SF Tidbits for 1/16/08
- TV Ontario’s current-affairs program, The Agenda, has a video interview with Robert J. Sawyer (Rollback) on roboethics. (Click the “Robert Sawyer” link on the right-hand side.) More Sawyer news: Red Deer Press is releasing his 2nd collection of short stories, Identity Theft and Other Stories, in May 2008.
- The Fix interviews John Joseph Adams, editor of Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse: “I think that one of the things that appeals to SF writers about writing in that sub-genre is that they can tear everything down and speculate about how human nature will react…”
- The Agony Column podcast-interviews John Picacio and Jeremy Lassen. [via SFF Audio]
- SciFi Wire profiles Alex Bledsoe, author of The Sword-Edged Blonde.
- Grasping for the Wind loks at Speculative Fiction and the Value of the Formula: “Readers of speculative fiction should not listen to the pejorative use of the word ‘formulaic’. It is a highbrow way of saying that the novel is good enough for the masses, but not good enough for those of us with a literary education.”
- Over at Deep Genre, David Louis Edelman explains How to Write a Novel (Part 1).
- Meanwhile, at The Fix, James Van Pelt explains How to Generating Hard Science Fiction Story Ideas Painlessly: “So, do you need a degree in science or math to write hard science fiction? Nope. Numerous hard science fiction authors write their stories without that background.”
- Rich Horton lists the (almost) final contents of his Year’s Best anthologies.
- Recently free fiction at ManyBooks.net:
- “Card…Trick” by Gordon Randall Garrett (1961)
- “Attrition” by Jim Wannamaker (1961)
- “The Coffin Cure” by Alan Nourse (1957)
- “Letter of the Law” by Alan Nourse (1954)
- “The Native Soil” by English (1957)
- “PRoblem” by Alan E. Nourse (1956)
- More free fiction: “Save me Plz” and “Blood of Virgins” by David Barr Kirtley. (originally appeared in Realms of Fantasy.)
- Even Batman is not vulnerable to job stress. Check out Batman – A comic by Josh Simmons. [via MonkeyFilter]
- Geekend’s Jay Garmon lists 75 words every sci-fi fan should know.
