- This week’s debate: should sf be more optimistic? Kathryn Cramer has the right of it, I think, but there are robust responses from Lou Anders, Jetse de Vries, and Jason Stoddard.
- Semi-relatedly, Charles Stross is fretting about near-future sf again: “Put yourself in the shoes of an SF author trying to construct an accurate (or at least believable) scenario for the USA in 2019. Imagine you are constructing your future-USA in 2006, then again in 2007, and finally now, with talk of $700Bn bailouts and nationalization of banks in the background. Each of those projections is going to come out looking different.” To which my response is, largely, so what?
- John Clute on The City’s End by Max Page
- Stephen Mitchelmore on Night Work by Thomas Glavinic
- Nic Clarke reviews The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod
- Abigail Nussbaum on “Stories for Men” by John Kessell
- From Locus, Gary K Wolfe reviews Anathem, and Paul Witcover reviews Cecelia Holland’s Varander
- Rudy Rucker on Anathem
- Elizabeth Hand reviews Allegra Goodman’s dystopic YA The Other Side of the Island
- In the Guardian, Christopher Brookmyre enjoyed Anathem, Stephanie Merritt wasn’t impressed by The Gargoyle, and Peter F Hamilton talks about sex: ‘”I’ve got a friend who writes a lot of chick lit. Compared to what goes into that genre we’re absolute puritans, yet the reaction you get is ‘Oh my God, it’s a sex scene,'” he says. Sex is a tiny part of his books.’ I promise, it’s not the quantity I have problems with. Except in Misspent Youth. (Oh, and he does talk about other things as well.)
- It is now possible for any and all to vote in the SFX Awards. Deadline is 28th of October, although the eligibility period seems to cover all of 2008 …
- A new award: The David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy, which has a slightly intricate process but looks like a good thing in general. Opens to nominations at the end of the year.
- Patrick Ness’ The Knife of Never Letting Go has won the Guardian children’s fiction prize. And why is sf successful in YA?
- Paul McAuley is serializing the opening chapters of his new novel, The Quiet War
- Martin Lewis has a new blog, where among other things he is blogging about the contents of Feeling Very Strange
- Your free book of the week: Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones (pdf link)
- Paolo Bacigalupi has sold a book. I’m waiting for The Windup Girl, personally, but this should tide me over.
- Jake Seliger has more thoughts on science fiction, again
- And finally: the trailer for the new Charlie Kaufman film looks, well, like a trailer for a Charlie Kaufman film. Can’t wait, personally.
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There’s definitely stuff in the SFX awards that came out at the back end of 2007 (Stardust, Beowulf, SJA, etc.).
Also, their awards are full of FAIL because they will not let you vote without voting in every category. Since I cannot vote in Best Videogame (having not played any new ones in 2008), and refuse to vote for sexiest man or woman in sf (on the grounds that it panders to those attitudes that caused me to give up reading SFX in the first place), I shan’t be voting at all.
You have to put text in each box. I don’t think it says anywhere that said text has to be a serious vote …
Argh, now I have to choose between The Gone-Away World and Anathem!
The suggested drop-downs are pretty weird. Looks like they made a list of shows and then picked an actor from each, which explains why they suggest only one of the Winchesters, and seem to think Milo Ventimiglia is a serious candidate for Best Actor. And why is the Orange Box, which contains three new games and two re-releases, suggested as one option?
I always assumed the sexiest man and woman award were included because they make really good space-fillers when you get to print twenty pages of pictures instead of articles. I might suggest fictional characters for those categories.