Kat: Since you heard from me last, I’ve read The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson, The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett, The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke, and (this was my favorite) Gateway by Frederik Pohl.
Marion: I finished Becky Chambers’s A Psalm for the Wild-Built.
July 3rd, 2022. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 4 comments |
Nerds of a Feather review K.J. Parker’s How to Rule An Empire and Get Away With It.
Over at Tor.com, they introduce us to the possibility of Count Dracula Daily, as a Substack blogger is emailing out Dracula in serial format every day.
Fantasy writer Faith Hunter has publicly apologized for harassing behavior, and withdrawn from conventions for the rest of the year, after several incidents at JordanCon this year. File 770 has two long articles on this for those who want the details.
June 22nd, 2022. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
Silver Shamrock, an indie publisher specializing in “hard-hitting horror,” courted some controversy on the internet with its “edgy” marketing copy for an upcoming novel. When social media reacted predictably, Silver Shamrock shut down its website, released the rights to all upcoming works to its authors, and shuttered. And all that took three days. It’s item 4.
This 21-minute-long video post-mortem of Shamrock’s demise is entertaining.
Joe Abercrombie sold a new trilogy, THE DEVILS, to Tor. (Scroll down to find it.)
Syfy Wire has suggestions for Neil Gaiman books that haven’t been adapted yet.
April 6th, 2022. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 2 comments |
On Monday, Facebook and its associated applications went offline for six hours, leaving businesses cut off, people unable to easily contact family members, and some folks unable to control the thermostat or laundry settings in their homes. Mark Zuckerberg offered a terse apology on his platform. The Verge discusses the probable reason, a coding error released in an automatic upgrade.
The shortlist for the National Book Award is out now.
The Deep Cuts in a Lovecraft Vein blog takes a look at correspondence between C.L.
October 6th, 2021. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, World Wide Wednesday | 11 comments |
Writers, Writing, Reading, Books:
Nineteenth century SF writers imagined global warming, and this article take a look at a few examples.
File770 provides a tally of the Hugo nominating votes and it’s a small number indeed. This is worrisome because in 2015, this allowed a special interest group to control the nominations. On the other hand, we’ve had other things on our minds this year that nominating for awards. We’ll have to see what happens. The good news is, while 2020 was a terrible year, it was a year many great books came out.
March 24th, 2021. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
Awards:
The Infected by Art winners are announced. Some very nice stuff here! (Thanks to File770.)
Writers, Reading, Writing, Books:
Read Bill Capposere’s personal essay on the judgments we make, and the things we don’t know.
Paul Weimer, known as Prince Jvstin on Twitter, had his account deleted last week, after right-wing activists filed spurious complaints. The SFF community rallied around and managed to get his account reinstated. Weimer shares more detail on his Patreon page.
This site looks like lots of fun!
February 3rd, 2021. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
Scary Stories for Young Foxes by Christian McKay Heidicker
One chilly autumn night, seven fox kits beg their mother for a scary story, “[s]o scary our eyes fall out of our heads.” Don’t go to the Bog Cavern, she tells them, because the old storyteller lives there, and the tale she would tell them would be so scary it would put white in their tails. So naturally the seven kits scamper off through the woods to the Bog Cavern as soon as their mother is asleep, and beg the spooky-looking storyteller for a scary story.
January 15th, 2021. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Christian McKay Heidicker | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Reposting to include Maron’s new essay.
Neverwhere is a novel that improved dramatically for me on reread, which actually was a surprise to me. I originally read it about six years ago when, in an odd twist worthy of London Below, it mysteriously appeared one day on my clunky Kindle 2, without my having ordered it. About a month later it just as mysteriously disappeared again (luckily I had finished it just in time). I was fascinated by the marvelous and imaginative setting of Neverwhere and London Below,
December 18th, 2020. Tadiana Jones, Jana Nyman, Kat Hooper, Stuart Starosta and Marion Deeds | Neil Gaiman | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 12 comments |
I was going to start this review of Piranesi (2020) by Susanna Clarke by stating that I was of two minds on the novel and then noting that this was both appropriate and also strong praise. Appropriate because the book is in many ways of the mind, and is as well of two worlds. Strong praise because my two minds were “I loved it” followed by “I liked it.” But then I thought more about it, and I decided my minds were really “I loved it,” “I liked it,” then “I loved it” again.
December 10th, 2020. Bill Capossere, Tadiana Jones and Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Susanna Clarke | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 10 comments |
Kat: Since you heard from me a couple of weeks ago, I’ve re-read Arkady & Boris Strugatsky‘s Monday Starts on Saturday. This time I’ll get it reviewed. Also read Chloe Neill‘s The Bright and Breaking Sea (first book in a new series), K. Eason‘s How the Multiverse Got its Revenge (sequel to How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse), and Andrzej Sapkowski‘s The Tower of Fools (first in a new trilogy that has nothing to do with THE WITCHER).
November 29th, 2020. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | no comments |
I have found this series enjoyable but at times frustrating. The primary sources of my frustrations are two fold. First,…
Definitely!
Right!! Lindelof and Cuse clearly had parent issues!
While it was on, the best part for me was the water-cooler discussion aspect. I know the old expression, "A…
Andi, don't forget Shannon's cold and greedy stepmom: "Oh, I kept the money, sweetie. You're on your own!"