Showing posts with label links. Show all posts
Showing posts with label links. Show all posts
Saturday, February 18, 2012
More links, more best SF of the year
Karen Burnham compiled a list of links to free online fiction, where each story appears on the 2011 Locus Recommended Reading List.
Jeff VanderMeer offers his best books of 2011 list. (follow here)
The Not If You Were The Last Short Story On Earth blog offers up its best short fiction of the year lists by Alex, Alisa, Tansy, Mondy, and Sarah P.
Library of America announces two new omnibus editions for 2012, edited by Gary K. Wolfe, that will collect nine classic science fiction novels from the 1950s. (follow here)
New York Review Books announces Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley, edited by Jonathan Lethem and Alex Abramovich, to be published April 2012. (follow here)
Friday, January 20, 2012
A Gathering of Links
News item: Connie Willis was named the 2011 recipient SFWA Grand Master Award. (follow here)
News item: Gene Wolfe will be celebrated with the Fuller Award, a new Chicago-area literary award, and an evening of entertainment. (follow here)
Samuel R. Delany: "I think of myself as someone who thinks largely through writing.”
-- From a Paris Review interview. (follow here)
William Gibson: “E. M. Forster’s idea has always stuck with me -- that a writer who’s fully in control of the characters hasn’t even started to do the work. I’ve never had any direct fictional input, that I know of, from dreams, but when I’m working optimally I’m in the equivalent of an ongoing lucid dream.”
-- From a Paris Review interview. (follow here)
"He has handed us a map to his own magic doorways." From the New York Times review by Pagan Kennedy of William Gibson’s new book of essays Distrust That Particular Flavor. (follow here)
"At the core of sf lies the experience of science ... The Mars and stars and digital deserts of our best novels are, finally, to be taken as real, as if to say: life isn’t like this, it is this." Gregory Benford on rereading The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (1998) by Thomas M. Disch (via SanJuanJon). (follow here)
Soviet-era visions of Mars (via BLDGBLOG). (follow here)
"Extra(ordinary) People is my favorite of Russ’s collections, a forceful, beautiful, astounding book that leaves me low on words to compensate for how I respond to it." Brit Mandelo reads Joanna Russ's Extra(ordinary) People (1984). (follow here: part one and part two)
Elizabeth Hand has two novels forthcoming, Available Dark, due February 2012, and Radiant Days, due April 2012. Hand was recently interviewed on The Coode Street Podcast (follow here). Hand writes about six favorite books (follow here).
Jeff VanderMeer's essay on overlooked books from 2011 convinced me to spend cold hard cash for several books that I had managed to miss (follow here).
VanderMeer gives a rundown of the 2011 nominees for the Philip K. Dick Award, in which he calls Maureen F. McHugh's After the Apocalypse "a brilliant book." I'm reading it right now and couldn't agree more. (follow here)
News item: Gene Wolfe will be celebrated with the Fuller Award, a new Chicago-area literary award, and an evening of entertainment. (follow here)
Samuel R. Delany: "I think of myself as someone who thinks largely through writing.”
-- From a Paris Review interview. (follow here)
William Gibson: “E. M. Forster’s idea has always stuck with me -- that a writer who’s fully in control of the characters hasn’t even started to do the work. I’ve never had any direct fictional input, that I know of, from dreams, but when I’m working optimally I’m in the equivalent of an ongoing lucid dream.”
-- From a Paris Review interview. (follow here)
"He has handed us a map to his own magic doorways." From the New York Times review by Pagan Kennedy of William Gibson’s new book of essays Distrust That Particular Flavor. (follow here)
"At the core of sf lies the experience of science ... The Mars and stars and digital deserts of our best novels are, finally, to be taken as real, as if to say: life isn’t like this, it is this." Gregory Benford on rereading The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (1998) by Thomas M. Disch (via SanJuanJon). (follow here)
Soviet-era visions of Mars (via BLDGBLOG). (follow here)
"Extra(ordinary) People is my favorite of Russ’s collections, a forceful, beautiful, astounding book that leaves me low on words to compensate for how I respond to it." Brit Mandelo reads Joanna Russ's Extra(ordinary) People (1984). (follow here: part one and part two)
Elizabeth Hand has two novels forthcoming, Available Dark, due February 2012, and Radiant Days, due April 2012. Hand was recently interviewed on The Coode Street Podcast (follow here). Hand writes about six favorite books (follow here).
Jeff VanderMeer's essay on overlooked books from 2011 convinced me to spend cold hard cash for several books that I had managed to miss (follow here).
VanderMeer gives a rundown of the 2011 nominees for the Philip K. Dick Award, in which he calls Maureen F. McHugh's After the Apocalypse "a brilliant book." I'm reading it right now and couldn't agree more. (follow here)
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Roundup of recent links
SF Encyclopedia to be free online
The third edition of the prestigious Science Fiction Encyclopedia will be made available free online later this year with monthly updates through the end of 2012. Future plans include versions for electronic devices. Read the SF Encyclopedia announcement.
Hemingway wasn’t paranoid
Supposedly Ernest Hemingway descended into paranoia and then took his own life. Records obtained using the Freedom of Information Act present a different version. The unscrupulous director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, had Hemingway under surveillance for decades, including phone taps. Read the New York Times article.
Best SF and Fantasy books of 2011 so far according to Amazon editors
1. Among Others by Jo Walton
2. Embassytown by China Miéville
3. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah E. Harkness
4. 2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America by Albert Brooks
5. Shadowfever by Karen Marie Moning
6. Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Cory
7. Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson
8. The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
9. The Dragon’s Path by Daniel Abraham
10. Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
I’ve read the first two novels and agree that they are likely among the best SF and Fantasy books of the year so far. I am at least tempted by most of the remaining books on the list. Read the Amazon list.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Links to thinks
Neil Gaiman writes about Gene Wolfe
"... Gene Wolfe remains a hero to me. He's just turned 80, looks after his wife Rosemary, and is still writing deep, complex, brilliant fiction that slips between genres. ... He's the finest living male American writer of SF and fantasy – possibly the finest living American writer. Most people haven't heard of him. And that doesn't bother Gene in the slightest." Read the article.
SF Signal Mind Meld: Which challenging SF/F stories are worth the effort to read?
Some wonderful recommendations, including works by Gene Wolfe, Joanna Russ, Samuel R. Delany, Neal Stephenson, Cordwainer Smith. As Cat Rambo writes in the comments, add Italo Calvino, Stanislaw Lem, John Crowley, Justina Robson, and Peter Watts. Who would you add? Read the article.
Ursula K. LeGuin reviews Embassytown by China Miéville
"If Miéville has been known to set up a novel on a marvelous metaphor and then not know quite where to take it, he's outgrown that, and his dependence on violence is much diminished. In Embassytown, his metaphor ... works on every level, providing compulsive narrative, splendid intellectual rigor and risk, moral sophistication, fine verbal fireworks and sideshows, and even the old-fashioned satisfaction of watching a protagonist become more of a person than she gave promise of being." Read the article.
Rob Latham on J.G. Ballard
"I believe that, with the possible exception of Philip K. Dick, postwar SF has produced no finer writer, and certainly none more attuned to the perplexities and pitfalls of the modern technoscientific world." Read the article. (Edited: link updated.)
"... Gene Wolfe remains a hero to me. He's just turned 80, looks after his wife Rosemary, and is still writing deep, complex, brilliant fiction that slips between genres. ... He's the finest living male American writer of SF and fantasy – possibly the finest living American writer. Most people haven't heard of him. And that doesn't bother Gene in the slightest." Read the article.
SF Signal Mind Meld: Which challenging SF/F stories are worth the effort to read?
Some wonderful recommendations, including works by Gene Wolfe, Joanna Russ, Samuel R. Delany, Neal Stephenson, Cordwainer Smith. As Cat Rambo writes in the comments, add Italo Calvino, Stanislaw Lem, John Crowley, Justina Robson, and Peter Watts. Who would you add? Read the article.
Ursula K. LeGuin reviews Embassytown by China Miéville
"If Miéville has been known to set up a novel on a marvelous metaphor and then not know quite where to take it, he's outgrown that, and his dependence on violence is much diminished. In Embassytown, his metaphor ... works on every level, providing compulsive narrative, splendid intellectual rigor and risk, moral sophistication, fine verbal fireworks and sideshows, and even the old-fashioned satisfaction of watching a protagonist become more of a person than she gave promise of being." Read the article.
Rob Latham on J.G. Ballard
"I believe that, with the possible exception of Philip K. Dick, postwar SF has produced no finer writer, and certainly none more attuned to the perplexities and pitfalls of the modern technoscientific world." Read the article. (Edited: link updated.)
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Random links
Bill Moyer's Journal features an interview with David Simon, creator of The Wire. If you've seen The Wire, you won't be surprised that Simon doesn't pull any punches. Read the article.
An overview of international science fiction and fantasy for 2010 compiled by Jeff VanderMeer. Read the article.
John Joseph Adams writes about dystopian fiction. Oh, and he has edited an excellent anthology of dystopian fiction, too. Read the article.
An SF Signal Mind Meld: "What's your favorite literary dystopia?" With responses by Paolo Bacigalupi, M.T. Anderson, Elaterina Sedia, John Joseph Adams, and others. Read the article.
Joseph E. Stiglitz writes that one percent of Americans control 40 percent of the wealth. That's not a good thing, even for the wealthy one percent. Read the article.
Race, Again, Still by Nisi Shawl: "Jim (James Patrick Kelly) asked Ted (Chiang) if he thought he could have written those stories back in the 19th century, without the benefit of an SF tradition. 'Assuming I didn't die working on a railroad,' Ted said." Read the article.
Geoge R.R. Martin's top ten science fiction movies with good remarks about each film. "Leslie Nielsen plays Captain Kirk a decade before William Shatner, and does it better." Read the article.
Patrick Ness's top ten "unsuitable" books for teenagers. In other words: Teenagers should seek these out immediately. Read the article.
"Goodnight Dune:" a sweet and nostalgic combination of Frank Herbert's Dune and Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon. Read the illustrated story.
An overview of international science fiction and fantasy for 2010 compiled by Jeff VanderMeer. Read the article.
John Joseph Adams writes about dystopian fiction. Oh, and he has edited an excellent anthology of dystopian fiction, too. Read the article.
An SF Signal Mind Meld: "What's your favorite literary dystopia?" With responses by Paolo Bacigalupi, M.T. Anderson, Elaterina Sedia, John Joseph Adams, and others. Read the article.
Joseph E. Stiglitz writes that one percent of Americans control 40 percent of the wealth. That's not a good thing, even for the wealthy one percent. Read the article.
Race, Again, Still by Nisi Shawl: "Jim (James Patrick Kelly) asked Ted (Chiang) if he thought he could have written those stories back in the 19th century, without the benefit of an SF tradition. 'Assuming I didn't die working on a railroad,' Ted said." Read the article.
Geoge R.R. Martin's top ten science fiction movies with good remarks about each film. "Leslie Nielsen plays Captain Kirk a decade before William Shatner, and does it better." Read the article.
Patrick Ness's top ten "unsuitable" books for teenagers. In other words: Teenagers should seek these out immediately. Read the article.
"Goodnight Dune:" a sweet and nostalgic combination of Frank Herbert's Dune and Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon. Read the illustrated story.
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