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A Festival of Death: Scalzi and Wheaton Read from Redshirts
When I first heard of Redshirts I thought it was a clever idea but I was concerned it might be a bit like a Saturday Night Live skit carried too far. The reviews have been pretty good, however, and this video makes it look like a fun read. So who’s read it and what did you think?
2012 World Fantasy Award Nominees
The nominees for the 2012 World Fantasy Award have been announced. The award will be presented at the World Fantasy Convention that takes place in Toronto, Canada, the weekend of November 1-4, 2012. The nominees in each category are:
Novel
• Those Across the River, Christopher Buehlman (Ace)
• 11/22/63, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton as 11.22.63)
• A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)
• Osama, Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)
• Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)
Novella
• “Near Zennor”, Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors)
• “A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong”, K.J. Parker (Subterranean Winter 2011)
• “Alice Through the Plastic Sheet”, Robert Shearman (A Book of Horrors)
• “Rose Street Attractors”, Lucius Shepard (Ghosts by Gaslight)
• Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA Press; Clarkesworld)
Short Fiction
• “X for Demetrious”, Steve Duffy (Blood and Other Cravings)
• “Younger Women”, Karen Joy Fowler (Subterranean Summer 2011)
• “The Paper Menagerie”, Ken Liu (F&SF 3-4/11)
• “A Journey of Only Two Paces”, Tim Powers (The Bible Repairman and Other Stories)
• “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees”, E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld 4/11)
Anthology
• Blood and Other Cravings, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Tor)
• A Book of Horrors, Stephen Jones, ed. (Jo Fletcher Books)
• The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Harper Voyager US)
• The Weird, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Corvus; Tor, published May 2012)
• Gutshot, Conrad Williams, ed. (PS Publishing)
Collection
• Bluegrass Symphony, Lisa L. Hannett (Ticonderoga)
• Two Worlds and In Between, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean Press)
• After the Apocalypse, Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer)
• Mrs Midnight and Other Stories, Reggie Oliver (Tartarus)
• The Bible Repairman and Other Stories, Tim Powers (Tachyon)
Artist
• John Coulthart
• Julie Dillon
• Jon Foster
• Kathleen Jennings
• John Picacio
Special Award Professional
• John Joseph Adams, for editing – anthology and magazine
• Jo Fletcher, for editing – Jo Fletcher Books
• Eric Lane, for publishing in translation – Dedalus books
• Brett Alexander Savory & Sandra Kasturi, for ChiZine Publications
• Jeff VanderMeer & S.J. Chambers, for The Steampunk Bible
Special Award Non-Professional
• Kate Baker, Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan & Sean Wallace, for Clarkesworld
• Cat Rambo, for Fantasy
• Raymond Russell & Rosalie Parker, for Tartarus Press
• Charles Tan, for Bibliophile Stalker blog
• Mark Valentine, for Wormwood
Congrats to all the nominees! Anything in this list surprise you? Among Others has now grabbed 5 award nominations including the 2011 Nebula win. Impressive.
GMRC Review: Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Jeremy Frantz (jfrantz) reviews SF/F books on his blog The Hugo Endurance Project where he has given himself just 64 weeks to read every Hugo Award winner. This is his seventh GMRC review to feature in the blog.
When a ten trillion ton asteroid wanders into the solar system, you take a second look. And when that asteroid turns out to be massive alien spacecraft, you really start to pay attention. This is precisely what happens in Rendezvous with Rama when the crew of the Endeavor ventures to board the vessel and unlock it’s secrets, whatever they may be.
Did I just get smarter?
Of the two titles I’ve read, and especially in the case of Rama, I’ll say that Arthur C. Clarke has an interesting style. There were some truly slow passages, yet it was never boring. There were also some adrenaline fueled moments (including a fun spin on the classic defuse the bomb trope) but even at its most exciting it never stops feeling…clinical. The combination made Rama at once a fast-paced and just plain old fun-to-read book, but it also felt very deliberate, serious and real. You have fun and even feel a little…I don’t know, smarter for having turned the pages? I mean, it’s not that strange an idea, Clarke’s name is practically synonymous with excellence in science and Science Fiction literature.
Kurt Vonnegut Rises
Members of Ball State University’s Immersive Learning Group have digitized his life:
The group’s completed projects include a digitization of Vonnegut’s physical manuscripts; creation of a film archive and oral history of the author, a traveling exhibit and new products for its gift shop; and development of a marketing plan to help KVML become self-sustaining.
What is immersive learning? Ball State explains the reason for the new pedagogical philosophy:
The end product of immersive learning is that our graduates move into careers with skills beyond textbook learning. Not only do they have a strong intellectual knowledge base, they know how to work with others and how to drive projects to completion. They’ve been engaged in real-world problems with real budgets and deadlines. They know how to develop priorities in a team, how to lead a team, and how to collaborate as a team member.
Hey, if it means I get to read the original manuscript of Slaughterhouse-Five, I’m all for it.
Cloud Atlas on the Silver Screen
I’m not at all familiar with Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell, but this trailer looks amazing and makes me want to read the book. I love a sweeping story across time and the visuals and cast are hitting all the right buttons for me. What do you think? Have you read the book?
The film’s website provides a wealth of information concerning the different characters throughout the timelines in the film. It will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in AMC Theatres on October 26th.
Readercon Harassment Reax (UPDATE: Readercon Board resigns)
UPDATE: The entire Readercon board has resigned.
For those of you haven’t yet heard, the otherwise excellent Readercon is at the center of a whirlwind of controversy because of a alleged harassment and the inconsistent application of a zero-tolerance policy. The victim’s (Genevieve Valentine’s) description was first posted on her blog:
At the con, someone introduced himself to me and started a conversation, accompanied by elbow-and-shoulder touches that I moved away from. At one point he said I had to stop saying things that “made [him] want to say “wrong” things”; I shut him down politely, turned my back on him, and talked to someone else until he eventually left.
That night at a room party, I paused in the hall bottleneck and said to a passing friend, “Oh man, it’s crowded.” From behind me, the man wrapped an arm around my shoulders and said, “Well, you and I will have a good time!” at which point I spun and said loudly and clearly “You do NOT touch me,” and moved inside. He stayed in the bottleneck for more than thirty minutes trying to catch my eye before he left; I recruited someone to walk me to the elevator.
Ms. Valentine goes to describe a panicked harasser continuing to harass her about accepting his apology for harassing her. Most people expected René Walling (the alleged harasser) to be permanently banned from Readercon, per their written policy:
Readercon has always had a zero-tolerance harassment policy.
Harassment of any kind — including physical assault, battery, deliberate intimidation, stalking, or unwelcome physical attentions — will not be tolerated at Readercon and will result in permanent suspension of membership.
As always, Readercon reserves the right to strip membership at its discretion.
Why I Want to See Neuromancer: A Confession
This is a little embarrassing to admit. I didn’t totally understand Neuromancer. It’s a great novel. It garners 4 out of 5 stars by the 300 WWEnders who have read it, which I assume means they grasped it better than I did. Don’t get me wrong, though. I did enjoy reading it (Gibson has a beautifully poetic writing style), but I think I may have read it too quickly. Life in cyberspace, after all, is inherently esoteric. He’s describing techology that didn’t exist yet, so his names for everything are different from we might call them now.
That is why I’m more interested in the upcoming movie than I usually would be. I don’t just want to see a great book recreated on the silver screen….I want to see what the hell it was all about! Recently, it’s been revealed that Mark Wahlberg and Liam Neeson have been tapped to help explain this novel to me.
Curiosity Advances Science Fact, Tomorrow
If, like us, you plan to stay up bleary-eyed, watching Curiosity land and deploy on the surface of Mars, you may want to catch up on what it is you’ll be watching for.
We’ve all probably read about the seven minutes of terror, during which the rover will be perilously hurtling toward the planet surface, hopefully decelerating to a gentle landing. When those seven minutes are over, we should be getting information from several sources. MSNBC describes the three different ways Curiosity will communicate with Earth:
Controllers on Earth will have three ways of hailing Curiosity as it trundles around Gale Crater. Two are direct links through NASA’s Deep Space Network, a worldwide collection of antennas. It provides both a fixed low-gain antenna, best for basic commands and emergencies, and a pointable high-gain antenna for complex commands.
Curiosity also has a higher-speed ultra-high frequency (UHF) communications system that can send signals to spacecraft orbiting Mars, which in turn would relay them to Earth.
To send back imagery, Curiosity must stay in touch with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey spacecraft, two probes orbiting Mars that each can talk to the rover twice a day. (Odyssey is currently recovering from the loss of one of its three reaction wheels.)
Business Insider scored a geektastic inventory of Curiosity’s space-age toolset:
For two of these special instruments, NASA turned to Honeybee Robotics, a development firm headquartered in Manhattan. Building on previous work for the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, Honeybee developed the Sample Manipulation System (SMS) and the Dust Removal Tool (DRT). These tools are critical to investigating Mars’ ability to sustain life — in the past and present.
Natalie Wolchover, of the The Christian Science Monitor, wonders whether we might be visiting distant relatives:
If life exists on Mars, then we might be ethnic Martians ourselves, scientists told Life’s Little Mysteries. They explained that the small coincidence of having two life-bearing planets right next door to one another gets cleared up if one of the planets actually seeded life on the other — a concept called “panspermia.” According to Pavlov, hundreds of thousands of Martian meteorites are strewn across Earth. These were hurled into space during past planetary collisions (such as the bash that left Mars with a crater covering nearly half its surface). One of these chunks of Mars could feasibly have contained spores that lay dormant during the interplanetary commute to Earth, and then blossomed upon arrival, some 3.8 billion years ago.
The main event should happen around 12:31 p.m. Central Standard Time. The NASA webcast starts at 8:30 p.m. PDT on NASA TV. If you want to be twitter friends with the rover (who wouldn’t!) follow @MarsCuriosity on Twitter (while there, follow us, @WWEnd).
WWEnd Grand Master Reading Challenge: July Review Poll
July was a banner month for the GMRC and for Arthur C. Clarke who has 3 different titles in the most frequently read stats! We featured 9 reviews in the blog, with another first time reviewer in the list, and now it’s time to read the reviews and cast your vote for the best.
- Beyond the Blue Event Horizon by Frederik Pohl – (valashain)
- Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein – (allie)
- Hothouse by Brian W. Aldiss – (Emil)
- To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer – (jfrantz)
- All the Lives He Led by Frederik Pohl – (alchymyst)
- The Dying Earth by Jack Vance – (Scott Laz)
- Hrolf Kraki’s Saga by Poul Anderson – (Rhondak101)
- Divide and Rule by L. Sprague de Camp – (chuhl)
- The Big Time by Fritz Leiber – (CharlesDee)
You don’t have to be a GMRC participant to vote so jump in and make your opinion count! The poll is open until August 15th so you have plenty of time to read all the reviews.
Read Total Recall for 99¢ on Kindle
Yes, we know. This remake is slap in the face to the Ahnold. Even director Len Wiseman seems a little sheepish about it in his latest interview. Just remember, even the “original” Schwarzenegger engine wasn’t an original, either. It was an adaptation, of course, of Philip K. Dick‘s classic short story, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. Before you see the movie, read it! To commemorate the release of the new film, Amazon has released the story under the latter day title, Total Recall.
