SF Tidbits for 4/1/09

• The Agony interviews Max Frei, author of The Stranger.
• Irene Gallo profiles Artist Hugo nominee Dan Dos Santos.
• New Tor.com wallpaper: The Borribles Go For Broke.
• @Fandomania: Defining the Genre: Fairy Tales: “…I wanted to take some time to discuss the themes and reasons for why fairy tales exist. Perhaps the first answer that pops into your head is ‘to entertain children,’ but that is only the tip of the iceberg.”
• Cory Doctorow says Authors have lost the plot in Amazon Kindle battle: “Amazon’s Kindle 2 text-to-speech feature is not so much violating authors’ copyright but rather basic consumer rights.”
• Frederik Pohl’s worst prediction: Corporate Leisure Time.
• S. Andrew Swann (Prophets) talks about Worldbuilding: “When we talk about world-building we are talking about how that world is presented on the page, and what the reader takes away from the setting of the story.”
• Juliet McKenna on the “Solitary Writing” Business.
• Paul Di Filippo reviews Peter S. Beagle‘s We Never Talk About My Brother.
• Juno Editor Paula Guran answers the question: So what DO editors do, anyway? “Editors don’t look out windows. They fall into computer screens and get lost.”
• @The Daily Beast: “Books are essential to American life, and if publishing perishes, Stephen L. Carter argues, democracy itself will soon follow.” And a rebuttal by Court Merrigan: “I would say he has it backwards: online is forever.”
• The Guardian on Scribd: “It might be a book lover’s dream, but it could prove a nightmare for the publishing industry: a ‘YouTube for documents’ where you can download, among other things, free copies of the Harry Potter novels and the Booker prize-winning The White Tiger“
• One for the writers: HowTo Books is making their books free for online reading, including how-to books about writing. [via TheBookseller]
• Neo-Victorian Studies is an “inter-disciplinary, peer-reviews e-journal dedicated to contemporary re-imaginings of the nineteenth century in Literature, the Arts and Humanities.” And apparently dedicated to hyphenated words! Their current issue is here and it includes a review of George Mann’s awesome steampunk-meets-Doctor-Who book, The Affinity Bridge. [via Snowbooks]
• Speaking of Doctor Who, the next version of the TARDIS gets a makeover.
• The Crotchety Old Fan lists Free Classic Science Fiction Films Based on Science Fiction Stories (Mostly).
• Jeffrey Prucher, author of Brave New Words, lists 9 Words You Might Think Came from Science but Which Are Really from Science Fiction.

Related posts:

1. SF Tidbits for 9/30/06
2. SF Tidbits for 12/30/07
3. SF Tidbits for 6/14/07
4. SF Tidbits for 4/12/08
5. SF Tidbits for 5/28/08

Filed under: Tidbits

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