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Ben Bova for the UK
WWEnd monitors Amazon’s Daily Deals, and if we see a good deal on SF/F/H books, we usually tweet it. Sometimes, we see one that is so good, it’s blog worthy. Today’s UK deal is one of those. If you live in the United Kingdom, you can get any of five Ben Bova novels for £0.99 each.
Four of these books are part of the Grand Tour series. They’re pretty much random volumes, so it’s a good thing they were meant to be read in no particular order. Here they are:
Mars
Moonwar
Return to Mars
Moonrise
The fifth book, Voyagers III, is part of the Voyagers series, which probably will require reading the first two books.
Forays into Fantasy: Gertrude Barrows Bennett’s The Citadel of Fear
Scott Lazerus is a Professor of Economics at Western State Colorado University in Gunnison, Colorado, and has been a science fiction fan since the 1970s. The Forays into Fantasy series is an exploration of the various threads of fantastic literature that have led to the wide variety of fantasy found today, from the perspective of an SF fan newly exploring the fantasy landscape. FiF will examine some of the most interesting landmark books of the past, along with a few of today’s most acclaimed fantasies, building an understanding of the connections between fantasy’s origins, its touchstones, and its many strands of influence.
In the midst of the Women of Genre Fiction Challenge, I’d like to direct your attention to Gertrude Barrows Bennett—possibly the most important female writer of speculative fiction that you’ve probably never heard of. Her sustained run of fantasy fiction published between 1917 and 1923—around a dozen stories, including five novels—have led to a growing acceptance of her importance to the history of the genre, following decades of neglect.
Bennett (1884–1948) turned to writing when her journalist/explorer husband died while on an expedition, soon followed by her father, leaving her with a newborn daughter and invalid mother to support. She seems to have stopped writing after her mother’s death. Following her disappearance from public view, and prior to the idea being debunked in 1952, it was quite widely believed that Francis Stevens—the pseudonym under which Bennett’s work was published—was actually a penname of A. Merritt, probably the most popular and influential fantasy writer of the first third of the twentieth century (though much less well-known today). It turns out; however, that the similarities of their writings, which led readers to assume “Stevens” was Merritt, were quite likely the result of Bennett’s own influence on Merritt, who acknowledged his admiration for her works, and the inspiration he received from them. (Mention has also been made of H. P. Lovecraft’s endorsement of her work, but this story seems to have been apocryphal.)
When “Science Fiction” Is an Insult
Originally, I had intended to post the above video to further the ongoing conversation about what constitutes science fiction, as there can be few better authorities on the matter than a panel including Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, and Gene Wolfe. But then, I discovered what had transpired shortly before this interview.
As it happens, Ellison’s view of science fiction was quite passionate. Carolyn Kellog, at the L. A. Times, reports that he had just come from assaulting his publisher for misclassifying “Spider Kiss” as a sci fi:
“I put him in a hold that I had learned from Bruce Lee. I took him to his knees. Then I duck-walked him back to his door,” on his knees all the way, Ellison recounts. The typing pool, all women then, stopped work and watched the show, he says, “with enormous pleasure.”
When they got back to the man’s office, the publisher on his knees, Ellison says he banged the man’s head into the door until he opened it. They went inside — the publisher, Ellison and Ellison’s editor, a woman he remembers fondly, who soon was huddling on a couch.
“I picked up a chair and threw it,” Ellison says. Rather than shattering the windows, “it bounced around the room.” The publisher had scrambled behind his desk and was dialing the phone.
“I jumped onto the desk and ripped the phone out of the wall,” Ellison says. Back in 1982, that’s how phones worked — they had cords, attached to walls. “He tried to crawl through the desk’s kneehole. I grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the room.”
From his comments in the interview, Mr. Ellison seems to share Margaret Atwood‘s view of the genre. Compare his comment to Mr. Turkel that sci fi is “women in brass braziers being molested by green-eyed monsters,” to Ms. Atwoods famous talking squids in outer space characterization.
We all know what was going on, back then. Certain authors didn’t want their books to be shoved in the back of the bookstore in the SF/F section. Writing is their bread and butter, and they wanted to get paid. Perhaps that is what made Harlan react with violence to the horrid insult of being called a science fiction writer.
Well, Harlan Ellison currently has 28 novels listed by WWEnd that we call “science fiction.” Perhaps I should get a bodyguard.
Teaser Trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
What do you think? Does this mark an improvement over the first movie, or will part 2 of the series be a Two Towers-esque slog? The movie trilogy is clearly a different animal from the novel, and I have to wonder if Desolation will be Peter Jackson’s sandbox for much of the new stuff he’s adding to the story.
New Poster for The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug
I don’t know if I’ll love the movie, but I do have to hand it to Jackson’s design team. They do impressive work. Click the poster for a high-res version.
Iain Banks, Remembered
One of the most celebrated science fiction authors in Great Britain, and, indeed, the world, Iain Banks, has written his last story. At 59, his death illustrates, once more, how little anyone can take the future for granted, even one who devoted his life to predicting it. Here are just a few of the reactions his passing received over the last day:
Iain was a wonderful friend, and I shall miss him terribly. Staunch, generous, humane and loyal, with a great love of life, he was, as has been said, two of our best writers.
In his literary fiction and in his science fiction, he explored both the dark and the light, the intimate and the impersonal, and he leaves us with a lot to be grateful for.
This glass of fine old Scotch whisky in memory of Iain Banks, the finest of us.
Neal Gaiman shared with us his final message to Banks:
I think you’re a brilliant and an honest writer, and much more importantly, because I’ve known lots of brilliant writers who were absolute arses, I think you’re a really good bloke, and I’ve loved knowing you.
Ben Bryant, of The Telegraph, reveals this self referential passage from Mr. Banks’ upcoming book:
I know Guy’s cancer is not contagious. You can’t catch it off him. That’s the thing about cancer. It’s all yours — it’s entirely, perfectly personalised.
The cause might have come from outside, like carcinogens in tobacco smoke, but that just triggered the reaction in your cells. In that sense the fatal cancer is an unwilled suicide where, initially at least, one small part of the body has taken a decision which will lead to the death of the rest. Cancer feels like betrayal.
Iain Banks is a two time winner of the British Science Fiction Association Award and has received 13 nominations for major science fiction awards over the years, but we all know that was a fraction of what he might have accomplished had he the chance.
You only *think* you’ve read all the SF Masterworks – Part Deux
You know how you want to read all the SF Masterworks? Well, Gollancz seems hell-bent on making that impossible. Every year they add more and more books to the list and then they don’t even bother telling us about it. They want it to be a surprise, I guess. Just when you think you’ve polished off the last one you accidentally find out there are another dozen to go. Fiendishly clever and just a tad sadistic methinks.
So here is another batch to go with the last update back in September. Wikipedia says that Alastair Reynold’s book, Revelation Space, is supposed to be part of the series this year too but, try as I might, I could not find a cover image for it. (Edit: Thanks, Charlie, for the link to the new image.) Speaking of cover images, this bunch has some really nice ones. I can’t decide which is my favorite but I really love A Canticle for Leibowitz and To Say Nothing of the Dog and the green space of Double Star.
One strange typo I found is that the cover for This is the Way the World Ends is actually missing the word “is” in the title rendering it as “This the Way the World Ends.” I didn’t care for that so I added the “is” back into the image. I don’t know if the actual book cover will have the error but it’s all over the net with the missing word.
So what do you think of these additions? Anything surprising in there? Are we missing any that you know of ? If you have the Revelation Space cover we’d love to add that to the list too.
Red Wedding Reax Round Up
Okay, we waited a week to make this post, so we think we’re out of the most egregious parts of spoiler territory, and besides, WWEnd is a community of readers. Many of us have known about the Red Wedding for 13 years. That said, if you haven’t seen last week’s episode and haven’t read the books, go correct that error and then come back.
Whenever I come across a plot point in Game of Thrones, the first thing that goes through my mind is “where did that come from?” It’s impossible to look at the broad strokes in Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire without recognizing The War of the Roses right away, but elements of this series are, in fact, cherry-picked from many different parts of history: ancient, medieval and modern. So when I experienced the Red Wedding I immediately wanted to know where Martin lifted that particular atrocity. Entertainment Weekly asked that very thing last week in their interview with the author. He answered:
The Red Wedding is based on a couple real events from Scottish history. One was a case called The Black Dinner. The king of Scotland was fighting the Black Douglas clan. He reached out to make peace. He offered the young Earl of Douglas safe passage. He came to Edinburgh Castle and had a great feast. Then at the end of the feast, [the king’s men] started pounding on a single drum. They brought out a covered plate and put it in front of the Earl and revealed it was the head of a black boar — the symbol of death. And as soon as he saw it, he knew what it meant. They dragged them out and put them to death in the courtyard. The larger instance was the Glencoe Massacre. Clan MacDonald stayed with the Campbell clan overnight and the laws of hospitality supposedly applied. But the Campbells arose and started butchering every MacDonald they could get their hands on. No matter how much I make up, there’s stuff in history that’s just as bad, or worse.
George R. R. Martin Responds to Critics
Didn’t like last week’s episode of Game of Thrones? Martin has a few words for the fans.
Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge: May Review Poll is Open
We’re getting a late start for the May review poll but here it is! We had a large number of great reviews so we’ll keep this one open until the 25th of June to give everyone time to read and vote.
- Agatha H and the Airship City by Phil and Kaja Foglio – Lynn Williams (lynnsbooks)
- Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith – Barry F. (bazhsw)
- Doomsday Book by Connie Willis – Brett Ellis (Brett72)
- Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler – Jonathan Thornton (thrak)
- The Female Man by Joanna Russ – Daniel Roy (Triseult)
- Geek Love by Katherine Dunn – Melanie Ross (mellyn)
- Grass by Sheri S. Tepper – Rob Weber (valashain)
- The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy – Beth Besse (Badseedgirl)
- Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson – Nadine Gemeinböck (Linguana)
- Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi – Charles Dee Mitchell (CharlesDee)
- Soulless by Gail Carriger – Tanya F. (metalorchid)
- Kindred by Octavia E. Butler – Jack Dowden (JDowds)
- Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold – Alex Hammel (ahmmel)
- White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi – Kristine N. (krizzaro)
- Earthblood & Other Stories by Keith Laumer and Rosel George Brown – Christine Bellerive (cmbellerive)
- The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord – Wendy B. (nightxade)
- Briar Rose by Jane Yolen – Allie McCarn (Allie)
Hit the poll and vote for your 3 favorites! As always, there are three prizes up for grabs.
We’ve had a tremendous growth spurt in the challenge since last month going from 252 readers to a whopping 314 – which has been a nice surprise given that we’re half-way through the year. Welcome aboard everyone! We also jumped from 262 reviews to 326. (In my fevered brian I’m hoping for 800 WoGF reviews for the year so we’re looking good!) Check out the stats and be amazed.
General Stats After 5 Months:
- Time Remaining: 207 days
- Participants: 314!
- Books Read: 572
- Books Reviewed: 326
