Hugo Award 2012: The Winners (w/ Brief Commentary)
And the winners are… (Disclaimer: Most of the reactions below are “initial” reactions. Easily offended people will probably be offended. Such is life. 😛 ) Best Novel Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor) A Dance With Dragons, George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra) Deadline, Mira Grant (Orbit) Embassytown, China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey) Leviathan Wakes, […]
The Weird Tales Fiasco: An Update (or, Head-in-Ass-Syndrome Anyone?)
It seems the furor over the would-be publication of the first chapter of Save the Pearls by Victoria Foyt hasn’t quite sunk in yet for Marvin Kaye, the new editor of Weird Tales. You can read my previous post and all the attached links to get a sense of what happened — if you don’t […]
The Weird Tales / Save the Pearls Fiasco: Preliminary Reactions
(Disclaimer: This post is a preliminary reaction. I have not read the novel in question and can only respond to what others have said about it. As such, what follows will not be based on what I know about the book itself, but rather a series of curiosities and questions that I suspect will be […]
Larry’s Silly Survey of Silly
Over at OF Blog of the Fallen, Larry has put up a bunch of seemingly random and bizarre questions for folks to answer. The following are my equally silly responses: 1. Do you believe that global warming could be ameliorated if there were more pirates in the world? Unfortunately, no. Because pirates have a tendency […]
Question: What happens when laser pistols are everywhere?
The question is actually more complicated than the title suggests. It reads as follows: In a science fiction world where guns can be made of deadly lasers, pew pew pew, that you’d have to move at the speed of light to avoid, would there be a need for guns? I mean, if you got mad […]
Question: Why does fantasy default to pseudo-medieval?
It’s an obsession. The contemporary fantasy genre has been making sweet, soft, dirty love to vaguely medieval Western cultures for almost a century now. You can tell because the two have made so many degenerate babies that the bookshelves are full with them. Some of them are more degenerate than others, taking those medieval Western cultures […]