Science Fiction

Last night, the SFWA folks hosted the 2012 Nebula Awards. I didn't get to watch the live stream because I was trying to recover from the episode we recorded for The Skiffy and Fanty Show on Friday night (I'm still sort of recovering). However, now that the awards have been announced, I see fit to talk about the winners. Here they are: Best Novel 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK) I like Robinson more than a lot of my friends. I'm not sure why. Most people I've talked to can't stand his Three Californias series, while I find them fascinating (especially The Gold Coast). Regardless, I honestly had hoped to see Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed or The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin take the award. Both will probably appear on this list again, though, so maybe it's just not their time yet. Best Novella After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress (Tachyon) I love Nancy Kress, and this collection really was quite good. Granted, de Bodard, Lake, and Liu were also on the finalists list, each them worthy of awards too. Still, I'm satisfied with this selection. Besides, Tachyon is bloody amazing. Best Novelette “Close Encounters”, Andy Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories) Honestly, I have no real opinion here. I'm sure Duncan's story is great. I am, of course, a Liu fan, so I will always be partial to his work. But Liu can't win everything, right? I did get to hear Duncan read/speak at ICFA, and he's not bad. So I'm OK with this selection. Best Short Story “Immersion“, Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 6/12) The right choice. End of story. Moving on. Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin (director), Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Abilar (writers), (Journeyman/Cinereach/Court 13/Fox Searchlight ) I'm really trying to understand why this film is so loved. Everything I've seen from it looks awful. Am I missing something? To be fair, the rest of the finalists list was painfully predictable. There was no Cloud Atlas, so as much as I would have liked to see Chronicle win...oh, right, that was not on the list either. So it goes... Andre Norton Award for Young Adult SF/F Fair Coin, E.C. Myers (Pyr) Honestly, this is probably the right choice. I've heard nothing but good things about Fair Coin and I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't think Railsea was Mieville's best. So kudos to Myers! 2011 Damon Knight Grand Master Award Gene Wolfe Yeah. It was time. Good. A+ Solstice Award Carl Sagan and Ginjer Buchanan Nod. Yes. Perfect. Kevin O'Donnell Jr. Service to SFWA Award Michael H. Payne Alright. I have no idea who this is, but since I'm not part of SFWA, that's probably expected. Good for Mr. Payne. ---------------------------------------------------------- And that's all I've got to say. What say you?

The Gold Box spotlight deal of the day today at Amazon is Bioshock Infinite for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 for $39.99 each (that's 33% off the list price of $59.99). The PC and PC Download versions are on sale for only $34.99 each (that's 42% off the list price of $59.99). Note - this deal is valid only for today, Sunday, May 19, 2013 until 11:59pm PST while supplies last. Visit the main sale page for more details [...]

Thanks to Dark Cargo for starting the TBR Topple campaign.  This is where you look at your teetering stack of books you’ve been meaning to read, and instead of buying more books (for therapeutic reasons, of course), you take a handful of books from your TBR pile, read the first chapter or two just to get a taste, and see which ones taste good enough to keep reading.  And the ones that don’t do it for ya? Get ‘em outta the TBR and regret nothing! Other great folks involved in TBR Topple include Lynn’s Book Blog  and Over the Effing Rainbow. Maybe we can all help each other out. . . Here’s what I got: Some of the books mentioned below I’ve already cracked open to see what tasty morsels abide within, others I, umm…. haven’t. But I will!  I hope! From the library: War for the Oaks by Emma Bull, recommended by My Bookish Ways, it’s magical realism/urban fantasy. Kinda Charles deLint-esque? Mastering Communication at Work – yes, this is something I’m reading for work.  You know how must business books are drier than dust and make you want to die of boredom? This one isn’t. It’s readable, interesting, has a bunch of exercises to do. I’ve read the first 2 chapters and flipped through the rest. I wish I’d read this 10 years ago.  A bit heavy to read all in one go, but I may need to buy a copy of this. Welcome to Bordertown, edited by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner – a shared world anthology, ummm… thing? I haven’t even had a chance to crack it open yet. I wonder how many times I can renew it from the library? and an ARC for review: Clockwork Phoenix 4, edited by Mike Allen – I’ve read three or four of the short stories in here, been very impressed so far.  The book doesn’t come out for a few weeks yet, so I’ve got a bit of wiggle room! there’s these too: Kushiel’s Dart by Jaqueline Carey – this seems like one of those books you can’t put down once you’ve picked up?  I’m not sure how many book there are in the series, but finding book 1 was not easy! Consider Phlebas, by Iain M. Banks – this is the first Culture book, but it gets mixed reviews. I did get through about 20 pages of it, got frustrated, picked up Banks’ The State of the Art, and did much better. this may go back on the shelf for now. When the People Fell, by Cordwainer Smith – ya’ll know I love me some Cordwainer Smith, and three cheers to Baen Books for publishing this ginormous short story collection! This is the book for my local scifi book club that meets next week. I’ve read like 3 of the stories in here so far, all very, very good. Smith rights a damn good love story (betcha didn’t think I was gonna say that, did you?). This strikes me as more a “pick up every few months and read one or two entries”, than “blast through in a few days and read every page” type book. Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson – got this out of the library like 6 years ago, LOVED it! Now I finally own a copy and read at a leisurely pace. Also, it’s a paperback, so it doesn’t weigh nine hundred pounds. unlike the hardback from the library! Caliban’s War, by James S. A. Corey -  I loved the first one, not sure why I’ve waited so long to read the second. It looks like a really big time commitment.  And it’s autographed. I’m afraid I’ll damage it. Survival, by Julie Czerneda – been hearing great things about this series. It has lots of science. A friend said “read it just for the aliens”. I do love me some aliens that aren’t just humanoids painted blue! So that’s the plan.  dabble in these and see how I do, right? and then my TBR Topple got sabotaged: - I picked up Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks planning to just read 20 or 30 pages.  that was 2 days ago. Now I’m half way through it, a

Via his email letter, Brandon Sanderson has provided an update on his progress on Words of Radiance, the second volume in The Stormlight Archive (and the sequel to 2010's Way of Kings).According to Sanderson, he has 260,000 words completed out of a targeted 300,000 (making Words of Radiance almost 25% shorter than Way of Kings), but has run into some issues keeping the book more cohesive and structured and needs to do some rewriting based on that. He hopes to finish the book in August so he can still hit the planned release date of November 2013, but acknowledges that there is a chance the book could slip to early 2014 instead.

This week the Best Cover EVER? pick comes from one of our own writers; Dublin based Colm Creamer, who describes himself as: ‘born a nerd, raised a nerd and will eventually die a nerd. He works on computers and writes mainly to fund his long term comic book addiction that takes up most of the space in his apartment which he shares with his two nerd friends and nerd girlfriend and listens to lots…and lots of music. His apartment is often considered a shrine to the pop culture he finds himself a member of. ‘ Over to Colm… So when I first started writing for the fine folks here at the FP Blog, Richard told me about the ‘Best Cover Ever’ posts and asked if I wanted to contribute to one ….and I scratched my head for a really REALLY long time! I couldn’t think of just 1 cover- and I had to figure out what criteria I wanted to judge it by: Eye-catching? Did it let you know what was in the story? Did I want it to let me know? Pure artistic merit? Was it a good series? Etc. The list could go on, and on until I ran out of rhyme or reason! So I fell back on covers that I really loved from my favourite series and had meaning related to something really important and big in my life: Phonogram 5 and 6 by Jamie McKelvie Phonogram 5, Image Comics, 2007, cover art by Jamie McKelvie Phonogram 6, Image Comics, 2007, cover art by Jamie McKelvie The first thing to say about them is that they’re both gorgeous! They’re eye catching instantly because they’re bright and have what seems like a unique image that reflects on the story inside (though not in a traditional sense) They are, in fact, (for anybody who’s never listened to/followed Brit pop or music in the 90′s) both homages to album covers- 5 is Suede’s first album ‘Suede’ and 6 is The Manic Street Preachers ‘The Holy Bible’ album and they are 2 of my favourite albums of all time! And that is why I love Phonogram! It makes me think about albums and music like that and as soon as I look at these covers I get songs like ‘Animal Nitrate’ by Suede or ‘Faster’ by Manic Street Preachers in my head! Then you read the series and you get that the whole thing is a big open love letter/ homage to music and why exactly you should love it! Also album art is cool! It’s on t-shirts, bedroom walls, badges, postcards and backpacks. Art speaks to people, causes a reaction- that’s why we love the medium of comics, right? Cause of the effect art can have? I know that’s 1 of the reasons for me, anyway. Cover art is like album art right? So you see the single issue, you’re buying the single! You see the trade, you’re buying the album- the collected tracks! Well, something has gotta make them stand out in a sea of bright colours, logos and men in spandex! Art also evokes memory! Be it of a summer day or of a beautiful girl. These covers remind, first off, of the albums, and then that brings in the power of music to remind me of a time I loved, of listening to albums, or reading liner notes and song lyrics! Of getting a pen (because if I used a knife and left scars, my Mam would kill me) and scrawling ’4Real’ on my forearm before going to school. * I think that’s pretty fair criteria for best cover: eye-catching, beautiful composition and the ability to evoke a huge emotional reactions and throw me back into a haze of memories from my teen-aged years! *For those who aren’t Manic Street Preachers fans, in an interview, somebody made the mistake of asking Richey Edwards if the songs political protest lyrics were legitimate or  were they just trying to cash in on the tail end of punk -becoming what was known as ‘Plastic Punks’ and in response Richey grabbed a knife and scratched ’4 Real’ into his forearm.

Last update: May 19 Included here are links, pics and news (and possibly spoilers - though they will be heavily marked as such) on the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special, this page will be updated as and when "stuff" happens. First up, the facts: • The episode is written by Steven Moffat and directed by Nick Hurran. • It has been filmed using 3D technology and will be broadcast on November 23. It will also receive a limited worldwide cinema release. • Starring in the special are: David Tennant (The Tenth Doctor), Matt Smith (The Eleventh Doctor, Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara), Joanna Page (Elizabeth I), Jemma Redgrave (Kate Stewart), Ingrid Oliver (Osgood), John Hurt and many more. See the pictures from the Anniversary Special read~through HERE. • Classic monsters The Zygons are to feature in the story, but are not the main villain. Pic HERE. Now here's the rest! The most recent news will appear at the top: • David Tennant and Matt Smith chat about how their characters get on with one another HERE. • John Hurt talks about his role HERE. • Steven Moffat reveals secrets have been kept - watch interview HERE. • Jemma Redgrave talks about it HERE. • The running time is around 60 minutes. • Is David Tennant the only returning Doctor? Info HERE. • Scenes were filmed in London at Tower Bridge, read Blogtor's exclusive report, along with set pictures, HERE. • Scenes were filmed in London at Trafalgar Square, read Blogtor's exclusive report, along with set pictures, HERE. • Ingrid Oliver's character Osgood is related to UNIT's Sgt. Osgood from The Daemons, she wears a Fourth Doctor scarf. • The BBC have some behind~the~scenes videos from the London shooting - watch them HERE. • Christopher Eccleston talks about the 50th - watch his interview HERE. • Paul McGann talks about the special HERE. • Billie Piper says it's "very much for the fans" - interview HERE. • Steven Moffat doesn't want it to be a "fanfest" - interview HERE. • Producer Marcus Wilson says it's a "love letter to fans" - read HERE. • Filming pictures reveal a familiar location - see HERE. • David Tennant talks about filming - listen HERE. • Pic of Tennant and Smith on set together - see HERE. • John Simm says he's not involved - watch interview HERE. • John Barrowman not involved - see HERE. • Matt Smith says it's "very funny" - interview HERE. • Sylvester McCoy and Colin Baker talk about the special - watch interview HERE. • Matt Smith says it's "vast","epic" and "momentous" - watch interview HERE. • Freema Agyeman chats 50th - see HERE. • Steven Moffat is interviewed by his son - watch HERE. • Jenna-Louise Coleman talks 50th - read HERE. • David Tennant talks to Jonathan Ross about being involved/not involved [pre-announcement] - watch interview HERE. • Billie Piper talks to Graham Norton about being involved/not involved [pre-announcement] - watch interview HERE.

A follow up to Golva’s Ascent from March 2012, which I skimmed through. A ‘fast paced adventure’ of the kind that Purdom often produces that don’t really do it for me. But if you are wanting to read more about Harold the Human, here’s your chance…

A technology enables individual to see with clarity an event that will happen to them in the future. In some cases the nature of that event can have huge impact, and a young man who has seen himself as a murderer, is visited by a young woman who knows her own fate as a murder victim.

A technology that allows instant transportation, enables a young woman to run away – far, far away – and for whole communities to leave Earth behind.

A chilling mystery has to be solved, as a number of scientist succumb to a strange death that it outside the boundaries of what should be possible. Some excellent characterisation and dialogue, just a bit different to the usual.