I started along this train of thought in a VERY different direction this morning. I read The God of Dark Laughter by Michael Chabon. This is a story that suggests “real” clowns are an ancient offshoot of humanity that are targets of an equally ancient emo-cult and the universe was tossed into existence over the shoulder of an uncaring creator. I encountered this story as part of The Weird and weird it is. The connection here is that religious origin stories, true or fictional, play with a similar speculative fiction tool set that Egan is using for his alternative cosmologies. What if, instead of the belief structures that humanity has developed over the years, there were others.

I like finding unexpected connections across wildly different genres like this, and I’m wondering what else comes to mind when you think of Alternative Cosmologies? Do you think about the lore that explains the races of Tolkien’s Middle Earth and other secondary world fantasies or does your mind wander to the outrageous physics of the version of our reality where our favorite super heroes dwell? Is the magic system in your favorite epic fantasy robust enough to explain the universe its characters live in? Possibly I’ve wandered into too broad of a definition.

What are your favorite alternative cosmologies? Let’s try and stick to something that at least partially explains the foundations of the universe the story is told in. Think of this as sort of the opposite of the question answered by Apocalypse fiction or entropy-punk stories that extrapolate from existing myths or physical theories to the ultimate end of the universe. Instead we’re looking for stories that see what happens if we change some fundamental assumptions and then filter the results through our existing expectations of “how stuff works.”

I’m still catching up on the SF Squeecast. This week I listened to Episode Two: Dystopia A-Go-Go!. It’s a stretch to wrap the label of dystopia around the particular squeeables, much less the places the discussion wanders, however they cover some fun stuff. I like their coverage of David Louis Edleman’s Jump 255 series. I read and loved Infoquake. I really should go back and read the rest. I love how passionate and detailed reviews of music (even music I may not care for) can be. In this case, our panel of designated squeers really bring David Bowie‘s Outside to life. I’ll definitely be giving this concept album a listen. The post-apocalyptic novel The Chrysalids by John Wyndham and an episode of the cartoon Phineas and Ferb round out the discussion. |MP3|

I listened to two Beneath Ceasless Skies stories this week. Both dealt with ways in which magic users are oppressed. The magic in Gone Sleeping by Heather Clitheroe |MP3| had horrific cascading consequences. It’s interesting how we assume a naive child narrator to be unreliable, but she’s been told stories and been given warnings… The Magick by Kristina C. Mottla |MP3| involves slavery. It’s a slavery built on fear of the other, but much like in Gone Sleeping it is magic users that are feared. The magic is more controlled in this story, but obviously there are two meanings for control in this case. These are both decent fantasy stories, but they’re even stronger side by side.

I’m not sure if the Angry Robot Podcast, hosted by Mur Lafferty, is still a going concern. It’s definitely not playing nice with Google Listen and the last episode was released in July. Huffduffer may have to come to the rescue. I listened to episode #11, an interview with Lavie Tidhar. I’ve really enjoyed Lavie’s short fiction and he gives a great interview. Definitely need to read one of his novels. The interview focused on Camera Obscura, sequel to The Bookman (both from Angry Robot), but also discusses HebrewPunk, other books, and Lavie’s status as an international man of mystery. |MP3|

Two from Drabblecast:

1. Episode 217 is Followed by Will McIntosh. It uses zombies as an allegory for externalized human cost. This is the type of story that’ll drive mad anyone too set in their mind about what zombie fiction is supposed to be, but it’s a great story. It drives home a difficult moral point. |MP3|
2. Episode 219 is The Big Splash by George R. Galuschak. The oceans have risen and a lone alien smokes out on the beach observing humanity. Splash is as light as Followed is heavy, in spite of the shark attack and dying dog. |MP3|

SFBRP #138 is a review of Gene Wolfe’s The Sword of the Lictor, 3rd in The Book of the New Sun. This is the first episode of this podcast I’ve listened to. While I was listening, I thought possibly that the podcaster, Luke Burrage, might me insane. I hoped that he was playing around with the unreliable narrator concept that’s one of the important components of this series. It turns out the latter was the case. For the record, Gene Wolfe is a master at this technique – Luke Burrage: not so much, but it was an amusing review. |MP3|

The Coode Street Podcast always provides a spectacular reading list. Gary and Johnathan mention scores and scores of books in a podcast, most of which they make me want to read. The same thing happens when they interview someone. In the case of episode #72 that would be Ian McDonald. His latest is the first in a young adult multiverse adventure called Planesrunner. This has been mentioned before on the podcast and sounds like a ton of fun. The discussion was pure gold for those of us that are fascinated by the publishing aspects of genre fiction. McDonald’s River of Gods, which was followed by the acclaimed progressively nearer future novels: Brazyl and The Dervish House, was published in the US by Pyr and marketed 100% as science fiction. However in the UK it was marketed as mainstream fiction by Simon & Schuster. Even if the mechanics of publishing bore you, McDonald has a very cool Bibliography and you’ll come out of this podcast wanting to read all of it. |MP3|

Writing Excuses 6.21 was hilariously awesome. All 4 brainstormed the kernel of a story from the same collection of random elements. Each of their processes are different and unique voices come through. Great stuff/Small package as always. |MP3|

There’s not much story in Joe Haldeman’s Never Blood Enough (Starship Sofa 208). The world building is pretty intriguing and the main character is as well developed as space allows, however, the story is murder mystery. What could the murderer be on a planet of dangerous lifeforms? Possibly a dangerous lifeform… As a subplot in a larger work, this might have more meat. There’s more than just one story in an episode of Starship Sofa. I’m quite surprised how much I enjoy the Poetry Planet feature. It was good to hear that Tobias Buckell’s Kickstarter program worked and he’ll be writing the rest of his space opera series. I quite enjoyed all 3 of the previous novels Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin and Sly Mongoose. Be sure to check out the sneak peak of Apocalypse Ocean he gave us in Placa del Fuego. |MP3|

Sometimes, listening to two new voices on a podcast it’s difficult to tell them apart. Andy Duncan and Jeff Ford (Locus Roundtable Podcast) have VERY distinct accents so this wasn’t even vaguely a problem. I’d just read Ford’s Bright Morning that was mentioned near the end of the podcast, so it was quit interesting to hear the discussion of writers inserting themselves into their stories. The discussion was heavily weighted in the direction of “what can be done with fiction” vs “how does it happen.” I’m realizing more and more that that’s an important distinction. The more I write about discussion podcasts the more I want a better vocabulary for what TYPE of discussion podcast it is. I’ll explore this in a dedicated post. |MP3|

PodCastle Miniature 66: The Witch’s Second Daughter by Marissa K. Lingen: A vague yet elegantly described magic system explored to a logical conclusion. |MP3|

And the final podcast for the week, SFFaudio #97. I listened to this as the sun set while literally parked on the 405 (I was about 100 yards away from a motorcycle vs big-rig accident that had shut down the freeway), so I probably payed a bit more attention to it than I otherwise would have. They discussed Jose Luis Borges’ The Garden of Forking Paths and Fair Game by Philip K. Dick. I was introduced to the Borges story by my academic adviser during a quantum mechanics class he was teaching and I was not groking. Interestingly I was introduced to Borges for the first time during a mathematics seminar by a visiting professor who specialized in the math underlying String theory. Borges’ writing is fractal. The deeper you dig into it the more you find and the more it makes sense (or the more confused you get – most often both if you really understand the issues he’s wrestling with.) Grab a collection of Borges Collected Fictions. And keep it close at hand for when you need some mental exercise. Fair Game sounds neat too. |MP3|

Writing Excuses 6.20: Endings brought to mind the discussion on a recent (for me, it may actually have been the first episode) SF Squeecast, in which an affectionate bashing of Christopher Priest “everyone just walks off stage” endings ensued. Lou Anders joined writing excuses again and endings were discussed largely in relation to the Hollywood formula. Lots of info in 15 minutes and they lie. They’re all super smart.

Adventures In SciFi Publishing continues to publish twice a week. Episode 143 discussed Amazon’s new imprint, 47North. Amazon is in a spectacular position for trend spotting and they’re flush with cash to pay for the editing/marketing/etc. needed to make a successful publishing venue. AiSFP ask a good question, will B&N carry these books? They also talk with Brenda Cooper. It’s interesting to hear a futurist talk about her fantasy time travel novel. I’ve not yet read any Cooper, but she’s always a delightful guest.

Gary K. Wolfe, Ursula K. Le Guin and Jonathan Strahan (Coode Street Podcast 71) politely roast Margaret Attwood’s book, In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination. This mainstream/literary vs genre discussion rears it’s head constantly (see SF signal’s latest mind meld) and in many fan’s minds Attwood is the poster child for the “I do not write science fiction” crowd. It was pleasant to hear 3 intelligent people at the core of science fiction look at Attwoods relationship with science fiction from every possible angle.

Pony by Erik Amundsen is a pure Clarkesworld story (podcast). It’s dark, stylized and highly original science fiction. Told from the first person, this tale of wrangling genetically engineered war ships mixes SF and western so seamlessly that Firefly seems positively mainstream in comparison.

Pseudopod is my main audio stop for straight out horror. I’d love a suggestion for another podcast of similar quality to add into the mix. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy this week’s tale of a young serial killer and his abusive father. Yardwork was particularly well read. Personally, the level of abuse from the father seemed a bit over the top. I bring that up because of my comment about Radio Nowhere last week. I’m quite happy that the closest experience I have to abuse involved the occasional cruel interaction with childhood “friends.” I digress. The story sort of offers the satisfaction of Dexter, but no matter how sympathetic the protagonist is, there’s no question that he’s a very, very bad boy.

While on pseudopod, I REALLY loved The Cord by Chris Lewis Carter. Usually, when I encounter an idea in a story I’ve recently encountered in a non-fiction science venue, I’m reading science fiction. It’s awesome to encounter this in horror and basically makes strict genre boundaries seem particularly silly. In this case an unreliable narrator is used to great affect in a deceptively simple extrapolation from true stuff that actually happens. Even if horror isn’t normally your cup of tea, don’t miss this one.

The second AiSFP I listened to this week involved an interview with K.V. Johansen. I think Lou Anders, her publisher, did a better job making this sound like a must read book in an earlier podcast. That said, she made the world seem like one that will take nicely to a long series and I’m intrigued by some of her earlier fiction for younger readers. Shaun is experimenting a lot with the format of the show, in this case breaking up the interview with a “from the editor’s desk” segment. I’m not sure how I feel about the contrast between a discussion of epic fantasy and a question about the state of science fiction, but the more dynamic format definitely adds life to the show.

Episode 315 of Escapepod is Clockwork Fagin by Cory Doctorow. It’s from the new anthology Steampunk! and it’s a both a wonderful example of steampunk and just a great story. It’s full of Dickensian orphans, clockwork analytical engines, and murder – told with a maker ethic that you’d expect from Doctorow.

I’m reading an advanced copy of Kafkaesque for Adventures in SciFi Publishing. I find myself viewing the other fiction I’ve encountered recently through Kafka colored glasses. This is most apparent in the large number of insect related stories that have crossed my path recently. StarShipSofa No 206 |MP3| had Blood Dauber by Ted Kosmatka and Michael Poore, a poignant character study of poverty, ex-cons and zoo keeping that had as it’s central idea a species of insect with startling genetic plasticity. Butterfly by Garth Upshaw from Beneath Ceaseless Skies #78 |MP3| involves a totalitarian response to metamorphosis. The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees by E. Lily from Clarkesworld 55 |MP3| is on my “to listen” list. It was recommended by Last Short Story. So: lots of bugs.

The Writer and the Critic Episode 12 covered 2 single author collections. One by Lisa L. Hannett and one by Robert Shearman. Both were a bit unusual in that they contained mostly previously unpublished stories. Kirstyn and Ian liked both collections. I chuckled a bit about their pronunciation of “rodeo” and mention of the American midwest as “exotic,” but overall enjoyed the discussion. There’s an eBook for Lisa’s collection, but Robert’s is a very specialized artifact with some unusual characteristics. |MP3|

PodCastle 177 started off the Halloween season with Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. Great reading. Great story. |MP3|

I listened to the Dunesteef Podcast for the first time this weekend. Episode 113 was The Troop by Harris Tobias. Spectacular audio production and great reading. However, it felt like 75% of the podcast was incoherent chatter versus what was dedicated to the story. I’ll try the podcast again, but I may very well just stick to the story. |MP3|

Escapepod 313 |MP3| featured Playing Doctor by Robert T. Jeschonek, a pleasant twist on the Mad Scientist story. It didn’t really make me like this kind of story any better but the unrequited love was done well and fit the Mad Scientist motif spot on. Speaking of unrequited love, Feedback was read for Radio Nowhere |MP3| by Douglas Smith. Someone mentioned not connecting with a character that could be lovesick for over a decade. I suspect that says more about the commenter than the story. I connected with that story at pretty much point.

The SF Signal podcast episode 83 interview with Ed Greenwood and Gabrielle Harbowy was awesome. Ed Greenwood mentioned the quality that you sacrifice when you write a novel in two weeks. It was kind of cool to hear some of the story behind forgotten realms. The anthology Ed and Gabriellle were there to talk about sounds interesting: When The Hero Comes Home from Dragon Moon Press. |MP3|

Writing Excuses 6.19 covered pitching your work. Great discussion as always. |MP3|

Jonathan Strahan of the Coode Street Podcast and Ian Mond of The Writer and the Critic have mentioned in recent podcasts a project called “Last Short Story.” I looked it up today and it’s basically a group blog where a 1/2 dozen people attempt to “read as many SF, fantasy and horror stories as humanly possible every year…” and recommend the stuff they like. It’s a spectacular resource for me as I work to grow TagShadow. I’ll be spending some time with their 2010 recommendations.

The Coode Street Podcast (episode 69) reminds us that the SF Gateway eBooks are now available. I for one have been checking daily to see when those yellow covers start making their way onto amazon’s bestseller list.

I just listened to a slightly older episode (#10) of The Writer and the Critic. As much as they’ve mentioned not liking Blackout/All Clear, I’m still not sure I follow their complaints. I’ll have to go back to episode #7 and get the full scoop. They TEAR into The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but manage to do so rather respectfully. I sort of get the feeling that most of the issues they bring up won’t bother the average reader all that much. They gush over The Dervish House. The excessively positive ending seemed to bother them. I love how in depth the discussions on this podcast are.

The Locus roundtable conversation with Gail Carriger and Francesca Myman from August covers pretty much every facet of attending conventions. I’ve only been to media conventions and really look forward to attending some more literary conventions.

Episode 10 of the Outer Alliance podcast was an interview with Ellen Klages. On the strength of the interview I ordered a copy of Portable Childhoods. I also really want to read the novel length version of Green Glass Sea, about the first test of the atomic bomb. Thinking about LGBT issues led to an epic session reading the Outer Alliance blog earlier today. I spent the most time wading through the OSC Hamlet controversy and On Refusing to Straighten Up. Golden Age SF inspired the scientists that got us to the moon. I have a feeling that SFF of this century and the discussions around it will play a major role in bring gender, racial and a slew of other issues to the forefront of public discourse.

I liked the mixture of science fiction and alternate history in “Night Bird Soaring” by T. L. Morganfield from episode 312 of Escape Pod.

“El Regalo” by Peter S. Beagle is a tale of 2 young siblings and magic. Episode 175 of Podcastle is a giant episode, clocking in at an hour and 35 minutes.

The first story for October at Clarkesworld is “Staying Behind” by Ken Liu. It’s a rather dark take on the changes a society goes through after a technological transcendence.

After Lou Ander’s talk about the Hollywood formula on Writing Excuses 6.18 I find myself looking for it in every story I read; every show I watch.

There were more. I’m going to try and do an overview like this every week or so. Let me know if I missed your favorite SFF podcast.

1. The award is given out on an irregular basis, starting roughly annually but potentially increasing in frequency.
2. Eligibility for the award is never confined to the space of a single year.
3. Unless crucial to the criteria, stories, anthologies, collections, novels, series, etc are all vying for the same award
4. There are 3 phases to the award:
   1. Choosing the criteria for the next award. (see poll below)
   2. Nominations for the award.
   3. Voting for the award.
5. Prizes, voting rules, venues, award name and numerous other factors are still up in the air. Suggestions are welcome and it is quite possible that different criteria will require different procedures. In the event that this never becomes a formal award, hopefully it can still generate a good number of top ten lists.

• Elizabeth Bear’s Jacob’s Ladder series.
• Greg Bear’s Hull Zero Three
• the recent YA Across the Universe by Beth Revis
• Neal Stephenson’s Anathem – I gave up on this after a few hundred pages, intimidated by the length and unsure if the destination was worth it, but I’m willing to pick it up again.
• Some of Alastair Reynolds’ Revelation Space books.
• Gene Wolfe’s Long Sun – I saw this tagged “generation ship” somewhere (possibly amazon) and have been meaning to read it anyway.
• Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero

I’m sure there’s plenty else out there. I’d LOVE to find something where this is a bit more routine and a little less disaster movie if that makes any sense. Any and all suggestions appreciated.

I wrote, in my review of A Game of Thrones that the book bounced around between feeling like a soap opera, a murder mystery or some strange political beast. This book is all about war. Some clashes occur “off screen.” Battles are meticulously prepared for. Dangerous enemies are scouted. Assassinations happen. Castles change hands. Deception.

The strong B plot across the narrow sea, with the dragons continues to progress. It’s suggested that there’s a link between the maturing dragons and the general resurgence of magic in the realm, but I’m not convinced if they are the cause or just another symptom, like the wolf dreams and the more potent than expected wildfire. In any case, dragons == cool. Glad at least one of them got to do something more interesting than just sit around and be awesome.

Just as magic is coming into it’s own, 2 of the 3 major religions show off a bit of their power. In the first book, we had the old gods which were associated with the heart trees and the children of the forest. There was also the newer 7 gods which were more of a Greek or Roman pantheon. Clash introduces a third which involves worship of the “lord of light.” This new religion seems to have power over poisons and shadows and such things that seem a bit at odds with the whole “lord of light.” There seems to be a strong connection between the old gods, the wolf dreams, ancestors in general and the Stark clan in particular. All in all I like the tone that 3 distinct (and mostly distinct from our world) belief systems bring to the world.

I like that we got new point of view characters (was it just the two?), both new to the story and minor a minor character elevated to PoV status. Chatting with a friend that just finished book 4, I’ve been made aware that the PoV cast continues to expand. It’s also been brought to my attention that book 3 is sort of the close of Act 1. Clash added more threads than it tied off, but it built some strong foundations for the story to build on in future books. It also had a spectacular battle and significant peril for all our favorite PoV characters.

• The God Engines by John Scalzi (sample read)
• Sensation by Nick Mamatas (sample read)
• Federations edited by John Joseph Adams
• Rule 34 by Charles Stross
• Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
• Harmony by Project Itoh
• Engineering Infinity by Jonathan Strahan
• The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
• Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
• The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan (sample read … purchased)
• The Urban Fantasy Anthology edited by Peter S. Beagle & Joe R. Lansdale
• Dark Forces: The 25th Anniversary Edition edited by Kirby McCauley
• Blindsight by Peter Watts (sample read)
• Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy edited by Ellen Datlow (sample read – MOST of a Harry Dresden story)
• The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld (have the sequel in dead tree form)
• The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar ($4.79 is the price of Angry Robot Kindle eBooks … both lower than average and unusual – no complaint here)
• The Best of Michael Swanwick
• The Tyranny of the Night by Glen Cook (got a review copy of the 3rd in the series)
• How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months! by John Locke
• Nascence: 17 Stories That Failed and What They Taught Me by Tobias Buckell
• The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
• Year’s Best SF 15 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
• The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
• Embassytown by China Mieville
• Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
• Servant of a Dark God by John Brown (sample read)
• The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
• Soft Apocalypse by Will McIntosh
• To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
• I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells (sample read – purchased – read – AWESOME, but it seems that I forgot to write a review – bad blogger.

And of course, while compiling this list, I came across a good number that I really should add, but I will NOT go down that rabbit hole tonight. Anyone want to chime in and suggest one of these as a MUST READ?

I’m always fascinated by experiments in electronic publishing. In this case, a pared down version of the standard kindle subscription, with one short story and a lot of the non-fiction content. I enjoyed the short story, Overtaken by Karl Bunker. It’s a simple tale, told in the dark between stars, about what makes us human.

This is actually the first magazine that I’ve read on the kindle and I like the organization of the articles. I’m still not quite sure how amazon handles past issues, but as long as I have easy access to all the issues since the start of my subscription, I’ll be trying out the full subscription and checking out other magazines as well.

Tim Pratt’s latest novel, Briarpatch, is dark (as any story with suicide as a major plot point must be), whimsical (it contains a vignette that’s a pastiche of Winnie the Poo as a zombie apocalypse apocalypse) and it’s tightly satisfying (this is doorstop epic with an economy of prose).

The title of Briarpatch is not very subtle. Like many fantasy works the kernel of it’s story is drawn from folklore. In this case Brear Rabbit in which the rabbit escapes from the fox by claiming the briarpatch is a scary place. Tim Pratt’s briarpatch is a series of non-linear shortcuts through variably probable dimensions. The novel starts in San Fanscisco, just as Pratt’s Marla Mason series did but it’s the multi-dimensional nature of the briarpatch that echos back through his writing. Strange Adventures of Rangergirl (his first published novel), Impossible Dreams (his Hugo award winning short story), and number of the Marla Mason books rely heavily on entering and investigating a world next door to ours. Briarpatch is an organic extension of these ideas, following an intriguing cast of characters, exploring some tough issues and proving again that Pratt can really spin a yarn.

The titular briar patch offers us views of very unlikely worlds. Time and presumably other aspects of physics behave differently. Mermaids and Giants and vampires and more that would become central to a more run of the mill novel become part of the scenery. This meta world next door to ours is introduced as a convenient, if dangerous and somewhat eccentric, method for avoiding rush hour traffic. It’s more than that and the scenery makes a point of not staying flatly in the background.

The characters include a ghost, a magic car and its driver, a depressed and jaded immortal, a sociopath, a doppelganger and an explorer. Fitting each of the characters into the above mentioned pigeon holes, is a fun exercise for the reader. There’s also the central character of Darrin and his college buddy Nicholas. All the characters are actively seeking something. They manipulate and are manipulated. They find shortcuts in the briarpatch. Relationships solidify and crumble. Darrin is seeking to understand why his girlfriend left him and then, a few months later, committed suicide by jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge. This central mystery introduces him to the larger cast of characters. Once everyone’s role is understood, the briar patch gives everything a good shake and we get to see exactly who gets what they’re seeking.

Suicide and Cult are both mentioned on the back cover of Briarpatch. Death is a big issue wrestled with in the novel and more than one character are stuck like a broken record in the denial stage of grieving. Their lives are defined by those that they’ve lost. The implications of immortality are explored and fit nicely into the structure of the narrative. What does someone who can’t die fear? Just as the briarpatch lies outside of our consensus reality, each character, whether obsessed with life or obsessed with death, offers us something to think about what lies beyond our current existence. These are weighty issues, offering much for contemplation, but there’s plenty of action and exploration (and sex and food and photography) along the way.

The first 1/2 of the novel involves most of the characters confused and disconnected and the narrative structure mirrors this confusion. The story is presented non-linearly and almost every character gets a point of view scene. Later as everyone has a bit more clue about what’s going on, the story settles into smaller group of point of view characters and proceeds in a more straight forward march toward the final conflicts. There’s a portion of the second half that provides a relatively short montage of months of travel in the briarpatch. It works infinitely better than just saying “X months later,” but I suspect an entire series of novels could fill that space like the real numbers between 2 integers. This is my favorite Pratt so far and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes their fantasy mixed with contemporary reality, but is searching for something more (and weirder) than the typical urban fantasy.

I haven’t read it in a while, but I found myself thinking back to Stephen King’s Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut.

Chizine, long before it started publishing books, was one of the first places to publish Tim Pratt’s short fiction, so it’s nice to see this novel find a home there. The publishing industry seems to have taken a step sideways into the Briarpatch in the last couple dozen months. Tim is mapping quite an interesting if challenging course. He’s been serializing novels for free online to great effect and good deal of his short fiction is available with attractive covers wherever quality eBooks are sold.

I immensely enjoyed “Plus or Minus.” It’s got gritty hard SF and an equally gritty cast of characters. The ending is tragic and heartwarming and quite satisfying. I read it in The Best SF and Fantasy of the Year: vol 5. I then noticed that it was available in this eBook.

The Strangeways series of eBooks is organized like a magazine. There are 2 fiction pieces, a non-fiction piece and 2 interviews. What makes it interesting is that it’s all by and/or about James Patrick Kelly. This initially through me for a bit of a loop. But it was 99 cents, so I grabbed a copy. I’d already read the first story, so I skipped straight to the non-fiction piece on the difficulties of interstellar flight based on our current understanding of science. I then started in on the 2nd fiction piece. There’s an amusing recurring typo where mentions of the speed of light get concatenated with surrounding words thatcis, atc, etc. (see what I did there?) but it doesn’t detract from the story.

Jim mentions Pablo Defendini as the designer of this eBook. Pablo makes great use of the format you’d expect from Asimov’s or many other SFF short fiction markets. There’s great cover art (by John Picacio), a complete table of contents (eBooks lacking this are quite annoying) and a great mix of content. Another design tidbit that’s worth pointing out. Pablo makes use of a second text color to great effect. It adds a depth to the text that stands out from the average eBook and the color chosen works equally well on all 3 kindle android backgrounds. I like to read with white text on a black background and I’ve had some bad experiences with font colors that blatantly don’t work in that context. kudos.

After spending a short time with this eBook my main reaction is that I’d love to see the same treatment for other writers I love. Paul di Filippo comes immediately to mind since he has such a large catalog of great short fiction and non-fiction articles. A number of other writers that are already embracing eBooks for their short fiction might consider similar bundles. Possibly others have, and I’d love to be pointed in that direction. This could also be a way for a small group of authors to cross promote each others’ works. In any case, I’m looking forward to checking out the second issue of Strangeways and will be keeping my eye out for other Pablo Defendini designed eBooks.

• Adventures in SciFi Publishing Interviews. Lots of interviews. When I think of “podcast” this is the first thing that comes to mind… even if I’m not thinking about an alphabetical list.
• Clarkesworld Magazine – Fiction. Science Fiction and Fantasy. Originals
• Coverville – Music podcast. All covers.
• Escape Pod – Fiction. Science Fiction. Mostly “Reprints.”
• Lightspeed Magazine – Fiction. Science Fiction. I just started following this as a podcast.
• PodCastle – Fiction. Fantasy.
• Pseudopod – Fiction. Horror.
• StarShipSofa – “Audio Magazine.” I’ve only listened to a few episodes and they were quite long, but they have great content.
• The Coode Street Podcast – I just added this today, but an editor I love (Jonathan Strahan) and a professional reviewer I love (Gary K. Wolf) should result in a great show
• The Dragon Page – Cover to Cover – Interviews. Also love the rundown of books received.
• The Functional Nerds – Interviews. Recently added to my list.
• The SF Signal Podcast – Interviews and large panel discussions.
• The Skiffy and Fanty Show – A podcast.
• Variant Frequencies – Fiction. Dark and Weird.
• Writing Excuses – Craft and discussion of SFF topics. 15 minute podcasts. Recently added to my list.

What do YOU listen to?

I love the “shelving instructions” that come with Angry Robot books. In the case of Hard Spell it says file under:

• urban fantasy
• Dial V For Vampire
• Forbidden Spells
• Bite Club
• Scranton By Night

I was playing L.A. Noire while I read this, and I’m a major fan of CSI and similar similar procedurals. Hard Spell works very well in this context. Murders, crime scenes, theft, interrogations, informants, and pretty much everything you’d expect. It’s a story well told and a compelling mystery. And that’s before we discuss the urban fantasy elements. If this is going to be “An Occult Crimes Unit Investigation,” there have to be fantasy elements.

We’re quickly brought up to speed about how the vampires, werewolves and other old world fantasy creatures made their way to the new world, and Scranton, Pennsylvania in particular. After the initial introduction these elements are woven rather seamlessly into the story. Magic in and of itself isn’t a crime (not every character agrees with this), but anything that harms others is just as illegal in this world as in ours. The plot involves forbidden magic and its horrifying collateral damage. However, the process of solving the crime involves fairly standard police work. Our narrator specializes in crimes by and against the supernatural. I get the vibe of Law and Order: SVU. The people that work this desk are viewed apprehensively by other cops, but respected – both by their colleagues and those they protect.

Munition choices are a bit more interesting. Interpersonal relationships are complicated by magic. Demonic possession is an acceptable legal defense. Witch hunters, cultists and internal affairs all complicate things. The final confrontation successfully ramps up all elements of the story. It feels very earned – all the pieces falling into place.

The main character is NOT incredibly forthcoming about himself, but his relationship with his partner, his daughter, his coworkers and others flesh out someone that I wouldn’t mind following for a few more books. Each of those other characters has plenty of room to grow as well. Scranton seems to be a city very much of our times and I look forward to more detail in upcoming books.

I ran across this list of books I was keeping before I started this blog and it seemed like it would be good to save for posterity.

[2007 09 16] The Hidden Family: Book Two of Merchant Princes, Charles Stross (amazon)

[2007 05 00] The Faded Sun: Kesrith, C.J. Cherryh (amazon)

[2007 03 00] Knight, Gene Wolfe (amazon)

[2005 15 15] First Kyu, Dr. Sung-Hwa Hong

[2005 01 23] Factoring Humanity, Robert J. Sawyer (amazon)

[2004 11 28] Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut (amazon) — as of this writing Antiwar.com puts the American death toll in Iraq at 1235. So it goes.

[2004 10 07] The Dragon Style (Learn to Play Go, Volume III), Jeong Soo-hyun, Janice Kim (amazon)

[2004 09 15] The Way of the Moving Horse (Learn to Play Go, Volume II), Janice Kim, Jeong Soo-Hyun (amazon)

[2004 08 19] Learn to Play Go: A Master’s Guide to the Ultimate Game (Volume I), Janice Kim (amazon)

[2004 07 15] Jennifer Government, Max Barry (amazon)

[2004 07 10] Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud — This book is amazing. Every panel of every page is jam-packed with information. I’d recomend this to anyone attempting to tell a story in any medium. (amazon)

[2004 07 01] The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them, Amy Goodman (amazon)

[2004 06 14] Solitaire, Kelley Eskridge (amazon) — If William Gibson attempted to combine Clockwork Orange with Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank redemption, the result might be something like Solitaire. Eskridge takes social engineering to new levels by placing a ‘project manager’ into the glorified role where we expect to see a hacker or a cowboy or a fighter pilot. This is speculative fiction that business majors can appreciate, and it’s an impressive first novel.

[2004 06 08] Weapons of Mass Deception The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq, Sheldon Rampton & John Stauber. (amazon)

[]There have been other books. I sorely need to update this page.

[] On a Pale Horse, Piers Anthony. (amazon) — I’ve read quite a few books by Piers Anthony over the years, but the Incarnations of Immortality series keeps getting recommended to me. I was quite impressed.

[2004 03 20] The Etched City, KJ Bishop. (amazon) — This proved that everyting that makes a story epic, personal, unique, and impossible to put down can be packed into 330 pages. I feel like I just finished reading a 2100 page trilogy. And this was her first novel. I eagerly await more from Bishop!

[2004 03 11] Royal Assassin, Robin Hobb (amazon) — I’m relearning the lesson that a great fantasy series can be quite adictive. I love the play between the Skill and the Wit and the intrigue of the royal family. Full of unforgettable characters, this series just keeps getting better. Now to find a copy of Assassin’s Quest…

[2004 03 06] A Case of Conscience, James Blish (amazon)

[2004 03 05] Maul, Tricia Sullivan (amazon) — One man holds the key to the survival of all men. Sullivan, with a dark wit, brings to life his final struggle with the intelligent viruses living within. Grab this as soon as it hits shelves in the states.

[2004 02 29] I am Legend, Richard Matheson (amazon)

[2004 02 28] Assassin’s Apprentice, Robin Hobb (amazon)

[2004 02 15] Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Cory Doctorow (amazon)

[2004 02 01] Hominids, Robert J. Sawyer (amazon)

I just reviewed A Game of Thrones, and while I have fantasy on the brain, it seemed like a good moment to catch up on the other fantasy I’ve read fairly recently. In this case, Rides a Dread Legion, Book One of the Demonwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist. Roughly 2 dozen other books precede this one in the overall Riftwar Universe. I don’t make a habit of jumping into the middle of a series, but I grabbed this book for the kindle because it was promoted cheap (or free, I don’t exactly recall) and I recognized the author’s name from bookstore shelves over the years.

It’s clear fairly early in the book that there’s a ton of history that I’ve missed out on, but nothing confused me. There’s plenty familiar in this book. Elves and dragons and magic users and demons all fit comfortably into that generic space I file fantasy before slapping qualifiers on it like urban or epic or literary. The flourishes make this universe stand out a bit. There are portals to other planets and plenty of interesting things seem to have happened on the other side of these portals in prior volumes. There’s a guy that’s married to an elf queen that also happens to channel the spirit of an ancient and powerful dragon. The demon legion that’s the big threat of this book is basically a mixture of distilled evil and entropy personified. A visit to a world ravaged by these demons reveals a wasteland reminiscent of your favorite grey goo scenario.

– aside — Before I go any further, jump over and read this piece by Sam Sykes. He compares Mieville to Salvatore or more importantly points out that we judge them differently just as mainstream critics judge “literature” differently than speculative fiction. I do this. I have a special place in my heart for the hundreds of Star Trek, Star Wars and Doctor Who books I’ve read over the years. I don’t really expect ANY of them to measure up to the best “real” science fiction. I find myself struggling with that as I review a book that I enjoyed in spite of feeling that it falls closer to Salvator than Mieville using Sykes’ Rubric. — back to the review –

The stakes are high. Whole worlds have been decimated by the demon horde that has set it’s sights on the world of our heroes. The remnants of an interplanetary empire of elves has also returned, fleeing the same wave of demons. The body count is high. Important characters don’t survive. There are a TON of interesting ideas referenced and occasionally explored. I think that’s what irked me the most about this book. At EVERY turn something physical could have been described more, a character’s motivations could have been fleshed out more, the magic and its consequences could have been described in more detail. Everything could have been less generic. That said, this is a book that makes me want to read its sequel and track down the initial volumes of the whole Riftwar Universe.

I have more in my backlog of reviews to work on and at least one will let me ruminate on fantasy some more and I’ve just dipped my toe into A Clash of Kings

There is a lot of hype surrounding A Song of Ice and Fire of which A Game of Thrones is the first book. I knew the name George R.R. Martin from the Wild Card series of mosaic novels, but I’ve stubbornly maintained a blind preference for science fiction over fantasy (easing slightly in the last decade) and thus never picked up A Game of Thrones – until now. With the HBO series starting I figured I had 3 options:

1. pay for cable.
2. ignore much of fandom for the next few years
3. read the first four books in preparation for the release of the 5th this summer. Somehow I felt entitled to that 5th book even before I started the first.

What made option 3 particularly easy to choose was discovering that I could get eBooks from the library ( Los Angeles Public Library in my case ) and as my wife just noted as she saw me composing this, I DEVOUR books in electronic form. She’s experienced my random method of pulling books off my shelf and reading them for an hour only to pick up another. I actually have favorite passages in books I’ve neither finished nor appropriately started. But eBooks I read. On my phone that is always with me. Sometimes on my Kindle if it’s closer than my phone. My sample isn’t spectacularly large, but I’ve only had access to both a smart phone and Kindle for a few months.

And now for the review. 90% of the people that read this review will have already read A Game of Thrones and probably A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows and possibly even A Dance with Dragons due to the persistent nature of the internet. For the rest of you, here’s a quick rundown of what makes this series good reading:

• EVERY point of view character is sympathetic. They are also firmly at odds with every other point of view character. I fear for each of their lives in every chapter, often quite rightly. It’s good that he has so many, or he’d run out.
• If there are a lot of point of view characters (there are), there are SCORES of other characters to get invested in. Even the animals have character. The wolves are as distinct as their owners. There are ravens and horses and even some cats that have more personality than some main characters in a lesser work.
• The magic of the world is in the past – mostly. It’s important. It’s referenced frequently and nonchalantly (that silly monk and his flaming sword [paraphrased] ). It seems to be hidden inside of a birthday cake waiting to burst free and go all Gandolf on a Balrog. The occasional prescient dreams, reanimated corpses and mysterious dragon eggs remind us we’re reading fantasy, but the story and the characters are plenty interesting on their own.
• It’s hard at times to put your finger on whether you’re reading a murder mystery, a soap opera or the bastard offspring of a political campaign and an insane asylum. It’s all of the above, none (aside from the murder mystery) I usually care for, but as I mentioned before these characters evoke emotions. Good or Bad, there’s hardly any Blah.
• The shifts between point of view characters are used to great effect. I love that a convenient bit of amnesia leaves the reader with just a tad bit more insight into the conspiracies than any of the other characters have. I love how we see the start of a battle from the point of view of one character and hear how it ends 3rd hand from a different point of view. I love how a pretty major B plot teases us throughout the entire book, laying the groundwork (I hope) for future volumes.

There is a TON going on in these books. When Martin can soften one of the meanest characters in the book by having him show kindness to one of the easiest to hate characters, he can do pretty much anything. I wouldn’t bet any amount of money as to which characters survive the series. I eagerly look forward to seeing more of what’s north of the wall. The two climactic scenes both sent chills down my spine. Believe the hype, but be sure you’ve got the stamina. At roughly 800 pages, this is by far the shortest of the volumes. That in and of itself would have kept me away in the past, but now we have eBooks and that pleases me greatly.

A Game of Thrones on Tagshadow.

Bonus points for multiple references to the heat death of the universe.

Pratt’s Hugo Winning short story “Impossible Dreams,” was filled with the delightfully imagined movie trivia of a universe next door to ours. Broken Mirrors, the 5th Marla Mason novel (1), has plenty of fun pop culture references, but its alternate dimension is not one I’d care to visit. Probably not much of movie industry either.

The road to publication for Broken Mirrors was likewise torn from a different universe than the preceding 4 volumes. Serialized online in 2010, it’s now available in print from The Merry Blacksmith Press. Aside from it’s path to publication, it’s exactly what a fan of the Marla Mason series would expect.

The big bad in this volume is Marla’s iconic white and purple cloak. This cloak is much more than a cloak and while its healing (and not so healing) properties have proven useful in past volumes, there were pretty significant hints that it had malevolent intentions. And malevolent intentions it has. Many bodies hit the floor, the fabric of the universe is torn and not even gods are spared.

The various schools of magic are interesting as usual. The fight scenes are more frequent and a step above what’s appeared before. Seeing Rondeau come into his own is quite satisfying. Pratt’s treatment of multiple dimensions (with references to Star Trek, Sliders and more in the dialog) was hinted at in Blood Engines but is significantly elaborated in Broken Mirrors.

Broken Mirrors is a satisfying bookend to the series, but Pratt leaves a clear opening for telling more stories in Marla’s universe. The short story “Shark’s Teeth,” that arrived in chapbook form with my print copy of Broken Mirrors (I donated to the project when it was being serialized) solidifies how some of those stories could play out. Here’s hoping for more Marla.

• 1.There are also a number of short stories more or less related to the series (see tim’s comment on my review of Spell Games.) and a serialized prequel, Bone Shop.

Filed under: Review Tagged: fantasy, marla mason, multiple dimensions, online serial, Tim Pratt, urban fantasy ]]> http://mentatjack.com/2011/03/06/review-broken-mirrors-by-t-a-pratt/feed/ 0 34.237369 -118.531722 34.237369 -118.531722 MentatJack BrokenMirrorsweb http://mentatjack.com/2010/08/29/in-the-flesh-amelia-beamer-and-gary-k-wolfe/ http://mentatjack.com/2010/08/29/in-the-flesh-amelia-beamer-and-gary-k-wolfe/#comments Sun, 29 Aug 2010 22:28:25 +0000 mentatjack http://mentatjack.com/?p=2373 ]]> Yesterday I went to a book signing for Amelia Beamer’s The Loving Dead at Dark Delicacies. You might recall that I didn’t have much enthusiasm for the standard format that author appearances take at this venue. However, in this case, the result was a chance to sit and chat with Amelia Beamer and Gary K. Wolfe. They were in town representing Locus at the Writer’s of the Future.

As much as I like meeting writers, I found myself particularly excited to meet Gary, whose reviews I’ve been reading in Locus for years. Gary is one of the judges for the World Fantasy Award. I’d entered the current nominees into TagShadow earlier that morning ( Howie Nominees ). I pointed out that I noticed the Locus Recommended Reading list from February had included most of the nominees. Turns out that that’s pretty much the point. The list exists (and is timed) to bring attention to award worthy fiction that should be considered for all the major awards. If you’re not subscribed to Locus you should be.

Amelia was one of 4 Clarion graduates at bookstore that day, and I always love hearing stories about Clarion. Everyone discussed the difference between the writing advice and doses of reality delivered at Clarion vs the WotF experience. Amelia shared the advice that Charles Brown always gave when speaking to WotF participants. “THIS is the high point of your writing career.” Black tie awards shows are not really how the science fiction community roll.

I came away with a signed copy of Amelia’s book ( Dark Delicacies also has copies of The living Dead 2, which she has a story in and signed ) and a renewed desire to contribute to the science fiction community… and spent the rest of the day playing World of Warcraft with friends. Fun distractions aside, I actually have been contributing in my own small way. Check out my latest reviews over at Adventures in SciFi Publishing and catch up our latest shows.


Filed under: misc Tagged: Amelia Beamer, Gary K. Wolfe ]]> http://mentatjack.com/2010/08/29/in-the-flesh-amelia-beamer-and-gary-k-wolfe/feed/ 0 34.237369 -118.531722 34.237369 -118.531722 MentatJack http://mentatjack.com/2010/07/10/a-gift-from-the-culture-by-iain-m-banks/ http://mentatjack.com/2010/07/10/a-gift-from-the-culture-by-iain-m-banks/#comments Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:16:22 +0000 mentatjack http://mentatjack.com/?p=2123 ]]>

It’s almost always a combination of things that instill in me a strong desire to read one thing in particular. It’s difficult to overcome the inertia of wanting to read EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING has a lot of mass. In this case, I’d been using a SF Signal Mind Meld to improve the Space Opera TagShadow. I’d also been rather disturbed recently by the accusations (1, 2, 3 and you can gather the larger picture from comments and links from those posts) against Night Shade Books. More important to the points I draw in this post, than my reasons for choosing what to read, a small piece of the EVERYTHING I keep trying to read is the Shine anthology… What I was drawn to in particular this morning was my copy of Iain M. Bank’s collection The State of the Art, which I purchased a while ago direct from NSB.

The Problem with Utopias and Labels

I approached the collection this morning with a desire to quickly grok the Culture, so I first read Banks’ notes on “A Few Notes on the Culture” at the back of the book before proceeding to read “A Gift From the Culture,” which seems to be the first Culture story Banks wrote. Reading about any utopia, even one as elegantly thought out as Bank’s Culture, causes me to immediately start looking for the holes. What type of people would find this particular utopia hell. This is what both makes me wary of the Optimistic SF anthology I mentioned and draws me toward it. The exceptions in a utopia, the arguments about edge cases, the dissidents, everything that perturbs equilibrium–these are the things that paradoxically create for me a believable and approachable utopia.

I was chatting with my wife, as we orbited the CSUN library on our nightly walk, about how my talent for web development (and previously physics) stems largely from my ability (and proclivity) to generalize. The same issue that’s fairly easy to see for utopias, simply the clichéd “the exceptions prove the rule,” is important for all generalizations. I can geek out over a more rigorous formulation of that idea, but I’d rather get to my point without your eyes glazing over. Talking about science fiction or any sub genres or pretty much any way we label the fiction we enjoy as rigidly defined by boundary conditions is like defining a utopia only by the things that make it desirable. Science fiction is NOT all set in the future and it’s those wonderful exceptions to that and other standard boundary conditions that draw me to writers like Ted Chiang.

Introducing the Utopia with some Noir

I love that Iain M. Banks introduces us to the Culture via a story that is pure noir. The main character in “A Gift From the Culture” is caught up in the seedy underbelly of a “primitive” space faring society that isn’t part of the Culture. Pretty much every element of the story is used to describe the Culture in contrast to a closer, darker, grittier future. That the main character (and his nature as a representative of the culture) is used as a force multiplier against the Culture wraps the whole incomplete description of the Culture into a tidy nugget that is just begging for elaboration. Lucy for us all, this was only Banks’ first gift to us from the Culture.


Filed under: genre musings, Review Tagged: Iain M Banks, Night Shade Books, noir, Short Story, space opera, utopia ]]> http://mentatjack.com/2010/07/10/a-gift-from-the-culture-by-iain-m-banks/feed/ 2 MentatJack The State of the Art http://mentatjack.com/2010/07/02/audio-post-2/ http://mentatjack.com/2010/07/02/audio-post-2/#comments Sat, 03 Jul 2010 03:32:18 +0000 mentatjack http://mentatjack.com/2010/07/02/audio-post-2 ]]>

Filed under: misc ]]> http://mentatjack.com/2010/07/02/audio-post-2/feed/ 0 MentatJack http://mentatjack.com/2010/07/01/bacon/ http://mentatjack.com/2010/07/01/bacon/#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:00:27 +0000 mentatjack http://mentatjack.com/?p=2038 ]]> I knew that John Scalzi had a special relationship with bacon. I’ve had his Old Man’s War on my shelf since I reviewed Zoe’s Tale. I finally got around to starting the novel and was pleased that bacon entered the story before page 50. And it wasn’t just a passing reference. Bacon was integrated into a thought experiment which seems to have implications for the plot.

</Bacon>


Filed under: misc Tagged: bacon, John Scalzi ]]> http://mentatjack.com/2010/07/01/bacon/feed/ 0 MentatJack http://mentatjack.com/2010/06/13/review-metatropolis/ http://mentatjack.com/2010/06/13/review-metatropolis/#comments Mon, 14 Jun 2010 06:19:51 +0000 mentatjack http://mentatjack.com/?p=1888 ]]>

The Tor edition of Metatropolis was released last week, and it’s a book very much worthy of entering its third incarnation. The edition pictured above was released by Subterranean Press last summer and this collection started as a production for Audible in 2008. I bought both of those previous versions.

The stories in this collection share a world. It’s a world where ubiquitous computing, augmented reality and other technologies have enabled the implementation of experimental social structures. These are NOT, as is stated in more than one story, utopias, but practical systems that might eventually offer a better way of life for their participants.

In the Forests of the Night by Jay Lake

This works fairly well as a straightforward spy story. It also does a great job of introducing many of the ideas and technology shared by all the stories. More so than the other stories it makes clear that there are powers in this world other than the city states that dominate this collection. Traditional governments and large corporations still exist, but they’re on no more than an even footing with the “civilization 2.0″ that’s popping up like mushrooms in this future. This story draws many parallels between political structures of the last century and the social networks of now. I find it quite interesting how at there seems to be a scale (network size or population) where the ideas really mesh.

Stochasti-City by Tobias S. Buckell

This takes the idea of the Mechanical Turk and has a field day with it. I’d not thought about how terrorism and urban warfare could be viewed through this lens. The story touches on these ideas, but it gets REALLY good when a combination of flash mobs and social engineering bring a city to its knees. Three cheers for jump starting a sustainable future, using loop holes in international law. The character arc of the protagonist was more of a hockey stick than an arc, but overall the story was strong enough to stand on its own.

The Red in the Sky is Our Blood by Elizabeth Bear

This story REALLY got me thinking about how many sustainable ideas are difficult to achieve without the existence of a capitalist/industrial structure to build off of. This is the stuff that GREAT science fiction is made of. The story itself involves the protagonist’s introduction into a meritocratic society. The events of the story bring into question the viability of the particular social experiment that nonetheless triumphs in the short-term. This story is the pragmatically optimistic heart of the collection.

Utere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis by John Scalzi

This was a simple story, told with the humor I’ve come to expect from Scalzi. Here we have a city where you are either gainfully employed or deported and the privileged slacker that has to learn the consequences of his actions. I like the speculative elements – genetically engineered livestock used for significantly more than food and the very real question of how to introduce any type of technology into a society with out the resources to make use of it. I found the story itself startlingly predictable, yet oddly satisfying.

To Hie from Far Cilenia by Karl Schroeder

This was unquestionably my favorite of the lot. The main plot follows an Eastern European investigator attempting to track down some stolen nuclear material. The investigation leads into a series of nested alternate reality games that make extensive use of the augmented reality glasses we’ve seen in other stories. To an extent this story is an allegory which describes the theme of the entire collection. This story appeals to the MMO gamer in me, the part of me that loves a good mystery and the part of me that gets frustrated by the very concept of geo-political borders. This is what you’d get if the China Miévile that wrote The City & The City tried his had at cyberpunk.

Final Thoughts

I’d have loved to see Bacigalupi or Doctorow’s take on this world as they seem to have written more about these ideas than the authors in the collection. I guess that’s another way of saying read them if you like this and vice versus. The audio production was top notch across the board. I highly recommend this collection, particularly to fans of near future science fiction.


Filed under: Review Tagged: Audible, Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, John Scalzi, Karl Schroeder, science fiction, Subterranean Press, Tobias S. Buckell, Tor ]]> http://mentatjack.com/2010/06/13/review-metatropolis/feed/ 1 34.237369 -118.531722 34.237369 -118.531722 MentatJack scalzi09_b http://mentatjack.com/2010/06/04/review-windup-girl-by-paolo-bacigalupi/ http://mentatjack.com/2010/06/04/review-windup-girl-by-paolo-bacigalupi/#comments Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:06:40 +0000 mentatjack http://mentatjack.com/?p=1892 ]]>

I loved Bacigalupi’s short story collection Pump Six and Other Stories ( my review ). Two of the stories were explicitly set in the same universe as The Windup Girl. “The Calorie Man” established the post-oil agri-tech that drives much of Windup Girl’s plot and “The Yellow Card Man” firmly establishes that Bacigalupi can believably write in the Thai setting of Windup Girl.

Bacigalupi writes DARK. The world of Windup Girl is a future where we didn’t make it to the stars. We ran out of oil, the superpowers crumbled under their own weight, and disease swept over both humanity and its staple crops. We survived as a species with a significant amount of genetic engineering. Unique genetic information and the knowledge to manipulate it are the ultimate commodity in this future. The plot swirls around a small nation that has the former and representatives of those with the latter.

The cast of point of view characters is unusually large. Knowing the motivations of minor characters adds a fractal complexity to the story. Everyone is working at cross purposes. I really like how the greed of an assistant, the gratitude of a child worker, and the desire for revenge all build a house of cards. The “main” characters inevitably discover how fragile their foundation is.

Lighter than air flight, pedal powered computers, liquefied coal powered luxury vehicles, giant elephants genetically engineered to efficiently convert crops into usable energy, a plague of invisible cats, and an discarded, over-engineered, beautiful young lady. The interesting mixture of technology makes this a fun read. It’s an important book for 2 reasons. It firmly avoids the anglo-centric nature of much science fiction. That would be reason enough for it to stand out from other books. The second reason is that it shows a world that’s only lightly extrapolated from our own. To mangle the Gibson quote slightly, this dystopic setting is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet. Starvation, energy scarcity, and agribusiness as a powerful international player all exist today. It’s quite believable that they could be THE central issues in a not too distant future.

Like the Windup Girl, whose very existence is the result of narrowly avoiding the trash, the world Bacigalupi creates is ever so slightly hopeful in that humanity has at least managed to survive. It’s well worth your time to read and quite deserving of its Nebula Win.

---

I’d been meaning to write this review for a while. I saw a ton of tweets about this video today, but haven’t watched it yet. I suspect it might be awesome.



---

And don’t forget my Machinery of Light Giveaway. David J. Williams’ future is 180 degrees different from Bacigalupi’s, but both frighten me.

Filed under: Review Tagged: agri-business, alternative energy, energy scarcity, espionage, genetic engineering, near future, novel, Paolo Bacigalupi, post oil, science fiction ]]> http://mentatjack.com/2010/06/04/review-windup-girl-by-paolo-bacigalupi/feed/ 3 34.237369 -118.531722 34.237369 -118.531722 MentatJack 145_large5 http://mentatjack.com/2010/06/02/new-books-anthologies/ http://mentatjack.com/2010/06/02/new-books-anthologies/#comments Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:36:07 +0000 mentatjack http://mentatjack.com/?p=1964 ]]>

5 examples of why I love my wife.

She brought me these 4 anthologies back when she visited our favorite used bookstore in Tacoma, Washington. I can’t wait to start reading.

• The Year’s Best Science Fiction : Seventeenth Annual Collection
• The Year’s Best Science Fiction : Nineteenth Annual Collection
• The Year’s Best Science Fiction : Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection
• The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology – This is my favorite. Edited by John W. Campbell, Jr. It has stories by Asimov, Del Rey, Heinlein, Sturgeon, and others.

The fifth thing would be the Aloo Gobi she made for dinner tonight. I found the heirloom potatoes. She did her spice magic. Yum ensued.




Filed under: New Books ]]> http://mentatjack.com/2010/06/02/new-books-anthologies/feed/ 0 34.237369 -118.531722 34.237369 -118.531722 MentatJack Anthologies Aloo Gobi