4.5
Two crime books and a horror book, three crime books, two horror books and a crime book, or whichever way you want to look at it. I’ll go with the first one. In this omnibus all three books are good with The Skull Ring the pick of the three. You also get an essay, an [...]
An excellent anthology of good horror stories at 3.60, with a couple reaching greater heights. Gateway Drug : Timing Chains of the Heart – Scott Nicholson Gateway Drug : In The Family – Scott Nicholson Gateway Drug : The Cutting Room – Shane Jiraiya Cummings Gateway Drug : Work In Progress – Scott Nicholson Gateway [...]
An excellent collection of essays on the Watchmen comic series. Minutes to Midnight : Obsolete Models a Specialty: An Introduction – Richard Bensam Minutes to Midnight : Reassembling the Components in the Correct Sequence: Why You Shouldn’t Read Watchmen First – Walter Hudsick Minutes to Midnight : How the Ghost of You Clings: Watchmen and [...]
Continue reading about Minutes to Midnight: Twelve Essays on Watchmen – Richard Bensam
The most recent job John Rain was involved with was for higher stakes. Energy supply. After four years off Rain gets approached again. This time he and Dox, along with Treven and Larison are hired to take out two yank Defense honchos who are apparently planning fake terrorist attacks on the USA to allow them [...]
At 3.73 a collection of excellent hardboiled horror and laugh out loud humour. The title story is brilliantly original. Plus monkeys! Hard Bite : Hard Bite – Anonymous-9 Anonymous-9 Hard Bite : Tequila Spike – Anonymous-9 Anonymous-9 Hard Bite : Claw Marks – Anonymous-9 Anonymous-9 Hard Bite : Backseat Driver – Anonymous-9 Anonymous-9 Hard Bite [...]
Continue reading about Hard Bite and Other Short Stories – Anonymous-9 Anonymous-9
A collection of powerful horror stories at a very impressive 3.70. Engines of Desire : Horses – Livia Llewellyn Engines of Desire : At the Edge of Ellensburg – Livia Llewellyn Engines of Desire : The Teslated Salishan Evergreen – Livia Llewellyn Engines of Desire : The Engine of Desire – Livia Llewellyn Engines of [...]
Continue reading about Engines of Desire Tales of Love and Other Horrors – Livia Llewellyn
There’s a length introduction to this excellent 3.95 collection of his shorter work. Best of H P Lovecraft : The Rats in the Walls – H. P. Lovecraft Best of H P Lovecraft : The Picture in the House – H. P. Lovecraft Best of H P Lovecraft : The Outsider – H. P. Lovecraft [...]
Continue reading about The Best of H. P. Lovecraft – H. P. Lovecraft
An excellent original anthology of tightly put together stories in this shared world of deliberately reduced technology level. Which of course leads to lots of skullduggery. New Ceres Nights : Smuggler’s Moon – Lee Battersby New Ceres Nights : Murder in Laochan – Aliette de Bodard New Ceres Nights : Fair Trade – Stephen Dedman [...]
With 3.71 average here, Hamilton shows he is a very fine proponent of the short form when not afflicted with the late 20th century auctorial bloatblight. The new Myo story is rather good, too. Manhattan in Reverse : Watching Trees Grow – Peter F. Hamilton Manhattan in Reverse : Footvote – Peter F. Hamilton Manhattan [...]
Continue reading about Manhattan In Reverse – Peter F. Hamilton
4.5 out of 5
4.5 out of 5
4.5 out of 5
4.5 out of 5
4.5 out of 5
““You’re a self-replicating humanoid. vN.” Javier always spoke Spanish the first few days. It was his clade’s default setting. “You have polymer-doped memristors in your skin, transmitting signal to the aerogel in your muscles from the graphene coral inside your skeleton. That part’s titanium. You with me, so far?” Junior nodded. He plucked curiously at [...]
Continue reading about The Education of Junior Number 12 – Madeline Ashby
He was six foot four and wide as a door And he weighed two hundred pounds And he laughed as he spoke, “I’ll cool that bloke. I’ll flatten him in two rounds.” Ah, the crowd they cheered, but the crowd they jeered When his foeman stepped in the ring; They hissed and jowled and the [...]
Continue reading about Fables For Little Folk – Robert E. Howard
The Black Prince scowled above his lance, and wrath in his hot eyes lay, “I would rather you rode with the spears of France and not at my side today. “A man may parry an open blow, but I know not where to fend; “I would that you were an open foe, instead of a [...]
Continue reading about The Skull In the Clouds – Robert E. Howard
My ruthless hands still clutch at life– Still like a shoreless sea My soul beats on in rage and strife. You may not shackle me. My leopard eyes are still untamed, They hold a darksome light– A fierce and brooding gleam unnamed That pierced primeval night. Rear mighty temples to your god– I lurk where [...]
Continue reading about A Word From the Outer Dark – Robert E. Howard
Up, John Kane, the grey night’s falling; The sun’s sunk in blood and the fog comes crawling; From hillside to hill the grey wolves are calling; Will ye come, will ye come, John Kane? What of the oath that you swore by the river Where the black shadows lurk and the sun comes never, And [...]
At 3.72, an excellent reprint anthology. The editor gives an introduction as to how he chose the stories which is also of some interest. There’s a good variety of work. Alien Contact : The Thought War – Paul J. McAuley Alien Contact : How to Talk to Girls at Parties – Neil Gaiman Alien Contact [...]
Falume of Spain rode forth amain when twilight’s crimson fell To drink a toast with Bahram’s ghost in the scarlet land of Hell. His rowels clashed as swift he dashed along the flaming skies; The sunset rode at his bridle braid and the moon was in his eyes. The waves were green with an eerie [...]
Continue reading about The Ride of Falume – Robert E. Howard
“ll of the titles we worked on were pretty much your basic pulp. The air-wars were the least interesting to work on, partly because every last word of them was written by a single author under contract, David Goodis, who was not without talent — he published better things elsewhere — but didn’t waste any [...]
Continue reading about Popular Publications Part 7: The Beginning of the End – Frederik Pohl
Six stories and one poem in this collection, bookended by the great Conan stories Queen of hte Black Coast and A Witch Shall Be Born. Gardens Of Fear : Queen Of The Black Coast – Robert E. Howard Gardens Of Fear : The Haunter Of The Ring – Robert E. Howard Gardens Of Fear : [...]
Another introduction from Mark Finn and with several poems to finish as well as throughout the rest of the book another top-notch collection, including the brilliant Conan story Red Nails. Black Hounds Of Death : Black Canaan – Robert E. Howard Black Hounds Of Death : Red Nails – Robert E. Howard Black Hounds Of [...]
An excellent collection, led by Pigeons From Hell. It also contains several good poems along with the novel Almuric. Thunder Of Trumpets : Pigeons From Hell – Robert E. Howard Thunder Of Trumpets : A Thunder Of Trumpets – Robert E. Howard Thunder Of Trumpets : Almuric – Robert E. Howard Thunder Of Trumpets : [...]
I have not heard lutes beckon me, nor the brazen bugles call, But once in the dim of a haunted lea I heard the silence fall. I have not heard the regal drum, nor seen the flags unfurled, But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world. I have not seen the horsemen [...]
The ghost kings are marching; the midnight knows their tread, From the distant, stealthy planets of the dim, unstable dead; There are whisperings on the night-winds and the shuddering stars have fled. A ghostly trumpet echoes from a barren mountainhead; Through the fen the wandering witch-lights gleam like phantom arrows sped; There is silence in [...]
Another fine issue at 3.63, again with assorted articles and short interviews. Lightspeed 16 : Join – Liz Coleman Lightspeed 16 : Bubbles – David Brin Lightspeed 16 : Thief of Futures – D. Thomas Minton Lightspeed 16 : The Island of the Immortals – Ursula K. Le Guin New Phoeng tribe. 3.5 out of [...]
This is a more DC than Marvel, I think, with Reporter Manhattan. 4.5 out of 5
Continue reading about The Incredible Exploding Man – Dave Hutchinson
“In Part 2 of The Things, the creature comes to realize the horror of just the type of beings he is dealing with. Horrifying creations that violently react when faced with anything that changes. Creatures that never change, born and die with the same shape and can not imagine anything different. Important information yes, discovered [...]
“So what a pleasant surprise I got when reading this new story for Peter Watts called the Things… to discover it had a major twist right in the beginning that you will ask why wasn’t this done earlier! Needless to say it is a wonderful homage to John Campbell’s work. I wanted this story so [...]
” After my recent review of Les Savage’s collection of western stories THE SHADOW IN RENEGADE BASIN, Keith Chapman left a comment about Señorita Scorpion, the aptly named blonde heroine who appeared in one of them. As part of my reply to him, I thought I’d work up a checklist of all of the stories [...]
““One reviewer did confess to me yes, this is even slightly arousing, you know. Again that made me proud. The thing I would compare it to is there’s a fantastic book by Pete Dexter called Train, and it deals with golf. I am not interested in golf at all, it bores me rigid, and I [...]
Continue reading about Guy Haley Interviews – Richard Morgan
“Turn down the lights and nuzzle up to your speakers – we’re sharing some Dreams in the Witch House with guest Kenneth Hite and reader Dave Stinton!” 4.5 out of 5 http://www.hppodcraft.com/podcasts/11_09_15_hppodcraft_ep090.mp3
Continue reading about Dreams In the Witch House 1 – H. P. Lovecraft
Are crazy AI made to kill starfish alien invaders. Plus they wanted Australia. And apparently moved Sydney so that it is only 400 miles from Adelaide, too. So enemy of my enemy and all that. 4.5 out of 5 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/defenders/
“There is no escape for Zorro this time. After a final confrontation with Captain Ramon, every avenue of escape is cut off. The governor and all his troops have trapped the masked highwayman, and now Zorro must make his final stand against an entire score of troopers.” 4.5 out of 5 http://traffic.libsyn.com/classictales/CT_225_Zorro_9of9.mp3
Continue reading about The Mark of Zorro Part 9 – Johnston McCulley
“In short, I’m tired of being invaded by US culture. I’m tired of US tropes being cited as the norm (even when it’s obvious that the rest of the world doesn’t follow such tropes), of bookshelves featuring translations from US writers and movies following standard Hollywood fare–of the one-way street which means the US sets [...]
Continue reading about On the prevalence of US tropes in storytelling – Aliette de Bodard
“In the final part of the Q&A, Charlie talks about e-books and DRM, different companies’ responses to DMCA takedown notices, how writers are paid and compares text editors.” 4.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Q and A at Apple Part 3 – Charles Stross
“Charlie discusses Knuth, 3D printers and the law, Bitcoin and the future of publishing.” 4.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Q and A at Apple Part 2 – Charles Stross
The first part of Charles Stross’ question and answer session after his reading. 4.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Q and A at Apple Part 1 – Charles Stross
Extinct, frozen, stewarded, revived, frolicing in casino rivers. 4.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Mammoths of the Great Plains – Eleanor Arnason
Penultimate part of an audio serial. 4.5 out of 5 http://traffic.libsyn.com/classictales/CT_224_Zorro_8of9.mp3
Continue reading about The Mark of Zorro Part 8 – Johnston McCulley
A collection of novellas from the 1950s. Silverberg details discovering Planet Stories magazine and not being quite old enough to write for it before it folded, and then the other magazines he became involved with publishing that type of story. Even as a one man magazine. These are all pretty good with the last three [...]
Continue reading about Hunt the Space-Witch! – Robert Silverberg
A very good issue at 3.75, led off by the famous Godwin story with the rest solid. An article on Epigenetics and Mike Brotherton discusses the story The Cold Equations. A nifty twist by Kerr – what if the history of science had missed the importance of Einsteinian relativity and the time effects as you [...]
Two decent stories and an article on changing constants and part of an epic fantasy discussion for a fine issue. Clarkesworld 59 : Conservation of Shadows – Yoon Ha Lee Clarkesworld 59 : The Fish of Lijiang – Chen Qiufan Clone gates. 3.5 out of 5 Time dilation sickness and rehab. 3.5 out of 5 [...]
Part of an audio serial. 4.5 out of 5 http://traffic.libsyn.com/classictales/CT_223_Zorro_7of9.mp3
Continue reading about The Mark of Zorro Part 7 – Johnston McCulley
A reprint anthology covering many decades of dystopian short stories that cover the range from over the top fantasy in the manner on George Orwell’s 1984 to tweaks on more possible near futures. There’s a brief intro and a dystopian reading list at the end, which some will find useful. As is usual, there is [...]
A collection of most of his best stories. For some reason Horse of Air is not here, with maybe a couple of others. It also leaves out his weakest other work, substituting a few I hadn’t come across before. Recidivist was interesting. He is not very prolific, basically coming up with around a story a [...]
Continue reading about When the Great Days Come – Gardner Dozois
“Punishment is meted out against the unjust merchant and magistrado. However, when the alarm is raised, and the entire pueblo seems to rise up against the masked avenger, Zorro is hard pressed to make any kind of escape.” 4.5 out of 5 http://traffic.libsyn.com/classictales/CT_222_Zorro_6of9.mp3
Continue reading about The Mark of Zorro Part 6 – Johnston McCulley
Morrison gives us his take on what is important in USA comic book history. He is knowledgeable about this, but appears to have fiction black spots. Talks about Batman with no mention of the Shadow. Fantastic Four and Superman, no Doc Savage. The Punisher and mentions Charles Bronson, but not The Executioner, from which it [...]
“PK: The Steel Remains is set up as the adventure after the adventure. Ringil, Archeth and Egar all have rich pasts that are never fully explored or explained. What drew you to write a series about established (or even “washed-up”) heroes, rather than starting from the beginning – stableboys, lost princes, apprentice wizards and the [...]
Continue reading about Pornokitsch Interview – Richard Morgan
Audio version. 4.5 out of 5 http://traffic.libsyn.com/classictales/CT_221_Zorro_5of9.mp3
Continue reading about The Mark of Zorro Part 5 – Johnston McCulley
“Some days I really get the vastness of the universe. I’m tiny. It’s big. I don’t matter. I get it. Then, some days, you save the world—you know, for example you close an interdimentsional portal infecting the world with madness, kill an avatar of fear called Nyarlathotep when armed only with a bit of two-by-four—and [...]
Continue reading about The Nyarlathotep Event: Case File 6 Sweet Dreams – Jonathan Wood
“Some days, I think, I really need to ask for a transfer. You get told you’re going into a department called MI37, and you think, oh that sounds cloak-and-dagger exciting. They charge you with defending the realm from all things supernatural and tentacle-y, and you think, well that could be exciting. Then you find you [...]
Continue reading about The Nyarlathotep Event: Case File 4 Portal – Jonathan Wood
“Captain Ramon is caught executing a vicious revenge against the Pulido family. However, once Zorro has stopped this wanton cruelty, he is cornered by Sergeant Garcia’s men inside the presidio. How will he escape?” 4.5 out of 5 http://traffic.libsyn.com/classictales/CT_220_Zorro_4of9.mp3
Continue reading about The Mark of Zorro Part 4 – Johnston McCulley
“As the next generation of spaceships is being conceived, should shuttle designers take their inspiration from sci-fi illustrators? Generations of schoolchildren, openly, and many adults, perhaps more guardedly, have delighted in fantastical depictions of space travel. From Star Wars back to 2001: A Space Odyssey and even further back to comic hero Dan Dare and [...]
Continue reading about What Should Spaceships Look Like – Virginia Brown
“The black-hearted Captain Ramon orchestrates an underhanded meeting with the lovely Lolita. Who will save the honor of the lovely senorita? Her father? Don Diego? Perhaps Senor Zorro?” 4.5 out of 5 http://traffic.libsyn.com/classictales/CT_219_Zorro_3of9.mp3
Continue reading about The Mark of Zorro Part 3 – Johnston McCulley
“Don Diego Vega seeks a wife in the spirited Senorita Lolita Pulido. But the senorita is not to be won simply by the promise of wealth and position. Perhaps Senor Zorro will have better success… Johnston McCulley, on The Classic Tales Podcast.” 4.5 out of 5 http://traffic.libsyn.com/classictales/CT_218_Zorro_2of9.mp3
Continue reading about The Mark of Zorro Part 2 – Johnston McCulley
“The incredibly pompous Sergeant Pedro Gonzales boasts up and down of what he will do if he ever meets with the masked highwayman known as Zorro. But when the tavern door opens and reveals a black masked stranger, Sergeant Gonzales must put his puffed up boasts to the test. Johnston McCulley, today on The Classic [...]
Continue reading about The Mark of Zorro Part 1 – Johnston McCulley
Alien dispute four language street fighting Fleet deception. 4.5 out of 5
“I always assumed that if you have a clandestine organization then you’d have a clandestine headquarters. Stands to reason. And—I concede this point—Oxford is, admittedly, short on skull-shaped volcanoes. Shark-infested waters—ditto. But there is some pretty awesome architecture. Dreaming spires and all that. I always thought you could bury something beneath the limestone columns and [...]
Vosth dominance colony adaptation honesty leavetaking. 4.5 out of 5 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/all-that-touches-the-air/
Continue reading about All That Touches the Air – An Owomoyela
“Point zero: initiate. A sense kicked in. Something like vision. Not because it emulated sight, but because it revealed. Himself: Nikko Jiang-Tibayan. An electronic pattern scheduled to manifest at discrete intervals. Nikko Jiang-Tibayan. He’d been an organic entity once. Not now. Point one: identify. Personality suspended on a machine grid: He is the mind of [...]
Audio version of the story. 4.5 out of 5 http://www.hppodcraft.com/podcasts/11_05_19_hppodcraft_ep077.mp3
Continue reading about At the Mountains of Madness 1 – H. P. Lovecraft
“Too many very intelligent and otherwise well-educated people seem to have a sort of disdain for technology and – by association – for any literature that deals with it. This may be born of a sort of subtly inculcated fear, or perhaps just intellectually inherited snobbery; hard to be sure. Anyway, I think that attitude [...]
Continue reading about On science fiction – Iain Banks and Simon Morden
The conclusion of this story :- Freeing Jane from government control, removing the illegal monitoring systems, and enabling some interesting telepathy. 4.5 out of 5 http://gregpak.com/uploads/Vision_Machine_3.pdf
A couple of very good reprints and a decent new story. A fine interview with Walter Jon Williams and some better than usual articles make a close to excellent issue. Lightspeed 10 : Saying the Names – Maggie Clark Lightspeed 10 : Gossamer – Stephen Baxter Lightspeed 10 : Spider the Artist – Nnedi Okorafor [...]
“Your stories “Lethe” and “The Green Leopard Plague” are among the most memorable—and moving—pieces of SF I’ve ever read. Both stories are set in a future that remains full of grief and loss even though death has been all but banished from human experience. And both stories suggest that even “in a future where everything [...]
Continue reading about Lightspeed Feature Interview – Walter Jon Williams
Wow, he finished it! 4.5 out of 5 http://www.barrywindsor-smith.com/studio2/cimmeriaintro.html
“As always, before the warmind and I shoot each other, I try to make small talk. “Prisons are always the same, don’t you think?” I don’t even know if it can hear me. It has no visible auditory organs, just eyes, human eyes, hundreds of them, in the ends of stalks that radiate from its [...]
Continue reading about The Quantum Thief 1 – Hannu Rajaniemi The Thief and the Prisoner’s Dilemma
“I said, “Oh, you want my autograph.” And he said, “No, I want to give it back to you. I hate it. I don’t want it in my possession.” And that’s the closest I ever came to being attacked. Of course, I started out as a fan. Bester: So did I. I read what’s his [...]
Continue reading about Me and Alfie Part 7: Cyclothymia – Frederik Pohl
“Although Robert Silverberg was born (in Brooklyn, home of literary giants) in 1935, his first novel, a juvenile entitled Revolt on Alpha C, was not published until 1955. Asked to explain this prolonged period with no new book appearing, Silverberg is quick to respond. “What do you think, I’m some kind of freak who never [...]
An excellent anthology of essays dealing with Legion history roughly in chronological order, and looking at various facets, from the writers to fashion, race and sexuality. Very much worth getting. Teenagers From the Future : Foreword – Matt Fraction Teenagers From the Future : Introduction – Timothy Callahan Teenagers From the Future : The Perfect [...]
“He lived in the only airtight room left intact in the wreck, a tool locker off the main-deck corridor. The locker was four feet wide, four feet deep, and nine feet high. It was the size of a giant’s coffin. Six hundred years before, it had been judged the most exquisite Oriental torture to imprison [...]
Continue reading about The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester
“Until, in 1989, with issue 19 of the book, the title got a whole new creative team. In the early 80s, DC had found some talented comics creators in England, among them artist Brian Bolland, and, most notably, writer Alan Moore, who redefined what could be done in a mainstream comic book with his run [...]
“Pohl: Well, Cyril Kornbluth and I grew up together. We began writing together when I was about 18 or 19 and Cyril maybe 15. We belonged to a thing called the Futurians; it was a science-fiction fan club in New York in the late ’30s and early ’40s. There’s a book by Damon Knight called [...]
Continue reading about Me and Alfie Part 5: Collaboration and the Futurians – Frederik Pohl
“Margaret Hedda Johnson Brundage (Dec. 9, 1900 – Apr. 9, 1976) was the lone woman to make her reputation as a cover artist in the lurid pulp magazines. Brundage’s style and her choice of pastel as a medium were heavily influenced by the look and content of American women’s magazines, but the content is pure [...]
Continue reading about Weird Tales of Margaret Brundage – Lord K
“In my previous column I covered the history of European sci-fi pulps from their origins up to the beginning of World War I. Now we’re ready to delve into their history up through World War II. Full size Not surprisingly, the European pulp industry was heavily affected by World War I. 45 new pulps debuted [...]
“Bester: Now tell them about the book, because you will be explaining to them, Fred, what I’m talking about, about the freshness of approach, freshness of ideas. Pohl: The book concerns a man about 20, 50, 100 years from now whose name is Robinette Broadhead and who works in the food mines in Wyoming. Here [...]
Continue reading about Me and Alfie Part 2: Gateway and the Art of Writing – Frederik Pohl
“As I mentioned in the short piece I wrote about Alfie Bester, he and I had a joint talk for a bunch of English fans thirty-odd years or so ago. To my total amazement, some of them recently came up with a tape of that discussion. They transcribed it, and I thought some of you [...]
“Dr. Nikola is another highly influential Victorian character who has been all but forgotten in the intervening century. The creation of Australian novelist Guy Boothby, Antonio Nikola was one of the earliest examples of a villain granted his own series. Nikola appears in five novels: A Bid for Fortune (1895), Dr. Nikola Returns (1896), The [...]
Continue reading about Dr Nikola An Introduction – William Maynard
“SB: I love the ‘Space Opera’ painting, it is so iconic of Barsoom and it’s inhabitants. Is ‘Space Opera’ the name you gave the painting? Was this all from your mind’s eye or did you have any direction on the piece, other than what was described in the books? Any other details you want to [...]
http://cthulhuwho1.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/10-an-hour-with-fritz-leiber-part2-with-randall-garrett-at-fantasy-faire-1978-sep-22-24-pasadena-hilton-hotel-california.mp3 Second part of an interview about his writing and how he came up with stuff. 4.5 out of 5
Continue reading about An Hour with Fritz Leiber: The Author And His Works 2 – Randall Garrett
http://cthulhuwho1.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/09-an-hour-with-fritz-leiber-part1-with-randall-garrett-at-fantasy-faire-1978-sep-22-24-pasadena-hilton-hotel-california.mp3 An interview about his writing and how he came up with stuff. 4 out of 5
Continue reading about An Hour with Fritz Leiber: The Author And His Works 1 – Randall Garrett
“I began to see a lot of Horace, joining him for his penny-ante Friday night poker games, as well as selling him a ton of my clients’ work. But Horace did not have all the writers he wanted in his magazine. Particularly he wanted a serial from Alfie Bester, and so Alfie, too, was high [...]
“The Demolished Man was worth all of Horace Gold’s editorial aggravations. The Demolished Man was fresh, adventurous and beautifully written, and it began a stretch of five years or so during which Alfred Bester was turning out what was arguably some of the best writing in the sf field, right up to his second great [...]
Continue reading about Alfie Alfie Part 2: When Bester was the Best – Frederik Pohl
“Five years ago I more or less finished writing “Halting State”, although it wasn’t published until mid-2007. Around that time, MMOs were getting an increasing amount of interest, and a startup forum/social site called GuildCafe commissioned me to write an article about the next 25 years. While I linked to it from my blog, the [...]
Continue reading about Five year retrospective – Charles Stross
A multi-point of view discussion of science fiction and Australia. Includes Jonathan Strahan as one of the participants. From ABC radio, a transcript and podcast. “Antony Funnell: And just a final question: as somebody who focuses very much on Australian science fiction, is it a common theme? Is there a thing that you can point [...]
Continue reading about Future Tense : Sci-Fi The Return – Anthony Funnell
“Hal Clement was a nearly ideal client Almost everything he wrote was a sure sale. The only real problem was that Hal (whose real name was Harry C. Stubbs) found it almost impossible to say no to a publishing-minded friend. He had written a really good novel called Mission of Gravity, but unfortunately, before I [...]
Continue reading about Hal Clement Part 2: Divided Mission – Frederik Pohl
Into The Superunknown The Death Of Hard Sf And Why This Is Possibly A Good Thing – Alastair Reynolds
In Journey Planet 7 fanzine ” Rather, I think, Gardner Dozois said it already when he spoke of Core SF — and perhaps nowadays we don’t even need the qualifying “core”. This is just SF doing what it does best: taking inspiration from science, playing fair with it to a degree, but not being afraid [...]
Vicki does the run away, grabs Bella and sensibly heads for very low profile born survivor John Murdock. 4.5 out of 5 http://media.podiobooks.com/swc4wd/PB-SecretWorldChronicle4-14.mp3
Continue reading about Boulevard of Broken Dreams 1 – Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin
John Murdock gets crappy transport, space nazis and only a handful of the National Guard to help. 4.5 out of 5 http://media.podiobooks.com/swc4wd/PB-SecretWorldChronicle4-03.mp3
Continue reading about Bad Moon Rising 1 – Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin
Including bits by these authors : Van is Here, But Van is Gone by Harlan Ellison Poul Anderson / Ray Bradbury / Sir Arthur Clarke CBE Jack L. Chalker / James Gunn / David Langford / Paul Levinson / Richard Matheson / Jerry Pournelle / Mike Resnick / Robert J. Sawyer / Michael Swanwick / [...]
Continue reading about A. E. van Vogt 1912-2000 SFRevu Tribute – Ernest Lilley
“Perhaps Margaret St. Clair felt she had given away too much in Sign of the Labrys, for her subsequent novels were not so overtly Wiccan, even though a feminist Pagan outlook continued to inform them. Despite wearing the camouflage of the male-oriented “Golden Age of Science Fiction,” she had always tended to deflate the heroic [...]
Continue reading about Letter From Hardscrabble Creek: Chasing Margaret – Chas S. Clifton
First published in Science Fiction Review (Franson/Sandin) Number 41, November 1965 “The Hub begins to take form Early in 1961 I was made aware that the Federation of the Hub had acquired a fragmentary but definite form in my imagination. Previously, over a period of nine years, I had done four stories — three novelets [...]
“Nyx sold her womb somewhere between Punjai and Faleen, on the edge of the desert. Drunk, but no longer bleeding, she pushed into a smoky cantina just after dark and ordered a pinch of morphine and a whiskey chaser. She bet all of her money on a boxer named Jaks, and lost it two rounds [...]
“Enge’s fiction stands out primarily for its rich, witty prose and its juxtaposition of human characters with outrageous situations. Conflict, weirdness, cruelty, and supernatural forces beset the protagonists (Morlock and whomever is unfortunate enough to be with him), but not for the shock value or for gory distraction. Enge creates circumstances where people have to [...]
Adams continues the clever work of making a Baen Free Library book out of his anthologies by doing just what the title says. This anthology of dystopian stories comes out at 3.56 with only one average, so really a 4.25, but we’ll round up. Selections From Brave New Worlds : AMARYLLIS – Carrie Vaughn Selections [...]
Continue reading about Selections From Brave New Worlds – John Joseph Adams
For an original anthology, Engineering Infinity is extremely strong at 3.61. All stories are above average, with a few reaching very good. The editor has wisely put two of these at the start and finish. The third is Karl Schroeder’s tale of online Soviets and Mars missions. Malak is the story of the programming of [...]
Continue reading about Engineering Infinity – Jonathan Strahan
