Say you have 2 chances to enter a contest. One has no strings attached, but the other requires telling others about the contest. That second entry will most likely decrease your chances to win. The calculation becomes quite interesting once you increase the number of prizes and have a sample of entries to review before you make your choice. In the case that inspired this train of thought there are 5 identical prizes and so far there are 40 people entered into the contest. Half of those boosted the signal… I may have overstated my desire to analyze this.

Sorry about burying the lead. No matter how this calculates out I’ll pretty much always come down on the side of boosting the signal. Check out this GREAT interview and enter for a chance to win one of 5 copies of The Year’s Best Horror, Vol 4 edited by Ellen Datlow.

A post on facebook by Ellen Datlow turned me on to the interview/contest and it’s been a while since following a link was so fruitful.

• I was introduced to Erin Underwood, who is by all accounts super interesting.
• I was inspired to write a blog post. (I actually needed this. Thanks!)
• What is it about dark fiction or horror that captures your imagination as a writer or a reader? – I’ve bookmarked this interview so that I can reference these answers in the future. The answers are diverse, but a number of them say quite well what I find I have trouble expressing.

Good stuff.

• Just noticed Tor.com bookseller recommendations. Checkout both the B&N and Indie lists.
• Also at Tor.com there’s a series on early Star Trek books. I have fond memories of these.
• Night Shade Books is running a 50% off sale (4 book minimum) and selling a limited number of lifetime subscriptions ($2000).
• Random books from Cemetery Dance.

Best Novel

Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)
A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra)
Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit)
Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey)
Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (Orbit)

Best Novella

Countdown by Mira Grant (Orbit)
“The Ice Owl” by Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December 2011) – Hartwell/Cramer YB -
“Kiss Me Twice” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, June 2011)
“The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s, September/October 2011) – Strahan YB – Horton YB -
“The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” by Ken Liu (Panverse 3)
Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld / WSFA) – Dozois YB -

Best Novelette

“The Copenhagen Interpretation” by Paul Cornell (Asimov’s, July 2011) – Dozois YB -
“Fields of Gold” by Rachel Swirsky (Eclipse Four) – Horton YB -
“Ray of Light” by Brad R. Torgersen (Analog, December 2011)
“Six Months, Three Days” by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com) – Hartwell/Cramer YB -
“What We Found” by Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2011) – Strahan YB – Dozios YB -

Best Short Story

“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld, April 2011) – Strahan YB – Horton YB -
“The Homecoming” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s, April/May 2011)
“Movement” by Nancy Fulda (Asimov’s, March 2011)
“The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2011) – Strahan YB -
“Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue” by John Scalzi (Tor.com)

Best Related Work

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls, and Graham Sleight (Gollancz)
Jar Jar Binks Must Die… and Other Observations about Science Fiction Movies by Daniel M. Kimmel (Fantastic Books)
The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature by Jeff VanderMeer and S. J. Chambers (Abrams Image)
Wicked Girls by Seanan McGuire
Writing Excuses, Season 6 by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Jordan Sanderson

Best Graphic Story

Digger by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press)
Fables Vol 15: Rose Red by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)
Locke & Key Volume 4, Keys to the Kingdom written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
Schlock Mercenary: Force Multiplication written and illustrated by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton (The Tayler Corporation)
The Unwritten (Volume 4): Leviathan created by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. Written by Mike Carey, illustrated by Peter Gross (Vertigo)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

Captain America: The First Avenger, screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephan McFeely, directed by Joe Johnston (Marvel)
Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss; written by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R. R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten, and Alan Taylor (HBO)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, screenplay by Steve Kloves; directed by David Yates (Warner Bros.)
Hugo, screenplay by John Logan; directed by Martin Scorsese (Paramount)
Source Code, screenplay by Ben Ripley; directed by Duncan Jones (Vendome Pictures)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

“The Doctor’s Wife” (Doctor Who), written by Neil Gaiman; directed by Richard Clark (BBC Wales)
“The Drink Tank’s Hugo Acceptance Speech,” Christopher J Garcia and James Bacon (Renovation)
“The Girl Who Waited” (Doctor Who), written by Tom MacRae; directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Wales)
“A Good Man Goes to War” (Doctor Who), written by Steven Moffat; directed by Peter Hoar (BBC Wales)
“Remedial Chaos Theory” (Community), written by Dan Harmon and Chris McKenna; directed by Jeff Melman (NBC)

Best Semiprozine

Apex Magazine edited by Catherynne M. Valente, Lynne M. Thomas, and Jason Sizemore
Interzone edited by Andy Cox
Lightspeed edited by John Joseph Adams
Locus edited by Liza Groen Trombi, Kirsten Gong-Wong, et al.
New York Review of Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell, Kevin J. Maroney, Kris Dikeman, and Avram Grumer

Best Fanzine

Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
The Drink Tank edited by James Bacon and Christopher J Garcia
File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Christopher J Garcia, et al.
SF Signal edited by John DeNardo

Best Fancast

The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan & Gary K. Wolfe
Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alex Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts (presenters) and Andrew Finch (producer)
SF Signal Podcast, John DeNardo and JP Frantz, produced by Patrick Hester
SF Squeecast, Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente
StarShipSofa, Tony C. Smith

Best Professional Editor – Long Form

Lou Anders
Liz Gorinsky
Anne Lesley Groell
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Betsy Wollheim

Best Professional Editor – Short Form

John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Stanley Schmidt
Jonathan Strahan
Sheila Williams

Best Professional Artist

Dan dos Santos
Bob Eggleton
Michael Komarck
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio

Best Fan Artist

Brad W. Foster
Randall Munroe
Spring Schoenhuth
Maurine Starkey
Steve Stiles
Taral Wayne

Best Fan Writer

James Bacon
Claire Brialey
Christopher J Garcia
Jim C. Hines
Steven H Silver

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2010 or 2011, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).
Mur Lafferty
Stina Leicht
Karen Lord *
Brad R. Torgersen *
E. Lily Yu

*2nd year of eligibility

Nathan and Dave both read sections from their respective books and answered a few questions. Dave read a section with a confrontation between a multiple sword wielding fellow and sleepy man with a cross bow. 330 BC seems like it’ll be an interesting place/time with plenty of awesome extrapolated ancient technologies and Alexander (the not yet great) as the big bad. Dave is quite giddy when geeking out about about this period of history. Nathan read a fight between the titular character and a Centiger … that would be a large half man half tiger … Over the top crazy adventure fun. I’d read the first bit of this via the Kindle Preview. The chase through my neighborhood that starts the book really hooked me and the fight scene he read really sealed the deal.

I also came away with Night Shade Books’ latest year’s best.

Tor.com The Planecar Project – This seems to be a model that many online fiction venues are moving toward to monetize their offerings. Buy an eBook if you want to get the month’s content ASAP. It’s great, since the most passionate readers will get in on the action early and hopefully spread the word to watch for the content.

In May, Night Shade Books is launching a new fantasy series with Scourge of the Betrayer by new author Jeff Salyards. Hired to chronicle the exploits of a band of rugged Syldoon warriors, Arki finds himself both frightened and fascinated by the men’s enigmatic leader, Captain Braylar Killcoin. I like the effect an explicit writer/narrator can offer a work. I enjoyed that in Julian Comstock and the meta-fictional concepts Steven Erikson discusses in this interview entice me to start reading the series.

Subterranean Press has an extended (120 page) preview of The Providence Rider by Robert McCammon.

Orbit’s eBook deal of the month is Madness of Angels for $2.99

The LoA Story of the Week is Golden Baby by Alice Brown from American Fantastic Tales.

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• Cemetery Dance, small publisher of fine horror and such, has a new batch of eBooks from John Little (bargain priced at the moment), including the Bram Stoker nominated Ursa Major
• Tor and other Macmillan imprint eBook titles on sale over at Mysterious Galaxy — probably elsewhere as well if you prefer a different flavor of eBook. I for one am a bit giddy that I can read eBooks and still support my independent bookstore of choice.
• Orbit has lowered the price of This Is Not a Game. I’d been meaning to read this so I totally snapped it up for $2.99

Soon, Jenn will start her first signing. The new MG in Redondo Beach is AWESOME.

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– update –

I enjoyed chatting with Andy Romine before the signing. I’d met him at Amelia Beamer’s signing, where I also met Gary K. Wolfe. Andy has a story in the December issue of Light Speed. It’s a great character driven bit of space opera, chock full of cyborgs, distorted religion and an offer you can’t refuse.

I also caught up with some friends and friends of Jenn I’d met before. Chris did a great job taking pictures of everyone with their copies of the book.

The format Jenn and Sara settled on for their talk involved comparing and contrasting their books: Above World and Harbringer. It provided a lot of energy and I came away with a copy of Sara’s book as well. I was excited to see the size of the crowd and am glad I was a part of it. The dedicated event space is a great thing to have in a store.

It’s one thing to hear that MG had opened a new location in Redondo beach. It’s quite another thing to experience it. They have a very large space, cleanly broken up into SF, Mystery, YA and horror sections. There’s also a section of “curated literary fiction” and another for books on writing. I can see this becoming my go to store for anything I want as a physical book.

While NOT mannerpunk, if I understand things correctly, the audio book of Welcome to Bordertown sounds like it’ll be a pretty spectacular production. Poems that were really song lyrics have been realized in song. Neil Gaiman reading his poem. An original score. Male and female readers as fit each story in the collection. This is probably the first audio book I’ve ever eagerly awaited.

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Apex Magazine

• The Bread We Eat in Dreams

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

• Walls of Paper, Soft as Skin

Clarkesworld Magazine

• Tying Knots
• Ghostweight
• The Book of Phoenix
• Silently and Very Fast
• The Smell of Orange Groves

Fantasy Magazine

• The Sandal-Bride
• Red Dawn: A Chow Mein Western
• The Immortality Game

Flurb

• The Onset of a Paranormal Romance

Lightspeed

• All That Touches the Air
• Woman Leaves Room

Subterranean Magazine

• Younger Women
• Queen of Atlantis
• Valley of the Girls
• White Lines on a Green Field
• A Long Walk Home
• A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong

Tor.com

• The Dala Horse
• Ragnarok
• Six Months, Three Days
• The Iron Shirts

Be sure to let me know if I’ve missed anything on the list that’s available to read for free online.

• The Theater Professor I worked with in college turned me on to Gene Wolfe.
• The copy of Eat Pray Love I have because the company I work for, NOVICA, has an nice cameo.
• The copies of Maul, Finch, Cryptonomicon, The Machinery of Light and a few others are not the copies I actually read for one reason or another.
• There are a number of hand me downs from friends (mainly one, you know who you are) represented here.
• More than one of the Tor books were sent for me to review …
• Not sure if you can see them on the right side, but I’m amused by the juxtaposition of The Zombie Survival Guide and Master and Commander.

Any of these books spark a thought you want to share?

Stuff I’m working on:

• Learning and experimenting with Mahout – Machine learning for recommendations, clustering and classification
• Twitter API – First a simple SFF poll and then on to more interesting projects
• TagShadow Fixes
  • The large and interesting pages (like the global Locus Recommended Reading page) are unwieldy. Working on that.
  • Facebook shares reference wrong images. need to fix
  • Entering Locus Recommended Reading works

Reading:

• subscribed to Lightspeed, Asimov’s, Analog, Interzone, Locus
• listening regularly to fiction from Clarkesworld, EscapePod, PseudoPod, PodCastle, Drabblecast and Lightspeed
• Listening regularly to Coode St., AiSFP, Writing Excuses, SF Signal, Functional Nerds, The Writer and The Critic, SF Squeecast, Locus Round Tables and The Outer Alliance Podcast
• Tracking my reading at Good Reads. Annoying that I can’t track short fiction.

Blog posts I’m working on (some for quite a while):

• Review of Kafkaesque – Great anthology. Owe this review to Adventures in SciFi Publishing
• Review of Distress by Greg Egan. Written this review 3 times now. There’s a ton of good stuff here but I’m having organizational issues .
• there are more

Authors I’m trying to read more of (novels):

• Greg Egan
• Tricia Sullivan
• Marie Brennan
• Jay Lake
• Kim Stanley Robinson
• C. J. Cherryh

Fantasy series I’m in the middle of:

• Ken Scholes’ The Psalms of Isaak
• A Song of Ice and Fire

Thought:
Why are awards not given more often?

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.