeped me out.

Way back when I was a young geek, science fiction took many forms, one of which was a precursor to audio books: I’m talking about the 45 RPM Read-Along comic books. I personally owned my very own copy of a Spiderman read-along comic called Mark of the Werewolf, much to the endless amusement of my much-cooler imaginary friends.

Now you can once again experience the unique joy of reading along with these Flash Gordon read-along MP3s. Well, almost experience….you don’t actually get to see the books, they’re just MP3s. But you do get to hear the awesome “turn page now” chime. Man, that sends chills down the place where my spine used to be.

[Note: the download links for these MP3s use the MegaUpload website which makes you (1) type in a captcha code, and (2) wait 45 seconds for the "free" download. Very Lame.]

[via Cool-Mo-Dee]

• Toy2R and Diamond Comics Distributors unveiled their upcoming Futurama Qees figures in ToyFare magazine. Check out the sweet Fry pic on the right, and click through to see Bender. They will be released sometime this summer, with a promise of more figures in the future.
• Lots of J. Michael Straczynski news from WonderCon: JMS has signed a deal with DC Comics, but he was tight-lipped about what that entails. His first major motion picture, The Changeling (starring Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich, directed by Clint Eastwood) has just wrapped. In news sure to warm Tim’s heart, he has been tapped by Plan B to adapt World War Z for the big screen. He also hints at Lensmen, the movie, and a possible Babylon 5 feature movie. Go read.
• The Telegraph has a long piece cover Bionic Woman actress, Michelle Ryan. Interesting tidbit from the story: Jennifer Aniston was up for the role of Jamie Sommers. That would have been, bad.
• From the ‘What are they thinking’ file: Did you know Sony Pictures is producing Starship Troopers 3 – Marauder? Casper Van Dien is back, this time bringing with him…Jolene Blalock. Why won’t this series die? When the trailer hits (today, supposedly) we’ll let you in in all the gory details.
• Recently, ReelzChannel caught up to J.J. Abrams and asked him a few questions about the new Star Trek movie and the possibility of Cloverfield 2. Here’s what he had to say:
  
  
  

  Dailies | J.J. Abrams

REVIEW SUMMARY: A very good read that I might have enjoyed this even more if I hadn’t read the novella on which it is based.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: An angry prospector is forced by aliens to hunt someone down.

MY REVIEW:

PROS: The core story is engaging; thought-provoking sf-nal ideas; clear, concise prose makes for easy reading.

CONS: Because I read the novella version, the extra material felt like padding.

BOTTOM LINE: A solid, well-constructed and wholly entertaining story.

A few years ago, I read an excellent novella called “Shadow Twin” that was co-written by George R.R. Martin, Gardener Dozois, and Daniel Abraham. Now, in the grand tradition of science fiction literature and marketing, that novella has been expanded into the novel-length story Hunter’s Run. I was curious. Does the novel hold up?

Read the rest of this entry

Issue #980 (February 29, 2008) of Entertainment Weekly offers some brief reviews of science fiction and fantasy books.

Here’s a snippet…

by A. Lee Martinez

Movie Pitch: Iron Man meets X-Men.

Lowdown: The dialogue and supporting cast are full of creaky clichés, but in time Mack’s smash-and-grab mission acquires some satisfying philosophical heft.

Grade: B+

by Iain M. Banks

Movie Pitch: A Star Trek “Prime Directive” episode meets The Lord of the Rings.

Lowdown: Trippy geography and climactic techno-mayhem can’t fully offset the slog through pseudo-Tolkien territory.

Grade: B

by Kim Harrison

Movie Pitch: Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Tank Girl.

Lowdown: Outlaw may be tough for newbies, but Rachel’s personal growth, series-altering revelations, and a lot of humor make it inviting.

Grade: B+

• Fantasy Book Critic interviews Jonathan Barnes (The Somnambulist).
• The Australian interviews Iain Banks (Matter). [via Locus Online]
• Strange Horizons interviews Greg Bear (Quantico).
• io9 interviews Amy Thomson (Storyteller).
• Jay Lake podcast-interviews Jeff & Ann Vandermeer. [via SFFaudio] Meanwhile Adventures in Scifi Publishing podcast-interviews Jeff VanderMeer all by his lonesome.
• Telegraph looks at The Omega Force by Rick Moody.
• George R.R. Martin has a series of posts about the Hugos (Best Editor, Best Artist, Best Fanzine) and the John W. Campbell Award.
• Matthew Sanborn Smith responds to the recent Where Has All The Sci-Fi Gone? question.
• March 2 – 8, 2008 is Read an E-Book Week! [via SFF Chronicles]
• Kathryn Cramer points us to this $1,800 Rocketship Side Table (a few items down) for “the Hugo winner who has everything”.