SF Tidbits for 7/28/08
By Matt |
Monday, July 28th, 2008 at
12:04 am
- “Neil Gaiman has been tapped to write a two issue arc for Batman and Detective Comics in January 2009.”
- Elizabeth Bear: “There’s a generation gap in SFF”
- Classic authors on the value of sci fi
- New material from Philip Jose Farmer?
- Sci Fi writers, fans gear up for WorldCon
- “What to make of race and gender politics in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell?”
- 1980s Classics of science fiction
- Editor’s note on the condition of the LA Times Book Review
- Review: Philip K. Dick: five novels of the 1960s and 70s edited by Jonathan Lethem (pretty cool piece)
- Can Sci Fi lit keep up with high tech changes?
- A writer’s guide to web comics
- The Wonders of Small Beer Press (I want to read Alan DeNiro’s “Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead” soooo bad)
- “The fairy monopoly” in urban fantasy literature
- Fundamentalism in science fiction
- Even James Patterson is writing YA now
- Interview with Greg Van Eekhout
- Arthur C. Clarke’s last book, with help from Frederick Pohl, The Last Theorem coming to shelves near you
- A review of Gary Gygax’s The Anubis Murders: “I was expecting a classic hero’s journey in a fantasy setting, but what I got was a Sherlock Holmes mystery in a fantasy setting, with a lot more sexual tension between Holmes and Watson.”
- Science fiction vs. fantasy, and how to maybe tell the difference
- Trains in literature
- C.S. Lewis On Adults Wanting To Be Adults: “When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
- The bikini change the course of literature
- Interview with Rachel Caine
- The Fat Man at the End of the World: The BHMFFA Connection is currently looking for stories between 3000-5000 approx for a collection of fat-positive fiction centred around fat men. These stories can cover any genre, but must clearly have at least one fat male lead character, if not more. Stories which include fat women are strongly encouraged, especially if the fat women are in powerful or sexy roles. Depending on submission volume, stories which are centred around fat women may be considered for a upcoming collection on fat women fiction.”
- High culture meets low culture in a mass-media world
- Street lit offers outlet for upstart authors
- A look at those Coraline Maquettes
- Austin American-Statesman savages Zach Plague’s Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring
- Pirates won’t rob writers of their riches
- “Hebrew Punk” author Lavie Tidhar has a new author photo (check out the beautiful landscape!)
- Stephenie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn already breaking records
- What The Nuns Didn’t Teach Me: “The most important lesson I learned while working in a bookstore was taught to me by smut-loving nuns. In so many words, they taught me that people enjoy reading what they enjoy, and that trying to “elevate” them to your particular taste was a foolhardy and condescending endeavor.”
- Frank Miller’s Eisner Awards speech
- Review: My Incredibly, Wonderful, Miserable Life by Adam Nimoy (Leonard Nimoy’s son)
- Stephen King: science fiction author?
- Contest: win vintage D&D rulebooks (old, old school)
- Frank Wu looks at Robots as characters
- Jay Maynard (“Tron Guy”) on Tron 2.
- Wizards of the Coast has canceled its Discoveries imprint for original, non-gaming related novels
- Scott Edelman has posted his ComicCon photos
- SFX interviews David Duchovny
- Andrew Wheeler is handicapping the Hugos.
Filed under: Tidbits
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The link for Clarke/Pohl doesn’t do much of anything…
:-$
Link fixed. Thanks!
Still can’t get there. Here’s the link that shows up in preview:
file:///C:/temp/sfsignal/StaggLinks.htm
:-$
We feel privileged to have had the opportunity to work with such a talented group of new authors,” said Liz Schuh, Director of Publishing at Wizards of the Coast. “We wish them success in their future endeavors.”
===
In other words…don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
This isn’t the first time that a gaming company has ventured into non-gaming fiction and killed the line. General retraction in the industry or the wider economic troubles or???
I keep wondering when we’ll see a contraction across the genre.
OK, *now* it should be fixed. I don’t know why, but this post has been giving me enormous amounts of headaches when trying to save/edit it.
“The BHMFFA Connection is currently looking for stories between 3000-5000 approx for a collection of fat-positive fiction centred around fat men.”…
Well.
The jury should expect a LOT of stories like these:
- Another Ice Age is coming, and only the fattest guy survives the first very long winter.
- Alien visitors who weigh 600 pounds will only talk to “worthy” Earthlings who weigh as much as themselves.
- A totally unexpected new fashion sweeps society, making obese men the new hip, cool “in” crowd.
- The 800-pound vigilante “The Flattener” terrorizes the underworld by sitting, falling on and smothering mobsters.
And so on and so on…
Hey, thanks mentioning my interview, but the site linked to is actually a splog that lifted the interview from Travis Sheerman’s site: http://travisheermann.com/blog/?p=40.
It works (Pohl-Clarke). Looking forward to August 5. There is a whole pile of books that I want to buy in August, but this one even beats the new Stephenson tome for anticipation level!
:O
I read the press release, and like all PR, it doesn’t even closely resemble the whole story.
Steve and Melanie Tem’s Shocklines blog alludes to a bigger picture.
From what I can tell based on the info I have…
1) Hasbro owns WotC. 2) Hasbro is uncomfortable doing non-kid related projects. 3) Economic troubles makes middle managers wary. 4) Wary managers make these kinds of weird decisions for no good reason.
Thus, market and great line of books is DOA.
That said, the Discoveries books of this year will remain in print as long as people buy them, and the mass markets are still going to be produced next year.
@Greg: Thanks! Damn sploggers. Link fixed.
@J.M. Thanks for the update! See more at Shocklines.