SF Tidbits for 2/9/09

• Gary Westfahl reviews Coraline. “Gaiman’s work is very much a gentle, charming fantasy, and whenever Hollywood applies its formulas for sure-fire box-office success, it rarely does ‘gentle’ or ‘charming’ very well.” I have to agree here…the film looked great, but was missing the draw of Neil Gaiman’s excellent book.
• This interview with artist Sakke Soini features a nice take on Barbarella.
• James Enge on Star Trek, specifically on the dwindling uniqueness of actors: “If I [...] were in charge of rebooting the Star Trek franchise, I’d be trying [to] represent a wider cross-section of humanity…and I’d be trying to find some actors who can maybe project a little alienness even before they go into makeup (or the CGI equivalent).”
• The American Library Association lists the Best genre fiction titles named to 2009 Reading List. For science fiction, the winner is Hunter’s Run by George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham. For Fantasy, the winner if Veil of Gold by Kim Wilkins. For Horror, the winner is Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow.
• Free Audio Fiction [courtesy of QuasarDragon]
  • @The Cthulhu Podcast: Part two of “The Rats in the Walls” by H. P. Lovecraft.
  • @Spider on the Web: “The Truth About David Gerrold,” by Spider Robinson, and “Thirteen O’Clock,” by David Gerrold, both read by Spider Robinson.
  • @Dunesteef: “The Ghost Of Sadie Worth” by Doug McIntire.
  • @Beam Me Up: Part one of “Paying it Forward” by Michael Burstein, read by Paul Cole.
  • @PodCastle: “Hell Is the Absence of God” by Ted Chiang, read by James Trimarco.
  • @Pseudopod: “Bone Mother” by Maura McHugh, read by Cat Rambo.
  • @Escape Pod: “Summer in Paris, Light from the Sky” by Ken Scholes, read by Alex Wilson.
  • @LibriVox:
    • The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, read by Tom Weiss and tubeyes.
    • Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 010 with stories by John O’Keefe, G. Peyton Wertenbaker, Raymond Z. Gallun, Harry Harrison, Lee Archer, Gordon Randall Garrett, Les Collins, Ellis Parker Butler, Robert F. Young, and H. G. Wells.
• Dog Oil Press is a web-based publication that showcases a short work of dark humor.
• At Wet Asphalt: Why I Hate Short Stories: A Short Article on Why Short Fiction is Short on Interest by J F Quackenbush: “Because short stories are nothing more than a vehicle for recognition by most writers, they don’t matter.” [via Bibliophile Stalker]
• At Christianity Today, James A. Herrick talks about Sci-Fi’s Brave New World: “The culture-shaping force of science fiction storytellers may be more significant and more widespread than we imagine…” [via Locus Online]
• James Wallace Harris on Defining Science Fiction, a response to the introduction to Fast Forward 2 by Lou Anders, The Age of Accelerating Returns. Says JWH: “…science fiction will get no respect in the world at large. And that might be cool with many people, since most science fiction fans prefer their field to be wild and wooly, rather than academic and disciplined.”
• Raymond E. Feist (Rides A Dread Legion) will be doing three signings at Forbidden Planet in March.
• Edward Willett (Marseguro) talks about interesting gadgets that soon may be real leveraging the New Scientist list of Ten sci-fi devices that could soon be in your hands.
• Mighty God King lays out the degrees of nerdiness using several genre films as examples, of course.
• At Feminist SF, Shannan Palma lists 12 Ways to Know if You’re Reading a Bad Book: “1. Are the characters’ names impossible to pronounce? …If the book is not written by Tolkien and is not a parody, it might be a Bad Book.” [via Larvatus Prodeo]

Related posts:

1. SF Tidbits for 9/7/08
2. SF Tidbits for 4/19/07
3. James Patrick Kelly Free Reads
4. SF Tidbits for 12/7/08
5. SF Tidbits for 12/30/07

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