Links Links Links
This will be my last post of links for the next few days unless something really crazy happens. I’ve just found so many interesting things (to me at least). So here goes: OF Blog of the Fallen has written a really insightful post on book reviews. Any of you who do book reviews and perhaps feel inadequate at times should read it. I’ve taken a lot from it and intend to use some of the things I’ve learned in future reviews (most particularly the part about using quotes from the book as examples). Cambridge University Press will be releasing a book on Modern Fantasy Literature. Read about it here. The link includes a list of the articles that have been commissioned. This looks really rather promising for anyone interested in reading deeper into the genre. BlueJoe has written an interesting article about SF and the human condition, addressing the difficulty of bringing non-SF writers into the genre. Alternately, BeamJockey tracks the entire history of how the idea of ‘antimatter’ got into science fiction. This is really rather interesting when one tries to consider how certain ideas became fixed within genre (regardless of what genre it is). An example of how Amazon and people have a darn good sense of humor. Trust me, this is funny. Read the product reviews too. USA Today has an excerpt of an essay by Nathan Fillion (the guy who played Malcom Reynolds in Firefly and Serenity). If you didn’t love him before, you’ll love him now. Firefly is my favorite science fiction TV series. Nothing has ever come close to taking it. For having only one season it is so well put together. Every episode is amazing. Okay, enough of that. List Universe has a list of the Top 10 Errors in Science Fiction Movies. Generally I would have to agree with all ten points, although given the present state of anti-gravity it is rather silly to think that something like an anti-grav machine using gravitons would never be invented or plausible. This is why quantum physics makes no sense to anyone that is normal. Basically: by looking at the Universe we may have reset its clock, which means things might die sooner. Read the article to see if it makes more sense to you. Even if you’re not into SF, you should look at this zoomable view of the Carina Nebula. Simply gorgeous. I’m always amazed at how beautiful space is. Granted, I love this little planet, but space is constantly providing new things to gaze upon. Mice could hold the cure to cancer? Sounds crazy, but maybe it’ll work. The short story is they’ve bred a mouse that can fight off otherwise lethal doses of cancer cells and as a result they can be used to cure other mice that have cancer. Any form of cancer. It’s more complicated than that, I’m sure, but read the article and come to your own conclusion. Brain cells and the Universe–are they similar? Have a look at this image and tell me what you think. It’s really rather mind boggling to think about. Maybe we’re more connected to the nature of the universe than we thought. I’m a guy, so on occasion I have to admire something that looks really cool. Meet the Javelin Speedsled. Concept cars are neat. Can we break the light speed limit? Well, these guys think they have through quantum tunneling. Time travel and light speed are related concepts, so, this is rather interesting if there is some logic to it. There you go. Enough links from me for a while.
I’m Lazy Today
That’s not true. Actually, I’m far from lazy. The problem with today is that there’s so much going on out in the world of SF & F that I can’t really ignore it anymore. I subscribe to 170+ blogs and, well, when I see things being repeated over various blogs and the like I have to mention things here. First off, I did a review of The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction Volume One by Edge/Tesseract/Dragon Moon that you should all check out here. I also reviewed Neo-Opsis Issue #12, which can be found here. Both are good reads, the latter rather surprisingly (I may be subscribing to that one if nothing beats it out of the top spot). Now for a series of links of interest: This has been all over the blogosphere and I figure if ten or more of the blogs I read regularly mention this then it must be something worth bringing out here. I’ve already mentioned I’m not much into reading online, but for those of you that don’t mind, Solaris has released Chris Roberson’s novel Three Unbroken online. They’ll be publishing a new chapter every week. The press release can be found here. I got the information from Fantasy Book Critic, just so you all know, but it’s all over the net. Futurismic put up this article that discusses the future of thermoelectrics. Basically, this means generating electricity by using heat. An example would using your body heat to power your iPod or other mp3 player. Well, they may have figured it out. That’s a good thing. SF Bookworm has been running a huge series of articles on how to store and care for your books. For some of us who consider ourselves collectors, this is a great series. But I think a lot of us don’t have the means they are suggesting to fully care for books the right way. We can still learn some things like how to keep bugs off your books, etc. Scalzi rants (effectively mind you) about Dragon Magazine’s re-opening to submissions with very bad requirements: giving up all rights to your work for a crappy pay rate. Read his rant, it’s good, and valid. Futurismic has another interesting article about e-democracy, a concept we’re probably not very familiar with here in America. However, in the lovely UK they have a government electronic petition site, which, while not very effective for producing good results, is still a step in the ‘right’ direction. (I put that in quotes because some would argue it’s not the right direction, an argument I could agree with to some extent. This is really only the tip of the iceberg though. I have links saved on my laptop and on my personal computer at home, so expect more links in the next few weeks.
Some Useful Links…Again
This is a rather irregular feature, but so be it. I find more links than I have time to really blog about individually, so from time to time I’ll clean out my bookmarks by putting links to things I found interesting and wanted to talk about here. So, here goes:Steampunk Laptop from Datamancer! I just discovered this from Brass Goggles and you should all check it out. I want one really bad, even if it doesn’t boot up. This is just wicked cool. A list compiled by Leslie Kay Swigart of science fiction, fantasy, utopian, dystopian, and horror dissertations and theses (not necessarily in that order). A great resource for finding work that other people have written in the field! Publisher Weekly’s Best Books of the Year, which includes some SF & F titles. Alternately here is Amazon’s Best Books of 2007 in the SF & F genres (a list of ten). ManyBooks is an interesting site that might prove useful to those of you out there that don’t mind reading on a screen. I don’t think you can print anything out there, but it’s still free literature, some by well known authors.Judge A Book…By Its Cover. An interesting site that compiles a whole slue of book covers for your perusal.An interesting chart showing the evolution of Indo-European languages. The design is interesting too. A huge list of recommended fantasy authors from SFF.net. It’s REALLY BIG. Just a warning. The Internet Top 100 SF & F list. It’s old (back in 2003), but maybe it holds some relevancy to you guys out there and it will lead you to some works you’ve never heard of before. Want to see your DNA or fingerprint on your wall as art? Well check this site out. I desperately want to get a lighted display of my DNA for my wall. That would be cool. The First Espresso Book Machine. If that name doesn’t say it, then read the article. It’s a bit late, but basically it’s a machine that will actually print out books from a computerized library. In theory it could make buying books from the book store a whole lot different. Can’t find the book you want? Print it out! TangentOnline reviews short speculative fiction works (anthologies, magazines, etc.). They’re currently on hiatus while they update their website, but they’ll be back soon. For those maybe looking for good short fiction to read in SF & F, this is a place to look. The genius of Isaac Asimov on the the idea of ‘intelligence’. This is brilliantly written. Then again, Asimov was an amazing human being and writer. Here are some links for you fantasy writers out there: building magic systems, Tolkien and fantasy (sort of an extensions upon the previous link), Serendipity’s random generators (names, etc.), a Dictionary of Symbolism, a glossary of medieval terms, life in the middle ages, medieval demographics, a huge list discussing prices of medieval items and the like, medieval warfare, medieval names, and The Tome (a.k.a. The History Channel’s site that discusses just about everything to do with medieval times). And, to end this I give you a link to just about the coolest thing to happen in human history next to forming the written word: the Voyager Golden Record. It makes me smile thinking about the creatures who might one day hear that.
A List of Recommendations…Sorta
Well I wrote a post some days back asking for your thoughts, but nobody really jumped in on that convo. So, I thought what I’d do is throw in my two cents of what I think are best examples, based on what I have read, of the following genres. I haven’t read everything, so if you don’t agree or have a different suggestion, please leave a comment! Military Science Fiction — The Forever War by Joe HaldemanSpace Opera — Old Man’s War by John Scalzi (although this is more military SF)Cyberpunk (anything you guys would suggest other than Neuromancer by William Gibson) — Spin State by Chris MoriartySteampunk — The Steam Magnate by Dana Copithorne (partially because it is really damn good and partially because it’s the only book I’ve ever read that I could call steampunk)Post-Apocalyptic — Other than 1984…I don’t know…Cell by Stephen King, but that’s not a great example, though I liked the book.Hard Science Fiction — Foundation by Isaac AsimovHumorous SF — Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas AdamsSoft SF (or Socio-SF) — Ender’s Game by Orson Scott CardDystopian SF — 1984 by George OrwellPost-Cyberpunk — I have no idea…I didn’t know there was a Post-Cyberpunk movement until recently…High Fantasy (other than Tolkien) — I can’t think of a really good example of this other than Tolkien. Some mediocre examples, sure, but nothing really concrete.Urban Fantasy — Peeps by Scott Westerfeld (though it’s sort of SFish)Dark Fantasy — The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly (this is dark YA fantasy actually)Heroic Fantasy (again, other than Tolkien) — Shadowfall by James ClemensScience Fantasy (or Scifantasy) — Bright of the Sky by Kay Kenyon.
Calling All Readers!
First things first, you guys really should get involved over at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Canon Project. Now, for the nature of this post. I’m very curious to know what everyone thinks are the, shall we say, ‘pioneering’ works of the following subgenres. Meaning what works do you think actually popularized these subgenres, even if they weren’t the first of their kind? Military Science FictionSpace OperaCyber Punk (anything you guys would suggest other than Neuromancer by William Gibson)SteampunkPost-ApocalypticHard Science FictionHumorous SFSoft SF (or Socio-SF)Dystopian SFPost-CyberpunkHigh Fantasy (other than Tolkien)Urban FantasyDark FantasyHeroic Fantasy (again, other than Tolkien)Science Fantasy (or Scifantasy) Any help here would be great. Varying responses would be appreciated too! Maybe I’ll have to do a poll for all these. In any case, let me know what you guys think! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this)
Don’t Write Speculative Fiction If…
…any of the following things are true. Science Fiction: You can’t handle the idea that your audience is smaller than fantasy and more specific. You think science fiction is retelling Star Wars or Star Trek ad naseum. You believe that FTL travel is logical and implies ‘hard’ science fiction. You think populating all alien planets with human-like, intelligent, spacefaring peoples, but giving them different cultures, is good creature building. You think that sound actually travels through the vacuum of space and so your characters can hear distant explosions through the hull of a ship. You think that info-dumping in science fiction is normal. Alternately, you believe that it’s okay to confuse the reader by using science that most people wouldn’t understand in such a way that the reader still doesn’t get it. You can’t take criticism of your science or of your story itself. You think it’s okay for your main character to be completely awesome and not have flaws. You believe that your family will be completely honest with you about your writing. Alternately, you think your non-writing, non-reading friends can actually give you worldly advice. You are under the impression that future technology will be perfectly beautiful and not be subject to Murphy’s Law. Fantasy: You think your fantasy story is 100% original right down to the very characters within the story. You can’t take criticism of your work, which will be a lot. You think that just because it is fantasy you can make up anything and expect it to be okay. You think that fantasy doesn’t have to be realistic. You think info-dumping fantasy is acceptable writing behavior. You think that your lively culture of little people is not going to be compared to Hobbits. You believe that your story is better than anything Tolkien could ever come up with. You believe Peter Jackson will turn your unpublished novel into a blockbuster movie. You’re under the impression that fantasy is not derivative by nature. You think your main character can be completely awesome and not have flaws. You believe that your family will be completely honest with you about your writing. Alternately, you think your non-writing, non-reading friends can actually give you worldly advice. You believe that your main character doesn’t have to deal with some sort of conflict and instead can go around being happy and not do anything important. What would you guys add?