Category: SF Links

Linkathem

Evidence of Links in a Case of Abandonment

(There will be content soon, honest. Probably starting with something about the M. Rickert story whose title I have corrupted for the title of this post.)

n Things Make a Post

Mike Glyer tagged me for a meme a little while ago. It’s the “which sf novels that have been made into films have you read?” list. Bold if I’ve read it, italicized if I started but didn’t finish.

  • Jurassic Park
  • War of the Worlds
  • The Lost World: Jurassic Park
  • I, Robot
  • Contact
  • Congo
  • Cocoon
  • The Stepford Wives
  • The Time Machine
  • Starship Troopers
  • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
  • K-PAX
  • 2010
  • The Running Man
  • Sphere
  • The Mothman Prophecies
  • Dreamcatcher
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  • Dune
  • The Island of Dr. Moreau
  • The Body Snatchers
  • The Iron Giant/The Iron Man
  • Battlefield Earth
  • The Incredible Shrinking Woman
  • Fire in the Sky
  • Altered States
  • Timeline
  • The Postman
  • Freejack/Immortality, Inc.
  • Solaris
  • Memoirs of an Invisible Man
  • The Thing/Who Goes There?
  • The Thirteenth Floor
  • Lifeforce/Space Vampires
  • Deadly Friend
  • The Puppet Masters
  • 1984
  • A Scanner Darkly
  • Creator
  • Monkey Shines
  • Solo/Weapon
  • The Handmaid’s Tale
  • Communion
  • Carnosaur
  • From Beyond
  • Nightflyers
  • Watchers

(I’ve assumed that “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “Body Snatchers” both refer to The Body Snatchers, and combined accordingly.)

Just for once, I’m not too bothered about doing badly on one of these lists, since there’s not many books on it I actually want to read and haven’t. (Although, yes, I probably have read more Michael Crichton novels than strictly necessary.) Some of the entries, as noted at SF Signal, look a bit dodgy; the one that jumped out at me was The Thirteenth Floor, although it looks like that may have been based on a comic. I assume films like The Prestige and Children of Men don’t make the grade because they didn’t take enough money. Of course, the adaptation I’m looking forward to most at the moment is Blindness.

F&SF are doing another one of their blogger giveaways, this time of the October/November double issue. Since I don’t have a subscription at the moment (yeah, yeah, I know), I put my name in the hat, and was lucky enough to receive a copy. So far I’ve only read M. Rickert’s story, “Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment: One Daughter’s Personal Account” and, while I’m not as completely bowled over as Chris Barzak, it’s definitely a powerful story.

Other recent reading, and future plans: I’ve finished Benjamin Rosenbaum’s The Ant King and Other Stories, and am working on a review, although depending on how it turns out I’m toying with submitting it to the Virginia Quarterly Review Young Reviewers Contest rather than posting it here. Like Liz, I’ve read Anathem and enjoyed it; I’ve submitted my review to IROSF. I’m currently reading, on the one hand, Kairos by Gwyneth Jones (in advance of her BSFA interview on Wednesday) and, on the other hand, The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson, with the aim of writing a series of posts about various heroric fantasy stories for early next month. It’s the Gollancz Ultimate Fantasy edition, the best thing about which — as with the SF4U titles — is not the pretty cover (although that’s nice) but the fact that the text has been re-set so as to be legible. After that lot’s out of the way, I’ve got a number of review commitments for various places: Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi, Going Under by Justina Robson, Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon, Dogs and Nano Comes to Clifford Falls by Nancy Kress, The Quiet War by Paul McAuley and (if I’m honest, the one I’m most impatient to get to) Song of Time by Ian R MacLeod.

And now, some links:

The Link King

A few pre-Hugo links (and others)…

Stormlinker

In Link Times

  • I’m not going to try to summarize all that’s been said about William Sanders’ behaviour recently; start here, then see here, here, here, here, and here for discussion and further links. But I do want to highlight the latest iteration, which is that — as a response to Sanders’ comments and behaviour in the forgoing — a couple of authors asked for their work to be removed from the Helix archives, acknowledging that their contracts give Helix the right to keep the story up. Yoon Ha Lee received an email agreeing to take the story down but saying that it “never did make any sense” and that Sanders only accepted it to “please those who admire your work […]and also because (notorious bigot that I am) I was trying to get more work by non-Caucasian writers.” Among other insults. (The story in question is now available here.) Meanwhile, NK Jemison’s story was replaced with a note saying “Story deleted at author’s pantiwadulous request”. Ever gracious, Sanders will still honour other requests for stories to be taken down … if the authors pay $40. Anyone still want to do business with Sanders, or Helix? Nope, didn’t think so.
  • Some more discussion about the Locus Awards at io9; and Patrick Rothfuss, who would have won Best First Novel under the old rules, comments
  • Abigail Nussbaum looks at Best American Fantasy
  • Two Views of Greg Bear’s City at the End of Time: John Clute, Adam Roberts
  • Jonathan McCalmont decodes the Stross Formula … and Stross turns up to comment
  • Cheryl Morgan on gender balance in sf
  • Nick Harkaway on being John Le Carre’s son: “There is not now, nor I suspect will there ever be, a le Carré novel with ninjas in it”
  • A long review of Guilty by Anna Kavan
  • An interview with David J Schwartz, author of Superpowers
  • Karen Burnham lays out her reviewing philosophy and tackles The Carhullan Army, starting an interesting discussion in the process
  • The rather fine UK cover for Bad Monkeys
  • And finally: “Anyone who has suffered the everyday calamity of the lessening of love, the infinitesimal diminutions of regard that drain a relationship of its power, knows what a relief it would be to blame science fiction. This cerebral, demanding, original new writer helps make the charges stick.” (See also.)

Linkhmar

The Link Garden

Quicklinks

The Sturgeon Award nominees for best short fiction of 2007 are out. Looks like a solid list, as usual; I’d be happy to see almost any of them win, in fact.

The Campbell Award nominees for best novel of 2007 are also out. Anyone but Robert Sawyer. Please!

How far can a reviewer build a reputation on the strength of a blog? “my reputation is all about the other places where I review. Chasing Ray is just gravy on top of that – just extra. Those 700 books are not going to come to someone with a readership of a few hundred (or less) a day”

SF Signal’s latest Mind Meld asks “Which new or little-known genre writers will be tomorrow’s big stars?” There’s a contribution from me, but what I want to pull out is (a) that I agree with Jonathan Strahan’s sentiment that there’s a generation of writers coming through now who could have the same impact as Terry Carr’s Ace Specials, and (b) this aggregate list of the writers to watch:

The Top 18 Genre Authors To Keep an Eye On

1. Paolo Bacigalupi (4 mentions)
2. Daryl Gregory (4)
3. Benjamin Rosenbaum (3 mentions)
4. Cory Doctorow (3)
5. Jay Lake (3)
6. David Moles (3)
7. Chris Roberson (3)
8. Vandana Singh (3)
9. Elizabeth Bear (2 mentions)
10. Alan DeNiro (2)
11. Alex Irvine (2)
12. Ted Kosmatka (2)
13. Paul Melko (2)
14. Naomi Novik (2)
15. Tim Pratt (2)
16. Jason Stoddard (2)
17. Karen Traviss (2)
18. Scott Westerfeld (2)

So now you know. (Alternatively: who’s missing?)

This week’s blogger incentive for mentioning the Strange Horizons fund drive is a bundle consisting of Kelly Link’s Pretty Monsters, Benjamin Rosenbaum’s The Ant King and Other Stories, and The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. You know you want them, so get linking, why don’t you?

Stand on Linkibar