The Weapon Makers by A.E. van Vogt
The Weapon Makers (1943), currently nominated for a 1944 Retro Hugo award, is the sequel to the better-known The Weapon Shops of Isher. As discussed in my review of The Weapon Shops of Isher, A.E. van Vogt was fond of creating fix-up novels based on his earlier works, and the creation and publication history of both of these novels in his EMPIRE OF ISHER duology is complicated.
August 12th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | A.E. Van_Vogt | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Jana: This week I nursed my pup through a minor eye infection, finished Mercedes Lackey’s Eye Spy (ultimately not as good as its FAMILY SPIES series predecessor, The Hills Have Spies), started JY Yang’s The Ascent to Godhood (the latest TENSORATE novella), assisted with building a workbench for my garage, and observed the continuing browning/desiccation of my yard. I hope to have time next week to work on my to-be-reviewed stack, since I’ve been getting some really neat-looking Autumn 2019 ARCs and want to get to them with a relatively clear conscience.
August 11th, 2019. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 2 comments |
Generation Robot: A Century of Science Fiction, Fact, and Speculation by Terri Favro
In Generation Robot: A Century of Science Fiction, Fact, and Speculation (2019), Terri Favro mixes journalistic research, speculative fiction, and memoir, along with a series of pop culture sidebars to create an engaging if sometimes frustrating look at the history of technology that led to our current hopes for true AI and Jetson-like robot.
Favro uses a relatively broad definition of “robot,” which I confess threw me a bit now and then, though it was easy enough to recalibrate my own pre-conceived concept and go along as she looked at driverless cars,
August 9th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Three Laws Lethal by David Walton
Best friends Tyler and Brandon are building a new ride-hailing service that uses autonomous vehicles. Their software is spectacular, especially with the secret AI algorithm developed by Naomi, one the two sisters they’ve partnered with. When a tragedy occurs during their public media demo, all of their plans and hopes are dashed and the college friends all go their separate ways. Within a few years, Tyler and Brandon become competitors and their feud gets ugly, leading to more tragic accidents and even murder.
Meanwhile,
August 9th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | David Walton | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Weapon Shops of Isher by A.E. van Vogt
I first came across the 1942 short story “The Weapon Shop” by A.E. van Vogt in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964, a fantastic collection of some of the best short fiction from the pre-Nebula years that was instrumental in shaping my taste for science fiction when I was an impressionable teen. A few years later I came across the full-length novel The Weapon Shops of Isher (1951) in the two-volume collection A Treasury of Great Science Fiction,
August 9th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | A.E. Van_Vogt | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Hugo Awards have been awarded by science fiction and fantasy readers at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) since 1953.
Starting in 1996, fans began awarding Retrospective Hugo Awards to works that might have won in the years before the Hugos were instituted.
This year the Retro Hugos will celebrate novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories that were published in 1943 and, therefore, might have won a Hugo Award if the Hugos had existed back then.
The 1944 Retro Hugo Awards will be presented at Worldcon 77 in Dublin, Ireland,
August 8th, 2019. FanLit | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 11 comments |
The Brink by James S. Murray & Darren Wearmouth
Human monsters take precedence over the creature type of monsters in The Brink (2019), the sequel to last year’s SF horror novel Awakened. (Some spoilers for the first book are in this review, but are also in the publisher’s blurb for this book, so they’re nearly impossible to avoid.) Awakened was pulpy fun if you like SF horror and mysterious, murderous threats lurking beneath the surface of the earth.
August 8th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 2 | James S. Murray | Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Cons:
WorldCon begins Thursday, August 15, in Dublin, Ireland. You can follow it on Twitter.
Books and Writing:
Medium has a podcast with writer Neal Stephenson, talking about digital facial recognition, social media and space exploration.
Over at Crimereads, Via Mullholland makes the argument that William Gibson, Charles Stross and Neal Stephenson really wrote technothrillers. Why? Because over at Crimereads, they like technothrillers.
The Verge reviews JY Yang’s Tensorate series.
August 7th, 2019. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 2 comments |
Beneath the Twisted Trees by Bradley P. Beaulieu
I have to confess right up front, with apologies to the author, that I finished Bradley Beaulieu’s Beneath the Twisted Trees (2019) just before heading out on a 40+ day trip out west that meshed college visits (for my son, not me) and hiking, and I unfortunately left my marked-up copy at home. Which means a) I have no access to my notes and b) thanks to full days and being off the grid so much,
August 7th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Bradley P. Beaulieu | SFF Reviews | no comments |
SHORTS: In this week’s column we review several short fiction works that we’ve read recently, including three more of the current Retro Hugo nominees from 1943.
“Galatea” by Madeline Miller (2013, $3.99 on Kindle; anthologized in xo Orpheus, edited by Kate Bernheimer)
In the Roman myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, a sculptor creates a statue so beautiful that he falls in love with it. Aphrodite has mercy on him and turns the statue into a real woman,
August 7th, 2019. Kelly Lasiter, Kat Hooper and Tadiana Jones | Fritz Leiber, Leigh Brackett, Madeline Miller | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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I picked my copy up last week and I can't wait to finish my current book and get started! I…
Gentlemen, I concur! (Forgive me for jumping into your convo)
The cover is amazing. I love how the graphic novel (and the review!) hewed close to the theme of "good…
I've thought about picking that one up. The artwork looks perfect.