The Skiffy and Fanty Show is Live!
For those of you who follow this blog, you might be interested to know that the podcast I was working on with my friend Weirdside has officially gone live! You can find the first episode here. If you listen, we’d love to hear what you think (love it or hate it). We’re new to this, so, you know, if you have criticism to help is improve, we’re happy to hear it! Alright, announcement over! Note: The first episode splits the audio. I think I know how to fix it, so hopefully the second episode will not be split.
Haul of Books 2010: Stuff For Me v.7
Well, another edition of the stuff I bought for myself. You’re all so very interested in this, aren’t you? A little narcissism never hurt anybody. I actually purchased these books during a huge sale that Night Shade Books was having about a month or so back, and I actually got lucky with one of the books below. Apparently they ran out of paperbacks, which were the cheapest, and so the fine folks at Night Shade sent me the hardcover instead. How’s that for service? But enough about that. Below are the books (after the fold): And the books are, from left to right, top to bottom (take from Amazon.com and Night Shade):1. Dark Mondays by Kage Baker (signed limited edition) Kage Baker, celebrated creator of the Company novels and the standout collection Mother Aegypt now brings together pirates, primates, eldritch horrors, maritime ghosts, and much more in Dark Mondays. This captivating new collection of fantastic short fiction is sure to cement her reputation as one of the most original storytellers working in the fantasy and speculative fiction genres today. Dark Mondays features five never-before-published stories, including the forty-one-thousand word pirate novel, “The Maid on the Shore,” which chronicles the lesser known aspects of Captain Henry Morgan’s infamous sacking of Panama City. 2. Mother Aegypt and Other Stories by Kage baker A brand new short story collection from Kage Baker, including an original novella set in her ongoing series of The Company, “Mother Aegypt.” The Company novels are being released by Tor, and include The Graveyard Game and The Life of the World to Come. 3. A Cruel Wind: A Chronicle of the Dread Empire by Glen Cook Before there was Black Company, there was the Dread Empire, an omnibus collection the first three Dread Empire novels: A Shadow of All Night’s Falling, October’s Baby and All Darkness Met. 4. A Fortress in Shadow: A Chronicle of the Dread Empire by Glen Cook Once a mighty kingdom reigned, but now all is chaos. In the vast reaches of the desert, a young heretic escapes certain death and embarks on a mission of madness and glory. He is El Murid – the Disciple – who vows to bring order, prosperity, and righteousness to the desert people of Hammad al Nakir. After four long centuries, El Murid is the savior who is destined to build a new empire from the blood his enemies. But all is not as it seems, and the sinister forces pulling the strings of empire come into the light. Who and what lies behind El Murid’s vision of a desert empire? 5. Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon – these are our guides through the Wastelands… From the Book of Revelations to The Road Warrior; from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today’s most renowned authors of speculative fiction, including George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King, Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. 6. Eclipse Three edited by Jonathan Strahan To observe an eclipse is to witness a rare and unusual event. Under darkened skies the sun becomes a negative image of itself, its corona transforming the landscape into a strange space where anything might happen, and any story may be true… In the spirit of classic science fiction anthologies such as Universe, Orbit, and Starlight, master anthologist Jonathan Strahan (The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year) presents the non-themed genre anthology Eclipse: New Science Fiction and Fantasy. Here you will find stories where strange and wonderful things happen – where reality is eclipsed by something magical and new. 7. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi In this Time Magazine top 10 book of the year, Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen’s Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history’s lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko. Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. What Happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism’s genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? In The Windup Girl, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi returns to the world of The Calorie Man; (Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award-winner, Hugo Award nominee, 2006) and Yellow Card Man (Hugo Award nominee, 2007) in order to address these poignant questions. This title has been nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards. This title was also on the best book lists of the year for Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. 8. Shadow of the Scorpion by Neal Asher Ian Cormac’s Early Years! Raised to adulthood during the end of the war between the human Polity and a vicious alien race, the Prador, Ian Cormac, is haunted by childhood memories of a sinister scorpion-shaped war drone and the burden of losses he doesn’t remember. Cormac signs up with Earth Central Security and is sent out to help restore and maintain order on worlds devastated by the war. There he discovers that though
Movie Review: Iron Man 2
I saw Iron Man 2 last Friday with a group of friends, praying that it would live up to its hype and be able to follow its predecessor without falling into the gutter. Hollywood is not all that great at producing sequels. Transformers 2 was an utter disaster, and numerous other sequels in Hollywood have flopped or done well, despite being dreadful. Sequels are territory that few directors or writers really should tread into. Only the most talented can pull it off. And that’s exactly what Jon Favreau has managed to do in Iron Man 2. The second movie in one of Marvel’s most popular franchises is both a decent movie and a decent sequel. The second film takes place six months after the events of the first. Iron Man has, more or less, “privatized world peace” and become a target for the U.S. government, who want to seize his suits and designs in order to produce a fleet of Iron Men for the military. Stark, however, is not interested in giving up his pride and joy. To make matters worse, a new corporate rival is doing everything he can to supplant Stark from media fame, and Stark’s health is taking a downward spiral that has nothing to do with his drinking habits. And if that weren’t enough, Iron Man has found a new enemy in Ivan Vanko, a Russian with a chip on his shoulder–a very big chip. While Stark is busy keeping the government off his stuff and convincing people that the world is safe, Vanko is busy building the weapons he needs to take down Stark for good, with a few friends in high places to help along the way.Iron Man 2 is far from perfect, but it does succeed in a number of areas. The visuals are fantastic, and they are significantly more complicated here than in the first film. If you’ve seen the trailers, then you know what I’m talking about. There are dozens of new suits, a new bad guy, and a lot of action that succeeds precisely because the visual effects are superb. Iron Man, War Machine, and Vanko’s various suits are believable from start to finish and the various action sequences flow well and look beautiful. Likewise, the cast is right where it should be, with some exceptions. The banter between Stark, Pepper, his body guard, and the various other characters who make an appearance in this film, is often hilarious and perfectly timed. But, you probably already knew that having seen the first film. Where the film’s cast succeeds is in its additions. Mickey Rourke as Vanko is a perfect choice; his accent is spot on and his presence on the screen is menacing and dark. Throw in a little Sam Rockwell, who plays an eccentric business man, and you’ve really got a recipe for success. Rockwell is hilarious, ridiculous, charming, and deliciously hate-able. It’s unfortunate, though, that so little was done with Don Cheadle as Rhodey, but I suppose the film was too packed to make much use of the various secondary characters, particularly since the primary focus is and always has been Stark. Beyond this, however, Iron Man 2 does have a few problems, which, I would argue, don’t ruin the film, but do give it a rating less than 4 out of 5. The plot, while not as absurd and convoluted as that of Transformers 2, does get carried away. There are a lot of things going on, and some of the major points don’t aren’t resolved in the finale. Hopefully we’ll see more resolutions in Iron Man 3, but as a viewer, I did want to see a bit more from the ending and from the middle sections. The inclusion of S.H.I.E.L.D. in this movie was particularly problematic because it introduced new conflicts in Stark’s life that, while important, really needed more time for an adequate resolution. The plot is thick enough with Vanko, the U.S. government, Stark’s health, his life as Iron Man, and his relationship (or lack thereof) with Pepper. Now we have S.H.I.E.L.D. doing whatever they do, Stark’s daddy issues, and a whole lot of connected stuff that seems a little convenient. We all know Stark is a smart cookie, but I felt like the film could have given us more of the genius we saw in the first movie. Instead, there’s S.H.I.E.L.D., which existed, I felt, to waltz in and give Stark the answers to some of his questions. Lastly, I had one minor issue with the final battle. While overall the fight is rather lengthy, the actual face-to-face fight between Iron Man and Vanko was, in my opinion, a little too short and anticlimactic. Here we have the villain of the movie spending little more than a minute or two fighting the hero, despite the fact that the villain is brilliant and, I think, slightly more wicked than Stane from the first film. We needed more. Reducing a conflict like that to a few minutes, especially when you consider that Vanko is essentially given a second chance to take a shot at Stark, is really unfair to the character and to the audience. Still, the battle was entertaining, just not as long as I would have liked. Overall, I enjoyed Iron Man 2. It had some minor flaws, sure, but I think its positives helped dispel much of my misgivings about the film. It has a lot going for it. With a great cast, wonderful visuals, and a plot that manages to entertain, despite its flaws, it’s not hard to see why Iron Man 2 is selling loads of tickets. It’s definitely a film I would recommend seeing on the big screen, if you have the chance. If you’ve seen the film, let me know what you thought of it in the comments! Directing: 3.5/5Cast: 3.75/5Writing: 3.0/5Visuals: 4.5/5Adaptation: N/A (I haven’t read enough Iron Man to make this judgment)Overall: 3.6875/5Value: $7.00 (based on a $10.50 max)
Video Found: Who You Gonna Call (in the Public Library)?
What a better way to support the local library than to stage a ridiculous 1980s throwback in the middle of the stacks! That’s what these guys did and it’s hilarious and wonderful. I wish more people were doing these things for the libraries. We need that kind of support. Anywho, here it is (after the fold): Thanks to Chris Roberson for the discovery!
Nebula Awards: Done and Over
Instead of posting the winners here, I’m just going to send you here and (controversially) here. That is all.
Self-publishing Lies and Myths: Deception and Unethical Practices
I’ve railed against this idea before in smaller form, but I wanted to address this particular self-publishing issue directly. A whole lot of self-publishers and the people that support them have been advocating the practice of creating individual “imprints” to market one’s book. Sue Collier recently blogged about this very concept, albeit rather briefly, in response to another blogger’s rejection of self-publishing. While I agree with Collier that self-publishing is a better route for non-fiction than fiction, I take issue with the “imprint” model that so many self-publishers have now begun to use, and for good reason: In addition, if you self-publish properly—start up your own imprint, purchase your own block of ISBNs, and have the book well edited and well designed—as opposed to going the subsidy route (often incorrectly called “self-publishing”), reviewers should have no idea you are self-published. Your book is simply a title from a new independent publisher. And there is no stigma there. The problem with this very idea is actually its goal: “reviewers should have no idea you are self-published.” That, obviously, extends to consumers of all stripes, and the practice is woefully unethical. The idea that a self-published author should go the extra step to essentially trick the consumer on the foundational level into thinking that a particular book was published by a real publisher is nothing short of deceptive. Why? Of all of the self-published authors I have seen doing this, none of them are open about the fact that they are self-published. They play the “I’m published just like *insert NYT bestelling author here*” role, despite having done nothing remotely similar. Some of them even lie when confronted about it, so desperate to keep up appearances that they won’t even admit the lie when all the facts are laid out in front of them (I’m looking at you zombie lady, whose “publisher” has a website made by her husband and thinks I’m too stupid to put two and two together). The problem with pretending to be traditionally published is that it is disingenuous. People who do this are not traditionally published. Yes, they might have produced a good piece of fiction in a nice exterior package, but they did not submit the manuscript to a publisher or an agent or go through any of the numerous processes involved in traditional publishing. Nobody sat with the manuscript and decided it deserved to be in print. Consumers are not always aware of the processes, but they do know that there is a difference between traditionally published and self-published, even if they don’t always get those differences correct. Most consumers would avoid a self-published book, perhaps to the detriment of an author who actually produced something of value. But that’s part of the game. Misrepresenting what you are is quite literally a deceptive act. I would liken this to putting a science fiction book in a romance novel package. When a customer buys that book, they expect a romance novel, not a science fiction one. It’s one thing to create a nice product, but it’s another to pretend that that product is something it is not. I would even go as far as to say this is no different than lying directly to the consumer, and consumers really don’t like to be lied to (as we’ve seen before with authors who have lied, such as that fellow that Oprah endorsed, and Sarah Palin–although, perhaps people liked Palin’s lies due to the hilarity they created). As far as unethical business practices go, this is one step from the top of my list–right below flat-out lying by self-publishers to authors about self-publishing and by companies who do the same. Publishers publish other people; self-publishers publish themselves. It’s a simple distinction. The solution to this practice is perhaps not as radical as one might think after reading all of the above. Creating an imprint is entirely plausible, if done right. I think the best way to do it without reaching into the unethical/deceptive spaces is to create an imprint that is your name. Consumers are smart enough to put two and two together. But, I doubt anyone will buy into that solution. There’s so much fear over the legitimate stigma attached to self-publishing that, for some, being deceptive and lying is much easier than trying to battle for respectability–stealing it is quicker and less painful. What this has all taught me is to be very cautious about the books I buy. If I’ve never heard of a publisher, I look them up, and dig. I do this because I don’t appreciate being lied to or deceived. Ever. It’s a pain in my backside, but I’m not willing to throw my money on something unless I know who the publisher is and that said publisher is legitimate. Self-publishing can make purchases of books a risk to the consumer, and I know a lot of people, right now and in the past, who don’t like to risk their money. And nobody wants to risk their money on something that was presented to them as a lie. Thoughts? Let me know in the comments.