5.0
5 out of 5
5 out of 5
12.05.11 An artist’s concept of Kepler-22b Click image for multiple resolutions. This artist’s conception illustrates Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. Image credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech This diagram compares our own solar system to Kepler-22. Kepler-22′s star is a bit smaller than our sun, so its habitable zone [...]
Five stories including one curiosity, a round robin work by several authors of note of the period in The Challenge From Beyond. Here the work that the title is drawn from, a great Conan story, is to be found in the middle. Beyond The Black River : The Grisly Horror – Robert E. Howard Beyond [...]
Two very good stories in one issue doesn’t happen in a lot. This Sanford special luckily he has one of them! Five stories, all good or better gives a 3.70 and with the other non fiction stuff, good enough to round up to the 4.75 and hence 5 range. Good that Interzone is back available [...]
Here’s a first. An issue where the original work outstrips the reprints which are good and very good themselves. So pretty much as high as you can realistically get issue at 4.00. Also a fun alien article from Jeremy Tolbert. Fantastic issue. Lightspeed 15 : Lightspeed 15 – John Joseph Adams Lightspeed 15 : Defenders [...]
“Title: On the possibility of extraterrestrial-artefact finds on the Earth Authors: Arkhipov, A. V. Publication: The Observatory, v. 116, p. 175-176 (1996)” 5 out of 5 http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1996Obs…116..175A
Pretty much a perfect biography. While Finn is obviously a writer that has a great affection for his subject it doesn’t mean he sugar coats it, either. I have zero interest in early Texas history for example, but that part of the book was good, too, when he was setting the scene for Howard’s life. [...]
Continue reading about Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard – Mark Finn
“He wanted the alien to kill a man, he said. It was that simple. As the boy spoke, the alien sat upright and still on the one piece of furniture that could hold him. Eyes averted, the boy sat on the stool, the one by the terminal where he did his schoolwork each day. It [...]
“The alien did not sit on the bed, but remained in the doorway. The boy did not have trouble looking at him this time. “You know more about us,” the alien said suddenly, severely, “than you wished me to understand…. Is this not true?” The boy did not answer. The creature’s eyes — huge and [...]
“With: Aliette de Bodard (France), Joyce Chng (Singapore), Csilla Kleinheincz (Hungary), Kate Elliott (US), Karen Lord (Barbados), Ekaterina Sedia (Russia/US) Kate: It’s difficult for me to articulate all the strands of thought interweaving in my head when I think about this. I’m going to throw this out just as a kind of fragmented opener that [...]
Continue reading about Global Women in Science Fiction Round Table – Lavie Tidhar
One out of the box, or that rare beast: an issue where every story is good or better, even if only just. Second last issue of my two year subscription, and it certainly hasn’t been thrilling me lately: ain’t no 2000 AD if you catch my drift. Three of them are very good, too, so [...]
From the Best of Leigh Brackett. 5 out of 5
Continue reading about Leigh Brackett’s Mars Maps – Leigh Brackett
“To follow on from my recent post on rogue AIs (and to celebrate the lack of missiles being launched by a newly awakened Skynet), I decided to post this podcast that I recorded with Ted Chiang recently. While we start off talking about Greg Egan’s work, we move into a broader discussion of AIs–how they [...]
Continue reading about Locus Roundtable: In Conversation – Karen Burnham and Ted Chiang
” Wizards of the Coast: How did Roll a d6 come about—what was the inspiration behind the project? Connor Anderson: Roll a D6 came about while, actually, in the middle of a game of D&D. I was trying to do something with my character that was a little out of the ordinary, so Zac Smith [...]
Continue reading about Wizards of the Coast Roll a d6 Interview – Connor Anderson
A nice parody :- Roll a D6 from Connor Anderson on Vimeo.
“We discuss whether black holes could persist in a universe which recollapses and then bounces into a new expansion phase. Whether the bounce is of classical or quantum gravitational origin, such cosmological models are of great current interest. In particular, we investigate the mass range in which black holes might survive a bounce and ways [...]
P. von Paris, S. Gebauer, M. Godolt, H. Rauer, B. Stracke “The M-type star Gliese 581 is orbited by at least one terrestrial planet candidate in the habitable zone, i.e. GL 581 d. Orbital simulations have shown that additional planets inside the habitable zone of GL 581 would be dynamically stable. Recently, two further planet [...]
Continue reading about Atmospheric studies of habitability in the Gliese 581 system – P. von Paris
“nside the rotating or charged black holes there are bound periodic planetary orbits, which not coming out nor terminated at the central singularity. The stable periodic orbits inside black holes exist even for photons. We call these bound orbits by the orbits of the third kind, following to Chandrasekhar classification for particle orbits in the [...]
Continue reading about Is there life inside black holes? – Vyacheslav I. Dokuchaev
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5095/5587632104_17a2717de5_o.jpg “Here is a gathering of all the pertinent links for the Planet Comics serial Mysta of the Moon posted on Lady, That’s My Skull. The links are sorted per issue though sharp-eyed readers may notice the chapter headings do not match the links. This is due to my not noticing a few posts were [...]
A several times a week strip that is closing on 2000 of them. Funny and bizarre about an alt-rock nerd and his dodgy intelligent robot and circle of friends and acquaintances of various flavours and sleeping privileges. 5 out of 5 http://questionablecontent.net/
“The Anita Blake series is by far, the most impressionable paranormal / urban fantasy series for me and one which inspired me to explore this genre further. Anita Blake at first was an amazing heroine – I wanted to be her friend, hell I wanted to be her. I fantasised over who would play her [...]
Continue reading about Why I Broke Up With Anita Blake – Jo Warne
A very detailed website dedicated to the Ultraverse hero from Malibu comics, Mantra. Who was interesting as a male knight trapped in the body of a modern woman, fighting the bad guys and raising a daughter. 5 out of 5 http://www.geocities.com/~mantraverse/index.htm
“Those of you who know Laird Barron know that his life before he started publishing his stories is a series of blank spots. Although I consider him one of my closest friends, I realized the other week that, while he knows a great deal about my life, I know next to nothing about his. Yes, [...]
Continue reading about The Secret Life of Laird Barron – John Langan
The novel length Conan work. An aging Conan is now in a position of responsibility, being King of Aquilonia. His reign is threatened by a very powerful sorcerer, whom Conan is unable to stop by mundane means, and must take himself off hunting for a mystic artifact. Having done this, there is some wizard smiting [...]
Continue reading about The Hour Of the Dragon 10 – Robert E. Howard
Out of the Dust Shall Acheron Arise 5 out of 5 http://m1_sterling.tripod.com/conan/the_hour_of_the_dragon20.mp3
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 20 – Robert E. Howard
A really good issue, with one good and one very good story by Clare. An interesting article on crowdsourced films like Star Wreck. Clarkesworld 54 : The Book of Phoenix – Nnedi Okorafor Clarkesworld 54 : Perfect Lies – Gwendolyn Clare Tower 7 research, hot. 3.5 out of 5 Mask People diplomacy Falsehood Wizard. 4 [...]
“I put all the above together with the planetary sunshade idea from New Scientist. I’d have a billionaire put up a planetary sunshade on his own initiative, and it would all go horribly wrong. Which would lead to a backlash against wealth and the hoarding of riches… But I wouldn’t actually tell that story. I’d [...]
Continue reading about Anatomy of a Story: Through the Eye of a Needle – Ian Sales
“And now, a non-series podcast. It’s Australia Day, and in recogition of this auspicious day Alex and Tansy from Galactic Suburbia and I chatted about Australian SF, its past present and future.” 5 out of 5 http://media.blubrry.com/notesfromcoodestreet/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au/podcasts/audioblog0045.mp3
Continue reading about The Sounds of Now: An Australia Day podcast – Jonathan Strahan
Harmony gives Echo a traitorous neck-snapping surprise. 5 out of 5 http://media.podiobooks.com/swc4wd/PB-SecretWorldChronicle4-13.mp3
“Baen books has followed their electronic collections of the John Grimes (Rim Worlds) tales and is set to release several print versions starting this month. the John Grimes ‘Horatio Hornblower of Space’ tales are not Chandler’s only works that take place in the Rim Worlds universe. In fact, there are a LOT of other tales [...]
Continue reading about Rim Worlds Grid & History – Steve Davidson
“Essentially, then, the Conantics of de Camp and Carter attempt to retain the style of the original stories and the character of Conan, but they try to avoid REH’s mistakes and add a level of sophistication and depth which Conantics followers do not believe Howard had in his stories. But do the de Camp-Carter tales [...]
“The Early Stories of A.E. van Vogt” … ” It was the novelet “Black Destroyer,” his second science fiction story, which convinced Campbell that this “Alfred Vogt” — as he would address him at the outset — wasn’t just another highly promising beginner who required tutoring and guidance. On the basis of this singular story, [...]
“After Tolkien, I guess the biggest influence on me would be American writers of sword-and-sorcery (and the allied genre of sword-and-planet): Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, Jack Vance and Leigh Brackett. They are explicitly and unapologetically writing adventure fiction in fantastic worlds, but the adventures and the risks in their fiction are not merely material, and [...]
Continue reading about Civilian Reader: A Casual Chat With – James Enge
“Recently, it has been shown that the massless quantum vacuum state contains entanglement between timelike separated regions of spacetime, in addition to the entanglement between the spacelike separated regions usually considered. Here, we show that timelike entanglement can be extracted from the Minkowski vacuum and converted into ordinary entanglement between two inertial, two-state detectors at [...]
“One of the things you think about reading is that you want books to be worthwhile—you want them to have lots of interesting ideas, you want them to be socializing influences, all those kinds of things. But on some other level, you’re just—and this is more from my wife’s perspective—as a school teacher she just [...]
Doing his yearly roundup of all the short story publications. They have tags – yearly summaries and 2010, so you should be able to browse them handily. 5 out of 5 http://ecbatan.livejournal.com/tag/yearly%20summaries
“What made the Domino Lady such a strange choice is that you never really saw a female hero lead back then. If you think today’s superhero comics are a boy’s club, that’s nothing compared to the pulp-hero landscape of the 1930s. You had Patricia Savage over in Doc Savage and you had Margo Lane in [...]
Continue reading about Friday With the Domino’d Daredoll – Greg Hatcher
“Something special for our first podcast. This episode features Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Lester del Rey, Frederik Pohl, and Gordon R. Dickson. Wow! five major SF writers. Four of them Science Fiction Grand Masters. And how they B.S. together. It’s wonderful to hear. This was recorded in 1976 for the Ballantine Science Fiction Hour. [...]
Continue reading about Space Dog Podcast Episode One – Rick Jackson
“And what Judy wanted to know was, “Listen, Fred, you’re pretty good at that space-program science talk. If we gave you time, is there anything you could say that would make Dr. Who sound a little more sciency?” I thought that was a pretty funny request. I had also, for some time, been spending a [...]
Continue reading about Judith Merril Part 9: Friends Again Before the End – Frederik Pohl
Real, live planet. 5 out of 5
Best song ever done on the Muppets. 5 out of 5
Continue reading about Ghostriders in the sky – Johnny Cash and The Muppets
With video from the excellent use it was put to in the movie Excalibur. 5 out of 5
Or, if you eat at Trader Vic’s, go for lunch. 5 out of 5
Or, 007! 5 out of 5
Continue reading about James Bond Theme – John Barry Orchestra
“I told Mary that I could find ways of turning most of them into actual stories, and if she liked I would do so and sell them, and we would split the money. She said she liked, and so I took them home. (One of them, “The Meeting,” won a Hugo Award, the only Hugo [...]
Continue reading about Mary Kornbluth Part 3: Anthologist – Frederik Pohl
Starting with 25. “Notes: RAWL writes “September 1, 1930 fell on a Wednesday; that was the day the new issue of Wonder Stories was due to go on sale, but there was always the hope that I might see it a day or two before, so I started to haunt the local newsstands Monday.” The [...]
This part starts with number 13. “Notes: the first ad for Health Knowledge’s second genre digest, Startling Mystery Stories, appears on the inside front cover. RAWL discusses the new magazine in It Is Written. Book reviews include The Dark Brotherhood by H. P. Lovecraft and “diver’s hands” (this was one of the hardcovers Arkham House [...]
“After offering him a price for the whole box (yeah, I know, given the Golden Chalise, I still wanted it filled with Chateau Mouton Rothschild and it had to be a 1982 vintage—hey, I’m a collector), I downplayed my excitement and carted off my large box of booty. The excitement was not lost on my [...]
“And he went home, but, of course, Cyril just couldn’t live that way. He stuck it out as long as he could, perhaps as long as a couple of months, and then he decided that he’d rather be dead than living like that. So back came the booze and the cigarettes and the salt shaker [...]
Continue reading about Mary Kornbluth Part 2: The Death of Cyril – Frederik Pohl
“There was a problem. After a few more fine stories about the associates of Lord Jestecost and C’Mell the cat lady and all, I got a saddening letter from him. He wouldn’t be writing any more stories about the Instrumentality, he said, because he had totally run out of additional story ideas. He hadn’t thought [...]
Continue reading about Cordwainer Smith: The Ballad of Lost Linebarger Part 2 – Frederik Pohl
A video interview discussion about his work and SF in general at the moment. 5 out of 5 http://www.salonfutura.net/2010/12/interview-alastair-reynolds/
Continue reading about Salon Futura Interview – Alastair Reynolds
“It was a story that had appeared in a semi-pro sf magazine from California called, if I remember aright, Fantasy Book. Its title was “Scanners Live in Vain.” It was about a bizarre kind of spaceflight, set in a bizarre future world, .and it was signed as by someone named Cordwainer Smith. So I included [...]
Continue reading about Cordwainer Smith: The Ballad of Lost Linebarger Part 1 – Frederik Pohl
She’s filing her nails While they’re dragging the lake 5 out of 5
Continue reading about Watching the Detectives – Elvis Costello
“The bad things began to happen right away. I was going to have to present witnesses to things Judy had done. Cyril Kornbluth and Mary Kornbluth agreed to testify for me. So did Jim and Virginia Blish and some others, but right around then Judy, too, began the search for witnesses, and the effect was [...]
Continue reading about Judith Merril Part 7: When It All Hit the Fan – Frederik Pohl
He made it out With a bullet in his back 5 out of 5
I’ don’t want to be buried 5 out of 5
They fought with expert timing. 5 out of 5
He blew Van Owen’s body from here to Johannesburg. 5 out of 5
Continue reading about Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner – Warren Zevon
If you’re gonna scream Scream with me 5 out of 5
Prime directive: exterminate the whole fucking race. 5 out of 5
As long as it’s dead. 5 out of 5
I’m the best there’s ever been. 5 out of 5
Continue reading about The Devil Went Down To Georgia – The Charlie Daniels Band
Ah-Ah! Saviour of the Universe! 5 out of 5
Highlander theme is great. 5 out of 5
Classic metal horror song. 5 out of 5
“Things slowly get back to normal as Gary and I jump back into the pod to discuss radical new hard SF, Interzone, Paul McAuley, Stephen Baxter, whether Mundane SF makes any sense, what we’ve been reading and some other stuff in what struck me as we were chatting as a particularly crunchy podcast. I did [...]
Continue reading about Episode 19: Live with Gary K. Wolfe! – Jonathan Strahan
If you had have told me the best SF mag issue I would read this year is from a publication I’d never heard of, well, a line from The Castle certainly springs to mind. Three four star stories in one issue of any magazine is very unlikely, let alone one that has only 4. Very [...]
Continue reading about Dark Fiction 2 Dystopian Desires – Del Lakin-Smith and Sharon Ring
Audio serial. “We want to thank Andrew Leman for his amazing voice work and Paul MacLean for joining us on the show!” 5 out of 5 http://www.hppodcraft.com/podcasts/10_11_24_hppodcraft_ep060.mp3
Continue reading about The Colour Out of Space 2 – H. P. Lovecraft
The Road to Acheron 5 out of 5 http://m1_sterling.tripod.com/conan/the_hour_of_the_dragon22.mp3
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 22 – Robert E. Howard
Drums of Peril 5 out of 5 http://m1_sterling.tripod.com/conan/the_hour_of_the_dragon21.mp3
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 21 – Robert E. Howard
Out of the Dust Shall Acheron Arise 5 out of 5 http://m1_sterling.tripod.com/conan/the_hour_of_the_dragon20.mp3
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 20 – Robert E. Howard
In the Hall of the Dead 5 out of 5 http://m1_sterling.tripod.com/conan/the_hour_of_the_dragon19.mp3
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 19 – Robert E. Howard
I Am the Woman Who Never Died! 5 out of 5 http://m1_sterling.tripod.com/conan/the_hour_of_the_dragon18.mp3
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 18 – Robert E. Howard
He Has Slain the Sacred Son of Set! 5 out of 5 http://m1_sterling.tripod.com/conan/the_hour_of_the_dragon17.mp3
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 17 – Robert E. Howard
Audio serial of the novel. 5 out of 5 http://m1_sterling.tripod.com/conan/the_hour_of_the_dragon16.mp3
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 16 – Robert E. Howard
Audio serial of the novel. 5 out of 5 http://m1_sterling.tripod.com/conan/hour_of_the_dragon15.mp3
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 15 – Robert E. Howard
Audio serial. 5 out of 5 http://m1_sterling.tripod.com/conan/hour_of_the_dragon14.mp3
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 14 – Robert E. Howard
“I have wanted to write this for a while, a retrospective on Modesty Blaise. I wanted to write it when the only man to ever tell her stories passed away. It wasn’t easy, as Modesty Blaise means so much to me. And that is hard to articulate, to get across what I want to say. [...]
Continue reading about The Once and Future Princess – Stray Taoist
“Well, it’s been a while, but I’ve been graduating and traveling and getting into trouble. I apologize for the delay, but here’s a great interview with Laird Barron I recorded several months back. The author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation talks about Lovecraft, horror writing, and the racing sled dogs, among other chilling topics. [...]
Continue reading about Lovecraftian Obsession Episode 7 – Laird Barron
“The fourth and final part on our discussion on The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. It’s been a hell of a journey. Again, we want to thank Lance Holt for really rockin’ our socks off. He’s amazing.” 5 out of 5 http://www.hppodcraft.com/podcasts/10_08_19_hppodcraft_ep053.mp3
Continue reading about The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath 4 – H. P. Lovecraft
““Let’s go kick the motherf#@ker’s ass all over dreamland.”” 5 out of 5 http://www.hppodcraft.com/podcasts/10_08_12_hppodcraft_ep052.mp3
Continue reading about The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath 3 – H. P. Lovecraft
“Guest reader Lance Holt once again joins us as we continue our cat-like pounce through the dreamlands.” 5 out of 5 http://www.hppodcraft.com/podcasts/10_08_05_hppodcraft_ep051.mp3
Continue reading about The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath 2 – H. P. Lovecraft
“Begin your journey into the dreamlands, with guest reader Lance Holt!” 5 out of 5 http://www.hppodcraft.com/podcasts/10_07_28_hppodcraft_ep050.mp3
Continue reading about The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath 1 – H. P. Lovecraft
Another chapter in this Conan audio serial. 5 out of 5 http://m1_sterling.tripod.com/conan/hour_of_the_dragon13.mp3
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 13 – Robert E. Howard
A collection of Howard tales, featuring his sword and sorcery work in the main, but with some horror examples, and, oddly, a Western. Vultures would seem to be out of place, here. Almost the 4.0 average, so you really can’t get much better than that unless you pick them yourself. There’s an introduction by John [...]
Continue reading about Heroes In the Wind – Robert E. Howard
I thoroughly enjoyed this issue with the article after the Phantom Sense story talking about the developments there, and Kooistra on Non-Einsteinian clocks and relativity. Best of the year, fiction-se at 3.67. Analog 954 : PHANTOM SENSE – Richard A. Lovett and Mark Niemann-Ross Analog 954 : THE ZOO TEAM – Allen M. Steele Analog [...]
A multi-author round-table interview/discussion in some depth. “JE: There are so many great books out there that I’ve never heard of, I’m more eager to sponge on other people’s experience and get new recommendations than I am to make them. But, tossing these vain scruples aside, one book I like to recommend is Gibbon’s Decline [...]
Continue reading about Bookish Dreaming Talking To Pyr – Gillian Polack
Part 12 of an ongoing serialisation. 5 out of 5 http://m1_sterling.tripod.com/conan/hour_of_the_dragon12.mp3
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 12 – Robert E. Howard
The novel length Conan work. An aging Conan is now in a position of responsibility, being King of Aquilonia. His reign is threatened by a very powerful sorcerer, whom Conan is unable to stop by mundane means, and must take himself off hunting for a mystic artifact. Having done this, there is some wizard smiting [...]
Continue reading about The Hour of the Dragon 11 – Robert E. Howard
An in-depth multi-interview/discussion about the anthology edited by Lou Anders. “Matthew Sturges (“Cleansed and Set in Gold”)… Matt’s wild, no-holds-barred, in-your-face opener marks him as a furious force to be reckoned with. He’s our… Wolverine Arlan writes: “For Matthew Sturges: Where did you come up with Wildcard’s power? It is definitely one of the most [...]
Continue reading about The Masked Superteam Answers Your Questions – Joseph Mallozzi
Librivox audio serial. “Carrying out the last wishes of a comrade, mercenary Eric John Stark takes on the task of returning a stolen talisman to a walled city near the Martian pole; a city that guards the mysterious Gates of Death. Now all he has to do is get past the brutal clans of Mekh [...]
Continue reading about Black Amazon of Mars 7-9 – Leigh Brackett
Librivox audio serial. “Carrying out the last wishes of a comrade, mercenary Eric John Stark takes on the task of returning a stolen talisman to a walled city near the Martian pole; a city that guards the mysterious Gates of Death. Now all he has to do is get past the brutal clans of Mekh [...]
Continue reading about Black Amazon of Mars 4-6 – Leigh Brackett
Librivox audio serial. “Carrying out the last wishes of a comrade, mercenary Eric John Stark takes on the task of returning a stolen talisman to a walled city near the Martian pole; a city that guards the mysterious Gates of Death. Now all he has to do is get past the brutal clans of Mekh [...]
Continue reading about Black Amazon of Mars 1-3 – Leigh Brackett
